[wissler]

Likewise, I decide to live in a community in which we reject the idea that we are all barbarian animals, fighting for scarce resources in a dog-eat-dog world.

Your world is one where you point a gun to my head (using the government of course) and tell me what kind of medical care I can trade with some guy you don't even know. So don't talk to me about "barbarian animals", OK? Your only means of doing what you think is "ideal" is to resort to cowardly force -- cowardly because you just pull the voting lever and somebody else does your dirty work.

Don't wonder why "resources are scarce" when your reply to someone who creates an unapproved alternative is to beat them up with the government.

[jaaron]

No, I don't point a gun to your head.

Instead, we agree on a mechanism by which to make decisions and reach compromise. As everyone has different opinions and agendas, compromise is required. Not everyone, no one perhaps, will get their full agenda realized. Via those mechanisms (voting, representation, legislating, enforcement), we establish the rules of the society.

If you don't like the rules of the society, you can choose to engage the mechanisms in an effort to change the rules. Or you can choose to leave and find a society more appropriate for you. Or you can choose to incite rebellion and expect appropriate resistance if the majority of the population do not support you.

What you don't get to choose is to enjoy the benefits of the society and ignore the rules, requirements and responsibilities of the society. You can be a sore loser, take your toys and go away, but you can't be a freeloader by enjoying the benefits but not taking on the burden of responsibility.

Now, that's an idealized version of civilization, I understand. The rules are often broken, twisted, manipulated. These are the injustices we must resist and fight to overturn. Yet I argue that the imperfect nature of civilization is not an excuse to reject it, but rather a call, or even a responsibility, to participate.

[wissler]

I didn't agree.

There's no concise way to answer why your underlying political philosophy is wrong, unfortunately. One thing that should be a clue though is that the majority agrees with you. That's always a bad sign.

As it happens I did write a book on this topic, I don't know what the etiquette is here for posting links, just search "for individual rights" in books, you'll see it. If I could provide a more concise argument, I would, but that's the best I can do, sorry.

[jaaron]

Ah, see now we're getting into what are "natural rights" which is much more tricky, yes.

The facts of the matter are that we find ourselves born into some particular land and some particular society. We have no choice about these things, we didn't ask to be born. But yet by being born at a particular time and place causes rights and responsibilities to be thrust upon us. Agreements for us have been made my ancestors, neighbors and invaders without our consent.

My assessment is that despite this scenario not being idea, it is in fact the world we live in and history has its claims upon us without our choice or consent. Life just isn't fair. The choices for us are then not the choice of what our ideal world would be like, what our ideal contracts and agreements would be, but a choice of how to deal with the world as it is. In that case, we find ourselves bound by agreements and in a system not of our own choosing. Again, we are faced with the same decisions I outlined previously: work within the system, leave the system, fight the system. The choice of staying within the system but not abiding by its rules is effectively the same as fighting it, i.e.- expect resistance (the metaphorical gun you mentioned).

[wissler]

We can do better than create and maintain a system that intrinsically requires coercion of peaceful people, and in fact this underling violence has a plethora of unintended consequences. We can do better. We must strive toward the ideal.

The gun isn't metaphorical, it's very real.

[jgon]

No one is pointing a gun to your head. Okay someone is "pointing a gun to your head" in the same sense they are "pointing a gun to your head" to prevent you from murdering someone.

But unless you are posting from North Korea you live in a country with the world's longest undefended border (aka the Canadian border). You can leave at any time and renounce your citizenship and literally no one will stop you.

Seriously, "pointing a gun at my head" is child talk for "making me follow the rules that I have implicitly agreed to obey by living in society", and you can at any time stop agreeing with those rules by leaving the society. Living in the society, enjoying its benefits and then crying about having to follow the rules is childish and hypocritical. If you don't like it, leave.

No one will try to stop you from leaving at gunpoint.

[wissler]

"If you don't like it, leave."

Might doesn't make right. This land is not all your land. You may have total and utter domination of it, but that's not a moral argument.

[jgon]

No it doesn't make right. But, excepting various inalienable rights, majority makes right in a representative democracy. And the majority have said that they derive greater utility out of having these rules and regulations than not having them. By staying in the society you are agreeing to abide by them, and to deal with the punishments for breaking them. You are not forced to stay in society though, so you can reject this deal at any time.

You claim there is a gun to your head, but this is the weirdest robbery I've ever heard of, where you can opt out at any time you choose. Any and all guns that may be metaphorically pointed at you are ones you have agreed to have pointed at you. Our system for determining what guns point where boils down to where the majority would like them to point, subject to the constraints of a constitution.

I normally hate the love it or leave it argument as well, but if you are going to insist on using this childish metaphor, then I have no alternative but to point out that you can end this apparently life or death matter at any time of your choosing. Literally any time.

[wissler]

You're begging the question, which is: is it legitimately "your land" to tell me to leave in the first place? (The answer by the way is "no.")

If the property legitimately belonged to you, then I'd have no problem with "my house, my rules, love them or leave them", but nothing but ownership gives you that kind of prerogative. You are making a pure might makes right argument, it's completely amoral. (Incidentally, do some research about what this megalomanical kind of "ownership" leads to, e.g. "Trail of Tears.")

Your reasoning is that of a child, not mine.

[jaaron]

That depends on our definition of property rights and sovereignty. You may "own" the land, but you are not sovereign on that land. The larger society, which claimed and defended the land prior to your ownership claims, has sovereignty over it and thus you while within those borders. If you do not wish to abide by the laws of the society, then you cannot claim land within that society's borders without emancipating the land. For better or worse, such rebellions are difficult to pull off.

[wissler]

Your conception is, to pick a metaphor, straight out of "The Matrix." Check your assumptions, you'll find that one of them is wrong, or arbitrary (which is really the same thing).