[cbd1984]

I've read it and I think it's juvenile.

If you want to opt out of a society, wonderful. Leave it. Most governments will allow you to leave, and I certainly agree that those which do not are tyrannical.

However, if you try to opt out and refuse to leave, you're a free rider, getting the benefit from the society without agreeing to the rules which helps make it work. It is immoral to benefit from clean air if you refuse to abide by the laws limiting air pollution. It is immoral to benefit from a functional banking system if you refuse to abide by the laws regulating that banking system.

Yes, there are a lot of immoral people in the world. However, waving your immorality around like a flag by saying you don't agree to the system you benefit from is a level to which most of the immoral will not stoop. If you are going to do wrong, at least have the decency to admit you're doing wrong, and attempt to change the system in a constructive way, instead of trying to paint free riding as a moral alternative.

[pdonis]

> If you want to opt out of a society, wonderful.

The Constitution is not the same as society, and saying that the Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation is not the same as opting out of society. In fact, the unthinking conflation of these two concepts (the Constitution and society) is exactly the sort of thing this essay was intended to argue against.

[hexscrews]

I'd argue otherwise. The constitution sets out the defining goal of a society. Call it the rule-set for the society as a whole. If you disagree with the defining rules, that is fine. You can chose any number of governmental models on this planet. But don't expect the rest of us to agree to your rule-set.

[pdonis]

> The constitution sets out the defining goal of a society.

I don't see that in the US Constitution. The preamble talks about things like securing certain blessings, but doesn't really say what they actually are; it uses vague terms like "Justice", which mean different things to different people. The US founding document that comes closest to setting out a defining goal, at least in terms of what government is for, is the Declaration of Independence, and even that is vague: what does "pursuit of happiness" really mean?

[sverige]

And "pursuit of happiness" was "pursuit of property" originally.

[cbd1984]

It's impossible to have a society without laws, written or unwritten, and the Constitution is the underlying legal document which all laws must be in accordance with.

(A society without written laws is anarchistic, or despotic. A society without any laws at all is impossible.)

[pdonis]

> It's impossible to have a society without laws

If by "laws" you simply mean that people's behavior in a society is constrained by what other people in the society will accept, yes, it's impossible to have a society without "laws". But that in no way implies that it is impossible to have a society without laws in the sense that term is usually used--i.e., laws that come out of some kind of formal process, either legislative enactments (statute) or judicial decisions (common law) that are accepted as binding on everyone in the society, not just the parties to a particular case.

[int_19h]

For those who want to see such a mental experiment to be visualized for convenience, read these two books:

"The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein

These two give two radically different, perspectives of what such a society, with implicit rules and norms basically enforced by on-the-spot consensus, might look like.

(Note, I'm not saying that societies depicted in these books are likely, or even possible. It's fiction, after all, and arguably utopian fiction at that. But it does help in putting a more concrete image to the abstract concept of anarchism.)

[pdonis]

> A society without written laws is anarchistic, or despotic.

So is a society with written laws, if those laws are not enforced exactly as they are written. Which is the case for every society in human history that has had written laws.

[colejohnson66]

You can't renounce your US citizenship for quite a while after you leave. During that time you have to pay US taxes.

[int_19h]

Or without paying a fee. Which is currently $2,350.

(Ironically, you have to pay more to renounce US citizenship, then you have to pay in all the various filing fees etc when acquiring citizenship through naturalization.)

[cbd1984]

As a practical matter, you can evade US taxes if you have no financial contact with the US; the IRS can deem you liable for any amount of taxes and it won't have any effect on you if they're unable to collect them.

[colejohnson66]

But if you have family you left in the US, you're almost certainly gonna have financial contact with them.