This Blog Has Moved!

My blog has moved. Check out my new blog at realfreemarket.org.



Your Ad Here

Thursday, December 17, 2009

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.

6 comments:

Nphyxx said...

My feelings exactly. You have to choose your battles, and on the battlefield of retaliatory violence the enemy is completely dominant. On the field of economics, they're not even carrying the right equipment - and that's where we can expect to win.

Anonymous said...

A millionaire business man (in the UK see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235782/Millionaire-Munir-Hussain-fought-knife-wielding-burglar-jailed-intruder-let-off.html ) came home from church to find knife-wielding thugs in his home. They had tied up his family and were threatening to kill them.

He managed to get free and his brother that lived nearby was alerted.

He and his brother hit one of the armed criminals with a cricket bat. The criminal, with 50 previous convictions, was hurt.

The businessman was jailed for 2.5 years. The armed robber was set free by the judge.

The lawyers in this case (as with all lawyers) do no productive work. The criminals likewise earn money by getting it from the productive part of society.

If the millionaire businessman paid for his defence then the legal profession made money out of him and his family being attacked.

If the businessman appeals against his 2.5 year sentence, the legal profession again will have an infusion of cash.

If the robbers (all three of them are free) decide to rob another family and the victim fights back, the legal profession can profit again from their fees.

Now the man's family has no protection against thugs attacking them again as the judge has jailed two men from their family.

This businessman has been attacked twice. Once by the armed criminals. Now the legal profession has jailed him for 2.5 years for protecting his family.

If someone threatens to kill your family, you will want to know who they are so as they won't attack you again. So the businessman was correct in chasing after the armed criminals. What was to stop them returning on another day when he was out?

This businessman is not a trained policeman. He is just an ordinary man. In fact he looks a bit old. As such he did not have protective stab proof vests or training on how to restrain someone without hurting them.

He was protecting his family. Someone very wrong is going on.

Why couldn't the legal system stop the knifeman from attacking this man's family. He had 50 previous convictions.

The legal system won't protect you. In fact the man's family has no protection now.

The legal system has no interest in punishing criminals. It will however go after the soft victims.

With the criminals free, the legal system can profit again.

theftthroughinflation said...

I watched a mainstream news interview from aug 11th with William Kostric (the man open carrying at the townhall in NH) and he actually seemed like a pretty level headed guy. The interviewer tried very hard to slander him but failed and he came out having mostly saved face.
His point was that he was not making a subliminal threat but that he always open carrys so to not open carry would have been more abnormal than to have gone without his pistol.
Obviously he was infact sending a message and "flexing" his rights.But the interview taught me something about pro-state trolls. The interviewer took the carrying of the pistol as basically an attempt on obama's life. I realize that for pro-state trolls guns are only used for threats and direct violence. Cops may block the doors to a public building during a protest with their guns as a threat to stay back; the military patrols afghan villages with rifles at the ready as a show of force aka threat.
For pro state-trolls guns are always used by the state as a threat and therefore they think any firearm carrying is a threat of some sort.
In reality it is possible for free people to arm themselves in a non-threatening defensive manner.
"Wearing your pistol to obama's meetings is a threat!" is a common pro-state reaction. The worst part is for them it is acceptable if threatening with firearms is done by the state's agents.

Anonymous said...

A commentator on the Daily Mail website got it correct.

Violence against a criminal is in fact robbing the legal profession of one of their valued clients.

Why do you think the knife-wielding criminal that threatened the businessman's family was still free to commit more crimes?

The criminals and the legal profession are hand-in-hand shaking down the productive part of society.

Master Doh-San said...

"You can't defeat the State with violence."

Tell that to the guys who fought the Revolutionary War.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone noticed the sick poetry of the case detailed at

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235782/Millionaire-Munir-Hussain-fought-knife-wielding-burglar-jailed-intruder-let-off.html

Attacking an armed criminal who has just threatened to kill your family, is equivalent in punishment to attacking the State.

The criminal is let free. Criminal lawyers are essentially the high caste - at the top. Lower down in the same organization are the actual criminals. It seems criminal lawyers know that if there are no criminals, they have no income, so criminals must be let off, whereas the victims should be arrested and put in jail.

Criminals = Lawyers = Parasites preying on those that make money

The one and the same.

This Blog Has Moved!

My blog has moved. Check out my new blog at realfreemarket.org.