An Illustrative Hypothetical Question to Feed Your Thoughts
Which would be a more effective deterrent against crime: a well-armed populace of people willing to assert their freedoms, or the threat of governmental punishment? After your knee-jerk response, whichever it is, take a second to really think it over because it’s a close question.
If a person asserts justice for himself, he’s labeled a vigilante and locked in a government-sponsored cage. The government currently has a monopoly on justice, and its justice is ponderous, expensive, and often uneffective. The libertarian alternative is that if somebody kills, steals from, rapes, or in some other way violates one close to you, you are within your rights to mete out whatever retributive action you think is necessary. If your retribution goes too far, you open yourself to a counter-reprisal, and you lose standing among members of your community (perhaps to the point where they consider you a threat to the peace and take action similar to a criminal court).
People would hire themselves out as judges in disputes. People would hire themselves out to kill killers (within the limits of what the community is willing to tolerate).
Yes, people would get along fine without the government’s arbitrary interference. And in the meantime, we wouldn’t feel powerless and at everybody else’s mercy; we’d be allowed to protect and assert ourselves without fear of a governmental daddy disapproving.
This blog is all about challenging assumptions.
One Comment
I think it can be well argued that government is precisely the will of the people, however disillusioned that may be. The government is that hired judge and executioner. You might not want them, but the people say otherwise.