The kind of troll who has perpetually demonstrated his argument disfunction by resorting to petty, clever-dick inanity.

What sort of troll wastes electrons pointing out one spelling mistake. Sheesh!

Tibor-
Don't waste your time, the ass-face merely has book-envy.

I'm only semi-lingual myself -- that is, I only claim knowledge of one language -- English -- and I regard myself as stil working on that one. My knowledge of other languages is best described, in Oscar Levant's memorable phrase, as "a smattering of ignorance." But what's really at issue here is not how many languages an individual has, but how much care an individual is willing to take to make sure his public pronouncements are clear and error-free. Tibor feels this issue "has little to do with one's education," but the last time I checked, spelling was taught in the selfsame schools that purport to offer an education to those in search of one, and it is offered, moreover, as a preliminary or foundation, on which later education is expected to be built.

If Tibor had ever read the Rothbardians in question, he would know that "skip[ping] from one 'justice service' to another" would not enable an individual to escape enforcement of a court's ruling against him -- except, of course, to the extent that it is already possible, under the "limited State" Tibor admires so fervently, to do precisely the same thing, by moving from one jurisdiction into another.

I'd say it ill behooves someone who hasn't presented a single argument in any of his posts on this thread -- relying instead on assertions and references to French journals devoted to economics and humane studies (journals I'm confident all our readers on this thread will find conveniently shelved in their neighborhood libraries) -- to fault others for having no arguments. Still, why should I bother to present any if my learned opponent considers it beneath him to do likewise? I'll content myself with suggesting that if Tibor were to bother to devote a few minutes to considering the arguments of our mutual friend, George H. Smith, in his essay "Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Society," he'd realize that there's much more to the Rothbardian anarchists' arguments than can be airily dismissed by asserting that "their system cannot make room for adequate enforcement."

JR

I, at times, do misspell words, alas, being that this is my third language and proofing one's own work is very difficult. Moreover, this is a blog, not a scholarly forum (most of which, despite the good works of editors galore, contain a few misspellings). Yet, this has little to do with one's education and to bring that up is pretty impoverished. (But I suppose if one hasn't got arguments, then one-upmanship will suffice.)
Anarchist of a certain type--Rothbardians--do insist they favor laws but their system cannot make room for adequate enforcement of them. One can always skip from one "justice service" to another to escape jurisdiction. (It's all discussed in my “Anarchism and Minarchism, A Rapprochement,” Journal des Economists et des Estudes Humaines, Vol. 14, No. 4 [December 2002], pp. 569-588.) Yes, reading just a few things I write may be enlightening to some. I am sure some think not--and it shows.

You see, ingrate that I am, I haven't read all of Tibor's books. How many are there by now, by the way? Fifty? A hundred? He writes a new one every few weeks, it seems.

In any case, if Tibor thinks that "there is no law in anarchism" and that an anarchistic society is one "in which problems are dealt with without the benefit of law," he has clearly been spending so much time writing his own books that he hasn't had time to read the writings of the various Rothbardian anarchists who have argued -- quite persuasively -- just the opposite. Law, they maintain, precedes the State and does not depend upon the State for its existence. An anarchistic society, as they (and I) envision it, is one in which problems are dealt with without the "benefit" of the State, but *with* the benefit of law.

By the way, Tibor, educated people spell the word "cryptically." Or have I failed to address your thorough discussion of this matter in one of the books of yours I haven't yet got around to reading?

JR

There is no law in anarchism--it is a community in which problems are dealt with without the benefit of law. Indeed, if laws may not be enforced, then they are not law but some people's preferences. Law in a free society amounts to nothing but self-defense and punishment for aggression. That such a society doesn't exist in full, completely, makes no difference; arguing otherwise is like claiming there are no circular things because none is a perfect circle. Or there are no marraiges because most are corrupted. In any case, I have developed all of this at great length, covering all the derails, responding to critics, anticipating critics, etc., etc., in my several books. Sadly those objecting to my views who chime in on these matters most criptically, with the least in the way of substance aside from announcing their preferences, haven't addressed my work but want to handle matters in snippets of arguments. Just won't wash.

JR said: "I would prefer rational law and anarchism."

That is unfortunate.

Idoni

Tibor asserts that "some laws exist only to protect individual rights."

I can think of maybe half a dozen that correspond to this description -- half a dozen out of how many? How many laws do we have in the United States? Do they number in the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, or the millions?

Which would seem best to typify the actual spirit of actual law in this and every other human society we know of -- the half dozen or so laws intended to protect individual rights or the half million or so laws intended to pick your pocket in order to line someone else's?

Alas, what we know of the origins of the State does not comport particularly well with Tibor's pleasant fairy tale about a "social contract."

JR

I would prefer rational law and anarchism.

JR

What the Declaration states is that governments are instituted to secure the rights it lists. So that seems to have been the purpose of the American Founders, judgin by their testimony. Some may know better than they did what they wanted and certainly some politicians want only power, etc., etc. But to claim that everyone who wants laws and law enforcement just wants power over others is unjustified. Some laws exist only to protect individual rights, and some officers of the law follow this idea more or less faithfully. Many do not, sadly. But none of this is available for mere armchair analysis and discernment, not unless some very general theory of Hobbesian motivation for all those involved in forging laws is true and I haven't seen any such theory defended successfully. Slapdash political psychologizing merely discredits those perpetrating it and gives no help to libertarianism.

When you say that the judicial branch's purpose is to maintain and extend state power, do you mean to suggest that that is the current use of them or their proper, rational, purpose?

Unless of course you mean to suggest that you would prefer vigilantism and anarchism versus rational law and minarchism.

If you feel as though vigilantism and anarchism are seperate ideas, maybe we should start a new thread... or continue an old one.

Idoni

No, Joe, the "primary purpose" of police and courts is not "to protect us." Their primary purpose is to maintain and extend State power -- the same purpose that underlies all other branches of the State. The idea that they "are in place . . . to protect us" is State propaganda.

Jon - I would certainly never shield a criminal. Put me in a position in which I could mete out true justice to one of the leading criminals of our time -- George W. Bush, for example, or Dick Cheney -- and I'd act instantly to do so.

JR

Those who know what happened to victims, those who know who did it and can prove it with their testimony, those who vent about how they don’t owe anything to those who would deliver justice, those who care more to spout about their sovereign status than to give up the facts about a crime…String ‘em up along with all the other perps.

Do we not agree that judicial functions are that proper purview of the state? With said functions being the responsibility of the individual, that becomes a tenet of anarchy.

Jeff, I could understand arguing the social contract aspect with regards to taxation, but is it really necessary to argue against police or courts whose primary purpose is to protect us.

I of course do not mean to suggest that they meet this purpose with any consistency, only that they are in place to do so.

Idoni

Jeff,

If my brother backed into your car and you decided to chop off his hands so that he couldn't drive again, you'd be thanking your lucky stars I accepted it was up to the state to determine your punishment.

Regards,

Patsy.

JR,

Do you vote?

If you do, you are participating in your government--using your said abilities derived of that constitution, thereby sanctioning it, and all that it does. Your name may not be on it, but by using part of it you apply your name to it. By voting, you sanction all of the government; its police, its army, its laws, its courts, its view of vigilanty justice.

This is the nature of a social contracted Democracy, and why it is evil.

Andrew,

Yes, I *do* have the right to take punishment of some adult who has wronged me into my own hands and mete out whatever punishment I deem appropriate. I live in a society, but I do *not* delegate that right -- or any other right -- to a State. Rather, the State usurps that right and, with the aid of patsies like you, convinces the sheeplike populace that this is right and proper.

A "contract" supposedly between me and some other(s) to which I never explicitly consented is no "contract" at all. It is null and void.

JR

In the course of a court case where one has hired a representative to defend one--the expert who stands in for one to make one's case--the privilege makes perfectly good sense and does need constitutional protection, I think. But this is limited to very particular kind of instances of such privilege.

Jeff,

You don't have the right to take punishment of some adult who has wronged you into your own hands and mete out whatever punishment you deem appropriate. When you live in a society you delegate that right to the state. In this respect, there is a social contract.

Tibor,

I am inclined to agree with the idea that living in a society implies agreeing to be bound by the laws that regard the pursuit of justice where actual crimes (i.e. with the IoF against a victim) have occurred. What provisions for agent-client privelege do you see this implying and should they be constitutionally protected?

AB.

Sorry, Tibor, but I never "contracted" for "justice services" from any government currently operating in North America. And neither did you.

JR

All along I have stuck to the issue and haven't called anyone any nasty names, engaged in no ad hominems. Alas, this is not how some others have comported themselves and when someone suggests that I am a hypocrite or worse, I'd rather not continue. No one is listening to someone whom they regard a hypocrite, so it's just a waste of my time. For others who have been polite and civil, thanks for considering my views.

Alex, thank you for mentioning the draft. I had that in an earlier version, but deleted it to focus on the constitutionlity of the Soviet republics. I am sure than their leaders would appreciate Tibor Machan's "social contract" theory.

By the social contract theory, you are required to support the society you are born into. Machan wants to weasel out of enforcing anti-trust laws and he wants to pretend that the state will only coerce people when it is necessary to gain justice in cases that Objectivists approve of. Of course, that is not the way it works. Drug laws, gambling laws, anti-trust, SEC, and all the rest were all democratically-republicanly constitutionally enacted appropriately and anyone who is a citizen -- by Dr. Machan's theory -- is morally obligated to adhere to them.

Tibor Machan's argument is especially ironic (if not hypocritical) because he is a NATURALIZED citizen. He came by choice. Did he come here not intending to uphold our laws, to only pick and choose laws to obey in order to create for himself a 19th century pioneer utopia made up from pulp fiction about Roy Rogers and Davy Crockett? -- An ideal, I submit, that we all share. It is only that some of us are more consistent in our pioneer ethics -- not the kind of "pioneering" with the red scarves.

Dr. Machan's arguments are not internally consistent.
________________________________________________________
"I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings."

Citizens or, if you wish, clients of a legal order make a commitment when they become such clients to contribute to the search for justice. This is not doing anything for "others"--although doing some things for others ain't such an un-Objectivist thing to do--but for oneself in the broader sense of "egoism" that is the Objectivist ethics. As I noted earlier, requiring folks to deliver on what they have freely contracated to do--namely, contribute to the search for justice--isn't compelling anyone. This is akin to when one promises another to help with something and later the other asks for it; there is no compulsion involved in following through with the promise. In the case of supplying information about a bona fide crime--someone got murdered, someone got robbed, someone got raped (I am certainly not taking about antitrust or drug laws and anyone who has the faintest clue about me would know this)--one makes this commitment in becoming part of a free legal order. Refusing to tell what one knows of the crime is to help commit it or to get away with committing it, period--assessory before or after the fact.
The late Robert LeFevre--the editor of Rampart Journal and a famous pacifist libertarian--used to argue that it is coercive to recover one's property from a thief. That was a mistake of his some folks here on this thread appear to share. Calling in a promised--no, contracated for--service is not compelling anyone to do anything.

Tibor,

I always enjoyed your writings, but here you’re unspeakably wrong. The government can NEVER have the right to initiate the use of force against the innocent – for no reason whatever: Particularly not because of any fictitious “commitment” implicit in citizenship.

The next logical step in you argument is to say that the draft is right, as a citizen qua citizen should be interested in defending Liberty. True, he has such an interest, but no one has a right to force him if he lacks the courage to act in his own best interest and volunteer.

Likewise you might say that as a reasonable human being has an implicit commitment to abstain from smoking (suicidal). Hence, by your logic, the government may use any amount of force it deems necessary to keep people from smoking, eating meat, or anything that is -- or is suspected -- by the government as self-destructive.

If the government may fine or imprison a man for refusing to cooperate, why not torture him or shoot him, as an example for others?

Looking at the practical side, do you have any idea what information gained by force is worth? A victim of your kind of “justice” system may say anything to get off the stand or off the torture rack.

What if some witness is threatened by the mafia? The mafia says they’ll kill him if he testifies -- the government says they’ll kill him if he refuses to either testify or go to jail. What if that man comes to the rational conclusion that maybe prosecuting that crime in question is not worth risking his life? Do you claim that the government has the right to make him sacrifice his life? It doesn’t matter if the government sacrifices his life to “the common good” or to “his own commitment.” He is just as dead. And his death is murder in either case.

“Anything else would be obstruction of justice.” Excuse me, but that’s just plain nonsense. Standing by while a criminal escapes because one is a coward does not make one an accomplice. It only makes one a coward. There’s no right to force cowards for anybody’s good.

There simply is no right to force people for the good of others, or for the common good, or for their own good.

All action in defense of Freedom must be voluntary, or there is no Freedom.

All action in defense of justice must be voluntary, or there is no justice.

There is no right to force someone to be reasonable. Force destroys reason. The who initiates the use of force is always wrong and loses any claim to reason.

-- Alex

Nothing in Tibor Machan's post applies exclusively to a FREE society. He offered no essential distinguishing characteristics of a free society, except to suggest that it compels testimony in the name of justice.

By any standard applied by anyone with an understanding of individual liberty, the demand that people (citizens or not) are COMPELLED to give testimony in order that there be justice, applies to every government.

I highly recommend SPECIAL TASKS by Pavel Sudoplatov. Sudoplatov was an "unwanted witness." As a KGB general who trained and handled spies in the West, he accidentally (or perhaps inevitably) knew too much. The KGB being what it was, he did not know for many years that his wife was also in the KGB. Later he found out, of course, and it worked out well for both of them. When the police came to their door, being a KGB lawyer, she examined their search warrant, told them that it was invalid, and sent them away.

That, to me, sounds like the operation of a free society based on constitutional rights. That does not sound like the USSR we were taught to loathe.

Easily, the Sudoplatov's held a special status that many others might not have. However, that applies in EVERY society. Some animals are always more equal than others.

My point is that if there was that much justice in the old USSR, how much more justice must the present USA offer in order to be so morally superior that it can compel testimony?

Would you testify in an anti-trust case?
Would you be a witness for a marijuana bust?
Would you offer evidence of an illegal gambling operation?
Would you go on the witness stand to send Martha Stewart to prison?

________________________________________________________
"I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings."

Either I have freedom of speech, or I don't. If I can be compelled to speak, I have no freedom of speech. QED

JR