That is why I opt to call myself a Voluntaryist.

DAVID: “As for the relationship between individuals and their society, Mises states that the individual depends on society because the functions of the individual become increasingly specialized, so we each depend on the specialized functions of other individuals as well.”

David, I’m not sure, but it seems to me that you may be conflating society with the state. I think individuals who depend for anything critical–security, food, etc,–on the state are in a very dangerous, vulnerable position. In return for its benefits, the state must always extract some degree of liberty. Society, on the other hand, includes your neighbor, your grocer, etc., on whom you must and do depend without sacrificing your freedom.

“As for Jefferson, he wrote the DOI which states that the State exists to protect the rights of the individual. Thats not anarchy. I don”t think this article had much to do with Libertarianism at all, and I think the first Libertarian movement occurred with the American Revolution”

For all of its high-sounding words, and it truly is a wonderful piece of literature, DOI was just that: words. Jefferson was a slave owner at a time when abolitionists, including Tom Paine, were already condemning that peculiar institution and calling attention to the dichotomy between liberty and slavery. With the Constitution a few years later the Founding Fathers either subscribed to or silently acquiesced in the “legality” of slavery. I must also disagree with your designation of the AR as the first libertarian movement. Eighteen centuries earlier Jesus led a much more affective libertarian movement, one that was true to the principles of modern libertarianism. In many respects, the AR was not. During the war that culminated in independence, many Americans who were loyalists had their property stolen and suffered violent abuse at the hands of American revolutionaries. There was much that may fairly be referred to as the antithesis of libertarian principles that was part and parcel of the American Revolution.

Emma, God bless her soul. If she was still around today and had unequivocally renounced violence my guess is she’d be a resident scholar at the LvMI.

You were just slagging Freud there, Doc?

In the land of blind men, the one-eyed man is king. Big deal. What condition do they have, Doc, where they evade the most straightforward questions?

“Ralph, it is difficult to not feel enlightened when one is alone in the company of troglodytes..”

Classic megalomaniac manifestation. Play along, Ralph. Get him to say more.

On Frick (and Paul Marks, for that matter): “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster”

Robert, you have the beginnings of a point that needs to be made.

One thing I find here is that everyone shares a monolithic view of something they call Communism, or socialism. In this view, all Communists are fungible, holding identical views and having the same purpose. One problem I have with this is the fusion of two wholly disparate ideas. Namely, I would like to offer that a belief in social goals is not identical with an urge toward totalitarianism (in fact they are opposites). And Emma Goldman’s a prime example. Like all humanists, she passionately upholds the one while hating the other.

It’s a shame socialism got off to such a bad start. Imperial Russia was used to totalitarian rule. Under the new Communists it was hardly different, except much worse than under the Czar. Now they’ve given social justice a bad name.

I see something of a difference along the continuum from wanting cabbies to be licensed to ordering the deaths of millions in labor camps. But there are those who don’t.

No point in arguing with someone as thoroughly trained as an American rightie, just a couple observations:

If one were a power mad individual there would always be a preeminent place in the world where one would either try to rise through the ranks; or barring that try to become a junior partner to; or barring that have to do battle with. In the year 1 A.D. that would be Rome; in 1893, London; today it would be the place from which they disseminate this guy’s thoughts.

Of course, every army has a percentage of decent men in it who believe they are fighting evil, as do most police forces. They are called suckers, and the ones who have a bit of intelligence, curiosity and moral courage, and as they grow up, a growing vigilance in intelligently fighting evil….well the brass have very effective methods of “reforming” them, driving them out, or jailing or killing them.

Of course, in reality, Frick and co did not have to find the “stikers” – the strikers came to Mr Frick’s own property (his steel mill) and they came with no friendly intent.

So the line implies that Frick was the aggressor – which is false as he was defending his property from people trying to block its entrance (to “picket” is a MILITARY term – and unions do not use the word by accident, if you doubt me try and cross a union “picket line” and see what happens to you). Also the line implies that Frick was a coward – that he found people and “set them” on others (being too much of coward to fight himself). Frick was no coward – even after he was shot he carried on his work.

However, there is a also a general point here. The early “libertarian movement” (Spooner, Tucker, Nock and so on) had something in common with anarchists that is not mentioned here – they were deeply unsound about private property in LAND.

Looking at a society where (horror of horrors) some people were very rich and other people were very poor, some people looked around for something to blame (as if life is “unfair” if some people are vastly better off than other people). Blaming the government was a bit difficult at that time (as total governement, Federal State and local, was only about 10% of the economy), so private property in land was the favoured scapegoat.

If only the “unearned profits” of land were taxed away (or whatever) then the naughty inequality would go.

The late Murry Rothbard may have agreed that every war the United States has faught in the last couple of centuries (or at least since 1812) was “state sanctioned murder” (all part of the America-is-always- wrong-America’s-enemies-are-always-right doctrine that was supposed to convert leftists to libertarianism – but somehow tends to work the other way with libertarians being turned into leftists), but he never fell for this line – he exposed it as the nonsense it is (Henry Georgeist nonsense).

By the way (before the brickbats start) I did NOT support the Iraq war – and I turned against the Afghan war when I found out that it was not about tracking down OBL and co, but was another example of “nation building”. But to say that people who supported armed (U.S. government) opposition to Saddam Hussain in Iraq or to the Taliban in Afghanistan are supporters of “state santioned murder” is false.

The vast majority of the American military (and the British military also) are decent men and women fighting against some of the most evil people on the planet – I may think (I DO think) that these wars are big mistakes, but I do not question the honor of those taking part in them (and calling them “murderers” is spitting on their honor).

By the way if anarchists think they could have defeated such foes as the Slave Power (and the “Slave Holding States of America” was the real name of the Confederacy – there was no “States rights” NOT to have slaves in a member State), or Nazi Germany, or the power of the Soviet Union around the world…….

Well if you do think you could have defeated such powers (without having a government military) you have a hard argument to make.