TomCollins not too bad at making no arguments for it.

****ing ZING

The fundamental philosophy is that individuals own themselves and their property, and they have a right to their life and property, are free to do what they please as long as they respect others equal rights, and that it is immoral to initiate force against peaceful individuals who haven't initiated force against you.


The fundamental argument is that people peacefully coming together to trade with each other is much better than a government forcing things upon them, and the former is moral and should be advocated, and the latter is immoral and should be abolished.

Newsflash: Most people would gladly give up a small amount of freedom to not have to make personal decisions about every single thing in their lives.

Also, there are so many externalities relating to police that just blindly saying "the free market will do it better" is LOL.

Killing people is pretty easy. It's the getting away with it afterward that's tricky in our statist dystopia.

More power to them. Anyone who wants can sign a contract with a decision making company and have someone tell them what to do.

Wow, so much to respond to here...


- I don't care how much you believe that the government stifles economic activity, there is absolutely no economic system in which one typical or above average person makes enough that they would be able to afford a personal security guard. You are one person, you earn x dollars per year. You spend some of that money on shelter, some of that money on food and clothing, and some money on non necessary items like entertainment or whatever... Now, you spend some of that money on private security. If a private guard is so cheap that the average salary for someone working as something other than a security guard is high enough to pay for food, clothing, shelter, etc, AS WELL AS a private guard, then why in the world would someone want to be a guard as opposed to working in some other field that apparently pays a lot more? Or, if the only "skill" he has is brute force, can't he make more by taking all of your stuff instead of working for some of it?

- So, not everyone will be able to afford one on one protection, right? So what will the less affluent people do? Perhaps they'll pool their resources to hire a handfull of guards to watch after the neighborhood, right? And they'll have to decide what rules they want those guards to enforce, right? You want them to stop robberies, murder and rape... Your neighbor wants all that stopped as well, but he'd also like them to stop people from drawing grafitti on the side of his house, oh and he has two small kids who like to play near the street, so maybe the security guards could also stop people and ask them to slow down as they drive through the neighborhood... Eventually, a group of like minded neighbors is able to agree on the rules they want the guards to enforce... Hmmmm, sounds like a " government" of sorts to me...

- Yes McDonalds wouldn't stay in business very long if it put glass in its hamburgers, but that is an extreme example of food adulteration. I'm guessing that there are plenty of harmful chemicals or preservatives (stuff with long term health effects but that wouldn't actually poison you in the short term) that McDonalds COULD add to food in order to make it last longer, look more appetizing, or be more addictive to the consumer, that it doesn't add because of some government regulation. Are you going to start hiring your own nutritional scientists and food composition labs now too?

And it doesn't give them the right to take away freedom from others.

I like how because of the state lirva is reduced to scamming fast food restaurants for free food, but if we abolished the govt suddenly he is a powerful businessman with round the clock security???

Some animals sound a like but are different. Is the above arrangement voluntary or forced? If everything is done voluntarily, it's completely moral, and sounds like a great example of a community peacefully coming together to determine solutions to problems. They'll get a lot further down the road this way than if they had some government forcing things upon them.






Sure, profit driven businesses can inspect other businesses food. You do not need a government to induce compliance with morality. If a company exposes McDonalds as being unsafe, a government shouldn't come in and confiscate all their food, shut down all the restaurants. It's not needed. Once people found out, they would just quit eating there.

"the drive through thing" is something I've done in the past. I don't currently have to resort to it, thankfully.


You never know.

How much money do you think you would have made if there had been no government restrictions on online poker and anyone in any country can start a poker site and serve everyone else all over the world? Hundreds of poker sites, instant deposit and withdrawal. Millions and millions of players. You'd be having a bit more $$$ amirite?

Oh man lirva threads have been amazing lately

I have more than a middle school understanding of economics and it is not immediately obvious that private security would be cheaper for a number of reasons.

First, there are some economies of scale issue wrt procurement, logistics, etc.

Second, the people who will most be in the market for security, will be the people who feel the least secure, either because they have a lot to lose, or because they fear a specific threat... In that type of market, the price for people who want security might be higher because the folks who don't feel the need for security services (and thus would not pay for them), aren't paying into the pool... It's the same reason that group insurance is generally less expensive than individual policies.

Finally, and most importantly, the people who currently serve as firefighters, police officers, soldiers, etc., are willing to take a discount on the true value of their labor because they get some psychic benefit from the belief that they are serving the public good. When you take that away and reduce everything down to a mercennary relationship, these folks are going to require much higher wages to compensate them for the risks they are taking...

Additionally, the idea that drug laws and speeding violations wouldn't exist in this new society is simply laughable... Mitt Romney has reportedly called the police several times in order to have people arrested for smoking pot on the beach near his house. Now, even if the police didn't exist, don't you think Mitt and his rich friends might still get together to hire some guard to make sure that no one is smoking pot near his property? Just because you and your friends might not support certain laws doesn't mean that they were simply imposed on you by the "government" without at least some modicum of public support.

There's no such thing as "the public good". It's not an entity or establishment. They don't serve "the public good", they serve other people, and if they are in that profession voluntarily, make money, and enjoy making satisfied customers, I think they'll be ok.






If they are not infringing on his rights or property, and are not on his property, he has no moral basis to use force against them.