Are Restrictions Necessary?

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

With one interpretation, you are volunteering for all restrictions by electing to remain a citizen of the state in question. While it is certainly the case that you might elect to live in the place that has the least laws you find distasteful, since simply living there is tacit agreement to follow the rules, you can be said to be volunteering for those restrictions in exchange for the benefits of citizenship.

That's only true if the governing forces in question came about 100% legitimately, which no governing forces currently have to my knowledge.

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

Well, it's true if one of these things is true:

The government came about 100% legitimately
You are under no restrictions stopping you leaving if you want to
You have what you consider to be an appropriate level of say in how the laws work

I'm not sure what you mean by "100% legitimately" I assume you are trying to mean "With 100% popular support"? Because while no elected leader currently got in unanimously, plenty have gotten in quite legitimately by the laws of the land.

[Jesterblue]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

Restrictions are necessary so people learn morals and become more cautious about what might be hazardous to their health or life. If there were no restrictions ever we would probably still be cavemen.
lol

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

Well, it's true if one of these things is true:

The government came about 100% legitimately
You are under no restrictions stopping you leaving if you want to
You have what you consider to be an appropriate level of say in how the laws work

No it isn't. If government mandates that certain rules must be followed on specific soil, it makes all the difference if the government has a legitimate claim on the land, or at least has entered an agreement with all the people who have this claim.

Because while no elected leader currently got in unanimously, plenty have gotten in quite legitimately by the laws of the land.

And what makes the laws of the land legitimate?

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

And what makes the laws of the land legitimate?

What makes anything legitimate then? If the laws that already exist in a nation aren't what determines whether newly elected leaders are legitimate in that nation, you must have some objectively correct "Laws" coming in from somewhere, or else you're just arguing that everything must be subjective and thus can never be "actually" true.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

Subjective legitimacy is fine and can be balanced for. 100% popular support would effectively accomplish this. In order for this to be achieved, the market would have to determine things like leadership and sovereignty. This has already been more or less worked out in Rothbard's Magnum opus.

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

I just don't think that one candidate being supported by 100% of the people is necessary to consitute a legitimate authority. I mean, even if you're willing to discount the apathetic and the ignorant from factoring into that 100%, I mostly just deny that any one government -can- possibly get support from 100% of the educated voting public, simply because there are too many dichotomus positions that people base their electoral choices on.

You can't be pro- and con- the same thing at the same time, so you will never be able to fully satisfy everyone, so no matter what system controls who is in charge of your state, 100% popular support is impossible, so what you're basically saying is "There's no such thing as legitimate authority"

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

I mostly just deny that any one government -can- possibly get support from 100% of the educated voting public, simply because there are too many dichotomus positions that people base their electoral choices on.

Don't mistake given politicians for a government. It doesn't matter if 0% of a group of people support a given policy, if they all gave initial consent to be subjected to the system that resulted in that outcome then the governance is legitimate. Short of breach of contract, anyways.

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

So explain to me how the governments of say, Canada or Great Britain aren't legitimate then? Or are you appealing to the fact that many people don't bother taking part in the government, and thus claiming that the government isn't legitimate.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

There are indigenous peoples in Canada who were there before the British or French, correct? What of frontiersmen? In the settlement of the US at least, people were living in areas before the law came to them. Is there any particular reason a government should have a claim on, effectively, all bordering land?

England was ruled for most of history by self-declared royalty. Not even under any sort of consistent pretenses either, as William of Normandy demonstrates. The system gradually became simply aristocratic, in step with the Magna Carta, and eventually developed into a Constitutional Republic, with a parliament rather than a congress of course.

So, where on earth do you see full consent happening, ever, in either of these countries?

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

I'm sorry if this sounds politically incorrect, and if it might shock some people who see me as more of a bleeding-heart style liberal, but when you're conquered, you're conquered.

The legitimacy comes from having made the choice of "Consent or be killed" and choosing to not be killed. The Nation of Canada as it exists, founded first as New France, taken over during the conquest, and eventually gaining its soveriegnty from Britain in 1867 is an entity unto itself.

That it was founded by displacing existing people from their land doesn't factor into the distinction. A Canadian is a quite clearly defined status, and for all the people who are classified as Canadian, consent exists.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

The legitimacy comes from having made the choice of "Consent or be killed" and choosing to not be killed.

Do you know how absurd this sounds? You're literally saying that choices made under coercion are equally valid to choices made otherwise. In this case, suppose I hold a gun to your head and present you with the option of being my slave or dying. You choose to be my slave. That choice is now legitimate and must be honored under law.

A Canadian is a quite clearly defined status, and for all the people who are classified as Canadian, consent exists.

By what mechanism is 100% consent achieved?

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

Do you know how absurd this sounds? You're literally saying that choices made under coercion are equally valid to choices made otherwise. In this case, suppose I hold a gun to your head and present you with the option of being my slave or dying. You choose to be my slave. That choice is now legitimate and must be honored under law.

Not quite, that's more than a little bit of a misrepresentation of what I said. Consider the situation if you came into my town with an army, and said "We're taking over, we're going to run things this way, anybody who wants to leave, get out now. Anybody who won't follow these rules, get out now, because once we establish the rules, you'll have to follow them, and there are consequences for breaking them."

At this point, you are forcing a choice on the people in the town, they can choose to leave and go somewhere where the rules aremore palatable, or they can choose to stay and follow these rules.

Presumably the laws of the land as they stand suggest that what you are doing is not legitimate by their rules, for which there are presumably consequences. (IE. You're committing treason against the legitimate authority) and that legitimate authority is faced with a choice as well: Oppose your treason against authority, or leave, and allow you to take over.

Whether you fight and win, or they withdraw and you gain control, you take with you a sphere of influence. If you set up in the town and say "Now, we are the Kilroyans, and this town is called New Kilroy, here's our legal system, here's our economic plan, here's our foreign policy etc etc, we'll give everyone a month to decide, and if they want to leave they can leave freely and go back to the original system elsewhere, or they can stay here and become Kilroyans, with all the rights and responsibilities involved in that."

Once that month is up, and you have your town full of people who made the choice to stay when the army arrived, and made the choice to stay when the army took over, and made the choice to stay when shown what the laws would be there, they are granting consent to be ruled in that way by those people, and within the bounds of "New Kilroy" the Kilroyans have been granted legitimate consensual authority.

By what mechanism is 100% consent achieved?

They elected to stay in Canada, obey Canadian Laws, and recieve the benefits of being a Canadian. There is tacit consent for support of the system when you take the benefits of the system, and perform the responsibilities of the system, especially when you are free to leave at any time if you don't like it.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

Not quite, that's more than a little bit of a misrepresentation of what I said.

No it isn't, you just don't understand how to isolate the logical properties of a claim.

Consider the situation if you came into my town with an army, and said "We're taking over, we're going to run things this way, anybody who wants to leave, get out now. Anybody who won't follow these rules, get out now, because once we establish the rules, you'll have to follow them, and there are consequences for breaking them."

At this point, you are forcing a choice on the people in the town, they can choose to leave and go somewhere where the rules aremore palatable, or they can choose to stay and follow these rules.

This scenario is different from the one given. You explicitly stated the choices were death or submission. In this situation the choices are exile or submission, which isn't much different.

So, revise the scenario to this. I come into your house with a gun, and say "This house now belongs to me. You can live here, but you have to follow my rules". If you choose to live there, anything I do to you is completely legal and moral, and if you leave I still keep legitimate control over the house.


Nope, still absurd.

that legitimate authority is faced with a choice as well: Oppose your treason against authority, or leave, and allow you to take over.

So effectively you're saying that the ability to make a choice always legitimizes a set of circumstances, regardless of one's ability to successfully act on one's choices? How is that any different from "might makes right" aside from having an unnecessary additional qualification added for the sole purpose of making you feel better.

They elected to stay in Canada, obey Canadian Laws, and recieve the benefits of being a Canadian. There is tacit consent for support of the system when you take the benefits of the system, and perform the responsibilities of the system, especially when you are free to leave at any time if you don't like it.

Leave where? What if they don't consider them benefits? Or responsibilities?

There isn't a single thing coherent about what you've just laid out. Effectively, any claim to property under this system is legitimate to the extent it can be enforced, and any law made is legitimate as long as a given systems sphere of influence is finite. A world run according to these concepts would be one filled solely with tyranny. How convenient then that this sort of drunken rationalization actually is quite common.

If you want to know the extent of your foolishness, simply look at any atrocity in history and see that it bears perfect approval given the conditions you laid out.

[devonin]

Re: Are Restrictions Necessary?

I'm still not seeing that you coming into my house, which is part of the state, and saying that you're taking over my house (and not the state) is the same thing as my state taking over your whole state.

I in my house am a Canadian citizen, protected by the laws of the Canadian legal system. It is unlawful for you to come into my home, and simply say that you're taking it over. However, if Canada the nation were to be invaded, and I choose to simply stand by and surrender, and allow the invaders to take over, and take control, instead of fighting, I'm giving tacit approval to their power. If I didn't approve I could/should fight until I get to a point where I've chosen to balance what cost is worth maintaining the status quo.

Once again, we come back to your insistance that non-action is in no way an action, and that by selecting non-action out of all possible responses, you bear no responsibility for the consequences of that action, and thus can still claim to be the wronged victim when you didn't choose to act. Since we didn't resolve that particular debate, I somehow fail to see how we'll solve this one.