Doesn't the government initiate force?

[Severinian]

The objectivist position is that coercion and the initiation of force is immoral, right? But let's say that you have done nothing wrong and the police detains you because you are a suspect, haven't they initiated force? Don't they need to use coercion to make people meet up in courts, both the accused, the jury and the witnesses? What about immigrants who want to cross the nation's borders, if they will have to be detained for a period to see if they have diseases or criminal backgrounds, then the government has initiated force.

 

What is the justification of this? Is it because the moral is the practical? Taxes and drafts are immoral because they aren't necessary, but a government detaining people and coercing people to courts is necessary for stability, therefore moral? But that would mean coercion and the initation of force isn't always wrong after all...

 

Some anarcho-capitalists, like Stefan Molyneux, have resolved this dilemma by a model of society where there will be no coercion or initation of force, just people (in the future, when people are more rational and peaceful) agreeing on a system of conflict-resolution companies who need to fully cooperate in order to have customers. And if someone is not a  member of these organisations, they will be boycotted by everyone, because that's part of the contract with the companies... Something like that, I haven't studied it in detail, but it's interesting. 

[Grames]

I think you have a problem with the concept of "initiation".  The ideal for government action is that of a clockwork machine, or of blind justice, it does what it has to do completely in reaction to other's initiations of force.  Due to the fact the government is composed of persons of finite and fallible consciousness (and so are its citizens for that matter) and social objectivity (no secret or private courts, no selective enforcement of laws, rules of evidence and legal procedure uniformly and strictly followed) is a requirement then among the things government must do in response to other's initiations of force is: launch investigations, detain witnesses, require testimony.    These are not actions initiated by the governement, they are responses by the government.  To the extent that government only can wield powers of retaliation delegated to it by its citizens then they would be indirectly your actions carried out in your name for your benefit.  To object to them would be hypocrisy, as in the case of an absence of government you too would have to inconvenience people in a vigilante search for your own stolen property (or whatever example).

 

Your question was "Doesn't the government initiate force?" which uses the definite article "the".   That implies you had a particular government in mind in framing your question.  The answer to that question is probably yes.  All governments that actually exist and ever have existed have initiated force.  However,  that does not prove that government by its nature must initiate force or that it is impossible to ever create a government that only exists to defend objectively provable rights.

[Severinian]

Actually, I was thinking about a hypothetical objectivist government, but your answer makes sense.