[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.