The Problem With Violence Against State Agents

This article was interesting.

In New Hampshire, it's legal to carry an unconcealed gun if you have a permit. Someone decided to openly carry a gun near a speech by Obama in New Hampshire. During the speech, Obama was advocating for health care reform.

That article was saying that the person carrying the gun was implicitly saying "I'm going to use violence to defend myself against this lousy healthcare plan!"

He was carrying a poster that said "It's necessary to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants." That's in implied threat of violence against State enforcers.

There's nothing wrong with carrying a gun. However, the mainstream media is now using the incident to portray all freedom-seekers as fruitcakes.

It's acceptable for policemen to carry a gun, but it's not acceptable for non-policeman to carry a gun. This inconsistent thinking is very common. Why is the policeman magically blessed with goodness, but all non-policemen who carry a gun are automatically criminals?

There is another important point. Even if one person does something foolish, that doesn't mean that all people who seek freedom are fruitcakes.

One of the main purposes of gun ownership is to defend yourself against aggression by the State. The lousy healthcare "reform" plan is an example of State aggression.

It seems silly to say that, just by carrying a gun to a political speech, someone is advocating for violence against State agents.

There appear to be two separate arguments:

• Violence against State employees is a bad tactical decision. Their resources are far too superior. If you suggest the possibility of violence, then the State will violently crack down on you. Even if you could kill a State employee without any personal risk, someone else would merely take their place.
• Violence against State employees is a violation of the non-Aggression principle. Most State employees are not aware that they're participants in a massive crime. If I work in a wage slave software engineer job, I'm supporting the bad guys as much as a policeman. The wealth stolen from productive workers via taxes makes State violence possible. In the present, nearly everyone directly or indirectly supports the State. If you perform on-the-books work, you're supporting the bad guys via taxes. If you use slave points as money, you're supporting the bad guys via the inflation tax.
  

It's wrong to kill random State employees that have no relationship to you. What about State employees that have specifically aggressed against you?

I don't have a valid claim against *ALL* psychiatrists. I do have a malpractice claim against the specific psychiatrists that mistreated me. A corrupt State court doesn't recognize my claim as valid. Do I have any alternatives? My only options are to let it go, or adopt the unabomber approach. I've decided to let that claim go and focus on not being hurt in the future.

Do you have a valid claim against State employees that aggress against you? Suppose the IRS pursues you for criminal tax evasion. Do you have a valid claim against the State employees that harassed you? As a practical matter, that claim is unenforceable, since the State doesn't recognize that claim as valid and there's no competition to the State justice system.

The problem is that there's no middle ground. There's no way to get and enforce a claim short of murdering the aggressor. Once the agorist counter-economy is more sophisticated, blacklisting someone from the free market would be a severe disincentive against State agents harassing agorists.

That's why current black market participants, such as drug dealers, always resolve their disputes violently. If two black market drug dealers get involved in a dispute, their only alternatives are to let the claim go and avoid the other person, or to murder them. If a drug dealer claims that another drug dealer owes him $10k, there's no way to pursue that claim in a State court. The only alternatives are to forget about the $10k, or murder the person who owes you the money.

Similarly, if you have a dispute with a State agent, the State agent is protected by sovereign immunity. Your only options are to forget about it, or to retaliate violently. If you adopt the violent approach, then the full power of the State will be focused on catching you. That's contrary to the goals of an agorist, which should be success via stealth.

That's the reason there's a big outcry whenever a policeman is shot or murdered. The State *MUST* protect its agents. Assaulting or murdering a policeman is a more serious crime than hurting a non-policeman. The police are protected by sovereign immunity.

As the State collapses and the counter-economy gets more sophisticated, claims against State agents will start to be enforceable. The State agent would be banned from participating in the free market if he harasses an agorist. It's possible that the counter-economy could get so valuable that this threat would be enough to force State agents to behave, even if the counter-economy possesses no weapons.

The problem with violence against a State employee is that it only works if you're prepared to defend yourself against the full focused power of the State. By the time that's practical, the State has already lost anyway. Until then, the State can afford to send 10,000 or 100,000 armed thugs against your small group of freedom seekers. The bad guys can afford to send 100,000 armed thugs to catch 100-1000 freedom seekers, because they know that once a group acquires freedom then their whole scam starts to unravel.

You can't defeat the State with violence. The bad guys specialize in violence! It's silly to argue "Is violence against State agents who abuse their power morally justified?" As a practical matter, that's a waste of effort. By the time such a tactic would be effective, the bad guys will have already lost anyway.