Hugo

I'm saddened that you feel the need to constantly insult me. Since I've repeatedly asked you to desist and debate like an adult, requests that you have ignored in favour of childish insults, I have no choice but to report you to Greg. By the way...

I addressed this point here. Perhaps you could take a look, Neal? I don't understand. If families are so strong, why do we need state backing to help them along? Surely if the institution is so strong and natural, it will maintain itself, without policemen, judges, wardens and hangmen to back it up? History suggests as much, when one sees the universality of the concept of marriage and family thoughout all cultures. More to the point, if some marriages are not strong and the family does not want to stay together, how does forcing them to help anything? Very possibly true, but surely this is a matter for personal ethics? How can you produce lasting, positive results in this regard by browbeating people into a vision of ethics they don't share? I'm not sure why minding one's own business is no longer acceptable. Two people want to make an agreement between themselves. It doesn't affect you. Why do you get to have a say? So, don't view them as marriages. But if you propose to use law to make other people share your view, what you are basically saying is, "Believe what I believe, or I'll beat you up." Hardly an enlightened or Christian viewpoint, really.

Microsoft has the most security problems because it's the prevalent platform. Hackers and virus coders will concentrate on it because it's more appealing to attack 90% of desktop computers (I don't know if that's the actual stat) than 10%. There are Linux virii. They will grow more numerous if Linux marketshare grows. It isn't always the case that Linux is more stable, anyway. Linux is "kludged" in a lot of ways that Windows isn't. For instance, I read an interesting column where a guy basically did a "format c:" on a Linux and a Windows system. Not the exact command, but a different one that overrides the file locks. Windows neatly deleted its files, shutdown cleanly and rebooted (to nothing). Linux started deleting, produced a garbled screen output and then crashed, rebooting to a fundamentally broken but nevertheless still existing OS. For another example, Linux still does not have a filesystem that is as good as NTFS in terms of speed or stability. If you want security and stability, Linux isn't the best route. I'd go with *BSD. It's a real UNIX, as opposed to a bastardized version of it. Mac OS X is good, and I'm pleased to see Apple finally releasing an operating system using the technology of the late 80s. Only ten years or so behind Microsoft. Here's the issue as I see it. A novice user can use Windows, but doesn't know how to protect themselves. This can produce massive problems if they habitually visit virus and trojan nests: P2P software, warez and porn sites, etc. A novice user can't use Linux or *BSD. The first time they want to install a new piece of software the dependencies will blow their mind. "A needs B. B needs C. C needs D and E. D needs F, G and H, E needs I, J, K and L." At which point the novice will say, "And I need Windows back." Linux isn't going to conquer the desktop until it has a fundamental shift in its philosophy. Currently it's a bunch of geek programmers who are interested in coding cool software on their own and not particularly in other projects. Therefore, Linux is a hodgepodge of different and incompatible standards. MS and Apple do a lot better because they hire a lot of consultants on interfaces and ergonomics, thus ensuring their products remain easy to use while Linux is a pain in the neck, and because they are very careful to ensure uniformity and standardisation.

You believe whatever you're comfortable with, Sweal. The fact that you can't mount any kind of defence speaks volumes. Not at all. If we are all human, and we all have free will, then it logically follows that the limit on our free will is where it overlaps another's free will. It doesn't even need to be said.

Yes, and I am sure I know the actual reason. You were mired in your self-contradictions and unable to mount any kind of defence. It wasn't so much that you were taken out of context or misquoted, more that you did not understand the implications of what you had said and were humiliated when they were shown to you. Basically, your viewpoint is internally inconsistent and logically invalid. Really? Which ones? Because I can name two dozen, off the top of my head, who'd insist I stay. So what you really mean is that some "members of the club called Canada" insist I leave, and moreover, insist that they be allowed a power of veto over private contracts that they have no involvement in. What gives them this right? If they are able to defer this right to elected representatives and their agents, then they must have had this right in the first place. Are Liberal voters gods amongst men who can violate everybody else's property rights and free will as they choose? If yes, by what right? If no, then why are you contradicting yourself? Not until one of them was coerced into the deal, you don't. Government acts by force, that is the definition. When it doesn't, that is not government, it's just a business.

And right back to the circular argument again. If I consent by staying, then that presumes that the government is indeed the legitimate authority in Canada. They can only attach conditions to that which they are the rightful authority over. The argument amounts to: "Government is legitimate because it is legitimate." I can sit on my own property and refuse to obey the rules you set out for being on your property, can I not? Which presumes ownership or authority derived from the rightful owners. All of them. Cut it out. You are not in a position to be casting aspersions on my debate.

I think the accusation that I have misquoted you or mischaracterized your statements is unfair as I have taken the time to quote you fully in my replies, to justify what I say with argument, defend my analogies and identify them as such. Just to satisfy your curiosity, I shall let you know where I was planning to continue in this thread. You had said (and this is what I had been angling for, although you probably realised that): This was where I was going to continue my argument from. We had gotten to a stage where you acknowledged that government was not, in fact, the whole of the people in the country at all. My continuation of this would have been to point out that 99 men in a room cannot justly decide to rob the 100th man of his rightful property, and if they did not have that right themselves, they could not defer it either. Therefore, as long as the "society" that formed the government did not include some (at least one) people in the country, it had no right to make decisions for all of the people that affected their property or lives in any direct way. This would apply to my situation as an immigrant. In order for the government not to be committing a massive violation of property rights, it could only stipulate that, if I withdrew from the "social contract", I was forbidden from the property of and dealing with Liberal voters. Since they only form 23% of the electorate and an even smaller percentage of the overall population, that is a very different proposition from "leave the country." If the government insists on making me leave, it is presuming to take authority over the private property of individuals who never granted them any authority. Of course, if you were to say that these people had, in turn, granted authority to the government by living in Canada then we have a new circular argument: everybody in Canada came to the country at some point. There are no true natives, not even aboriginals. So, each time you go back an immigrant-generation, the argument repeats itself, until we are left with empty wilderness and still the question never having been answered. I apologise for any misdeeds I may have committed in this thread, my intention was only for spirited and interesting debate and nothing more. I felt that we were achieving that and I would be pleased if you would consent to a resumption.

If this is your working definition of authority, then anarchy would indeed be without authority. One can grant another "authority" over oneself and one's possessions (like a power of attorney), but since this is freely given, it isn't really authority, any more than your employer has authority over you. It is social contract "government". In fact, it is the only truly contractual government. Non-anarchist/voluntaryist social contracts expect at least one of the parties not to explicitly consent to the contract, or create a contract where one of the parties has no right to make the stipulations contained in it. We went over this before. August claimed that one's birth was tantamount to signing the social contract, but since one's birth is nonconsensual, it cannot logically be taken as consent to anything else. You and August have both claimed that one must consent to government to live in a country, but until the rightful ownership of the country by the government is established this would simply be an illegal contract, much as if I made a contract with August (for instance) that he could watch your TV on Tuesdays if he paid me $50, without consulting you first.

Not to split hairs, August, but Arafat's regime isn't exactly enlightened or democratic. People in Palestine who disagree with him have a funny habit of disappearing. An awful lot of Palestinians were killed by Arafat's gang in the first intifadah. That being said, when there's the question of succession in an autocratic and non-hereditary regime after a leader's death, there is usually a power struggle and the last wishes of the leader are rarely taken into account. Lenin specifically instructed that his successor should absolutely not be Stalin. Stalin did not leave any instructions (being so paranoid by the time of his death that, in his own words, he didn't even trust himself) but Kruschev was probably the last man he'd have picked. Hitler picked Goering as his second-in-command, but upon his death Doenitz ended up taking over, albeit very briefly. Mao Zedong had ejected Deng Xiaoping from his inner circle, and the Gang of Four (who hated Deng) were the dominant players when he died, so Deng's succession to the Chinese leadership was quite incredible. Based upon what we know of Arafat, it's likely that he named no successor for two reasons: firstly, he probably trusted nobody enough with the job, and secondly, he knew that his wishes were not particularly likely to be obeyed anyway. Yes, he is a cult figure, and so you might think the people would object if his wishes were not obeyed, however, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were also revered cult figures when they died (Hitler's status was, for obvious reasons, irrelevant) and the public had no objections when their proteges did not succeed them.

The existence of free will creates authority over oneself. I decide what I am going to do. I have authority over my body. Therefore, the only way to eliminate all authority is the extinction of humanity. But what you can do is reduce authority down to the level of free-willed individuals. That's anarchy. Basically, a man shall have authority over himself but not over any other man. Statism is the converse, that some men shall have authority over other men and those other men, no or limited authority over themselves.

6 billion states of one. That is anarchy, self-government: to have authority over oneself and not to have authority over another. Your reluctance to call things by their names changes nothing. The other mark of anarchist society, apart from polycentric law, is pacifism. The initiation of force is not permitted to anyone, rather than being permitted but restricted to a limited group as in statist societies. Note that these conditions were true in anarchist Iceland. There was polycentric law in the form of chieftains, who formed "government." However, a citizen was free to choose whichever chieftain he wanted, or even to become a chieftain, and there were many chieftains even within the same geographical area. A citizen did not even have to move to select a different chieftain. Furthermore, the chieftains had no executive arm. Their capacity was strictly as advisors and mediators, and a chieftain had no power to coerce anybody. Thus, like businesses, they were fully at the mercy of their customers, the citizenry. They had to provide what was demanded or go out of business. Oh, and as to your question as to how there could be law without authority, consider that "law" is just basically a set of rules. Rules come into existence without any kind of authority all the time. Why are all ATM cards the same size and shape? Why is paper produced in standard sizes? Why are USB-based computer peripherals compatible? Why, as August is fond of saying, do humans use language? What authority backs these rules? If there is a demand for rules and uniformity, it will arise whether there is authority qua state or not.

There was authority, just not one single authority. Anarchism relies upon polycentric law, statism upon monocentric law. Anarcho-capitalism holds that law is a good like any other, with a market, and in a free law market people will "buy" law at the price and quality they deem best. Therefore, polycentric law is the best way to get law that is the will of society, much as a polycentric, market-based car industry is the best way to supply cars. Under a government, unjust law is a private good, just law a public good. Therefore, statism exposes law to the public goods problem and the tragedy of the commons. Anarchy turns this upon its head and makes just law a private good and unjust law a public good. If government did not use coercion, either to force people to "buy" its services or to prevent others from competing with them, they would no longer be government, but merely a business. Then if we can provide collective goods based upon consent, why should we have coercion? Because, as I have illustrated above, government precludes voluntaryism. It uses force to make people buy and force to eliminate competition. Therefore, there is no room for free will and consent.

Why not? They had no single political authority and nobody had a monopoly over any good, including law and justice. Therefore anarchist. Government acts by coercion. You say that acting on collective interests must be done by coercion. I'm asking why you think that, why a collective interest cannot possibly be fulfilled voluntarily.

I have been looking for it and cannot find it. If you already said it, cut-and-paste it. I have gone to the trouble of cut-and-pasting a lot of what you have written in this thread, so do me the same courtesy. Firstly, that is not the meaning of what you wrote. You said that participants might have the opportunity to gain dominant posistion, and if they take that opportunity it is abusive to overall welfare. Therefore, whoever took the opportunity to become dominant abuses welfare. Secondly, what government activity is not in a market, or what was a market until government destroyed it? All human interaction is a market unless you involve coercion, in which case the market is destroyed. Government destroys markets. I'm sorry, Sweal, the logical and grammatical structure of your statement is intact. By substituting nouns we construct an analogous statement, which was precisely what I was constructing in the first place: an analogy. Well, to leave its jurisdiction, one assumes. You told me they were the same thing. And, before you complain, here is where you said it: Since you believed I was wrong to believe that the government was distinct from society, I can safely infer that you are claiming that government is not distinct from society, i.e. it is society. What is that? Absolutely irrelevant. I don't know where you pulled that from. I'll re-quote the exchange for you: Hugo: And what is there to an institution beyond the people in it? Then what am I consenting to, exactly? "Consent" is a transitive verb, not an intransitive. You consent to something. Since "society" is rarely, if ever, an acting agent, you cannot make a blanket statement like that. I see. So, government is society, and society is "some people" - those who don't dissent, basically (dissent from what is something you aren't clear on). What you are defending, then, is the right of some people to hold non-consensual power over other people. Correct? Merchants. It was done on a purely voluntary basis. Basically, if the Law Merchant found that a trader was in breach of contract, they simply published that he was and advised other traders not to deal with him. It was all strictly voluntary and no coercion was involved. Legitimate authority is the point. I cannot agree to deal with somebody who does not have a legitimate authority to make the deal we are discussing.

But it has existed, in Ireland, Iceland, Pennsylvania and so forth. Iceland is a great example, and existed in an anarchist state for three centuries before being destroyed by Norway. Why? Is it not possible to act on a collective interest without coercing anybody?

It isn't there. First, tell me how you are repaying the whole of society (and as I said, taxes are not enough, because there are no guarantees that your tax money will reach the people who helped you in the proportions that they helped you). Secondly, here is what you said (again): Now, the government has definitely taken a dominant position in some markets. It is the exclusive provider of law, policing and many other things besides. You said that to hold such a dominant position would definitely have a negative impact on overall welfare and would be abusive to the market. You did not qualify your statement with anything, and you said that participants might obtain dominance (which government has) and that that dominance will decrease overall welfare (which government is therefore doing). You have a self-contradiction. You have not reconciled it. How are you going to clean up your mess? I quoted you saying that right above. If you did not write what you meant, that's not my problem. I can only go on what you write, and I'll assume that you are writing the truth or what you believe to be the truth unless otherwise advised. Since you have not told me that your statement above was a joke, I have to assume you meant it. Again, same problem. You did actually say: Now, this is the same argument. All we need to do is a little noun substitution: To leave a government, I must have somewhere else, another government, to go to. I can't live in the ocean or outer space. So, what you left unsaid was that whether or not I left was not entirely up to me, but also up to whether or not another government wanted to take me in. Once again, we apply that to your statement, substitute the nouns, and we get: Is that clear now? My question answers your question. Your implied statement is that government springs from society, therefore, government is justified. My answer is that a whole host of unjustified evils spring from society, therefore, because government comes from society does not mean government is just. You choose to call it an institution. An institution cannot exist without people who at least believe in it, therefore, an institution is carried on people. So your argument can also be taken to mean "government is/depends upon some people". In effect, what you say is: "government is not A, it is A." And what is there to an institution beyond the people in it? Why do you think I am distorting your comments? You said: You did not say, "consent of some of the governed." That is a very different idea. Are you revising your statement? You said: Which takes us back to the circular argument. In order for your statement directly above to be true, the government must have legitimate pretensions over Canada. The pretension that it rightfully owns and controls Canada and the people therein. That statement is self-contradictory. "Canadian society" is composed of individuals. Therefore, if some individuals disagree, then society disagrees with itself. Society cannot leave itself. This tells you that "society" is not an entity you can speak of this way. No, it is not. Either you have a circular argument, in which case your argument is invalid by way of fallacy, or you have to justify the legitimacy of the government in some other way that does not presuppose the legitimacy of the government. How can Canadian society make 'the rules' if it disagrees with itself on what those rules should be? Trade contracts, especially international ones. It enforced by boycott. Call it what you like. We can both agree that government is more than Parliament. No, my construction is logically consistent. It is you who has ignored what I have said, and you have stated that my construction was "utterly wrong" without any logic or evidence in support. I went to some lengths to explain my position and my interpretation of your arguments, you have not offered a word to refute that. I want to withdraw entirely. However, until you establish that the government is the legitimate authority over Canada, it is unjust to ask me to withdraw from the country.

Why did I mention any of them? Simple: to refute your ridiculous anti-American slander. You rolled two fallacies into one: first, that anarchy is an American movement, second, that American opinions are somehow less valid than those of others. Peter Kropotkin on Leo Tolstoy: Bakunin was a left-anarchist or anarcho-socialist. Please do not make the naive mistake of confusing them with Communists, they will find it very offensive. Mikhail Bakunin on anarchy: -- from Ethics: Morality of the State Stirner believed, as he wrote in The Ego and Its Own, that all religions and ideologies are based on empty concepts, and that all institutions which supported said ideologies (church, state etc) are similarly empty and are destroyed by individualism. Your notion that he was some follower of Hegel is completely wrongheaded. Stirner spent a lot of his intellectual life attacking his contemporaries, such as Ludwig Feuerbach and the other Young Hegelians, for the emptiness of their ideologies - nationalism, statism, humanism etc. Stirner taught egoism and as such was an anarchist. Marriage and family - when successful - are trades and transactions. They break down when they stop being trades and transactions and become coercive monopolies, when one person begins to use force. The state sets out from the beginning to use force. Therefore, the state is not a useful institution but a broken one, one that arises because it has destroyed or replaced a useful institution. No. A market is a method for people to co-operate. The state operates by coercion, so there is no market where the state is involved. I bet you would, because you're caught in a circular argument you can't get out of. Fallacy of false dilemma. The logical consequence of my argument is that I want to consent to all the transactions I have with other human beings and to be coerced into none of them. Voluntaryism. Fallacy of slothful induction. I merely refuse to honour a commitment or long-term contract that I did not consent to, or consented to under coercion. "Microsoft", or the shareholders, are demonstrably the legitimate owners of the company and all holdings and as such, have a right to place stipulations on any transactions involving those holdings. The government of Canada is not demonstrably the legitimate owner of the country of Canada. Therefore, the government of Canada does not have a right to place stipulations on any transactions involving the country of Canada.

You are caught in exactly the same circular argument as Sweal. If I must move, it is because the government has legitimate jurisdiction. But that is what you are trying to prove, that is what I am disputing. You are assuming your conclusion. Yes, those famous Americans, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Bakunin, Max Stirner, et al.

Actually, Hitler never got a genuine vote in which he received a popular mandate. The majority of people were opposed to him, even in 1933. He was brought to power through constitutional wrangling afforded by the Weimar state. Well, we could start with an example: medieval Iceland, which existed as a peaceful anarchist state for over three hundred years (far longer than the US has existed) until Norwegian political subversion and military intervention destroyed it. To demonstrate this with a little theory, it is a fact that the free market has never produced a monopoly (not one that lasted any appreciable length of time, anyway). The only economic monopolies that have existed did so with state backing. All we do is extend the free market to include law and justice, and in doing so, we place on those markets the same natural market safeguards that prevent monopoly. But to truly answer your question, I need you to tell me what you think the downfall of anarchy would be so that I can address it. Otherwise, you're asking me to prove a negative (i.e. to prove that nothing stands in the way of peaceful anarchy) and, as you know, that is impossible. Otherwise, I would lay out a scenario, and you would say, "but what if?" endlessly.

There is 'repaying'. In a restaurant, you get a benefit (food) and an obligation (paying the bill). You are telling me you get benefits, so to whom are you paying your obligations? Then perhaps you shall be so good as to cut-and-paste for me, or provide a link, because I don't recall such a description being given. I even tried to help you out by doing a search for posts made by you containing the word "taxation" and found nothing of the sort. Once again, you will have to refresh my allegedly faulty memory, because I don't recall any such explanation. You made a statement that a monopoly was abusive to general welfare, then made a statement that monopoly was not abusive to general welfare, but I did not see an intervening and reconciliatory argument. You said that if I didn't like being forced to buy government services I should leave the country. This is the same argument, since my departure from Canada presupposes that I have somewhere to go, another country willing to take me in. Where do criminals spring from, if not from society (since society is people)? Is criminal behaviour therefore justified? Is this not just splitting hairs? Institutions can and usually do consist of people (in fact, I can't think of an institution without people, off the top of my head). You have said that government is derived from the people (an inclusive definition), I have said that it is derived only from some people. Whether you call it an institution or not is neither here nor there. But this is still a circular argument. You say that the government of Canada has legitimate pretensions over Canada. You then say that people within Canada agree with these pretensions because they are free to leave, which presupposes that the government of Canada has legitimate pretensions over Canada, or else they would not have to leave in order to disagree. But in all of this, you don't get around to saying what gives the government legitimate pretensions over Canada. We have established that it is not property rights (since the government does not own the country), nor is it the will of the people (since some of them - most of them, currently - disagree), and being an atheist I imagine you reject any notion of divine right or ordainment, so what is it? Until we establish what gives the government legitimate pretensions, the "like it or leave it" argument is moot. I can't legitimately insist that you follow rules while you are on a given piece of property until I prove that it is legitimately my property - do you follow? Yes, I can. If A does not equal B then B does not equal A. If society consists of the people of Canada, and some of society does not recognise the government as their tool, then government is not a tool of society. I don't think that is true. The Law Merchant was a court and was not backed by any government. Oh, government is much more than that. Government is, amongst other things, over 50% of the economy (I believe). However, the size of government will not transform it into "society" as you have claimed until there is not one person in the entire country who disagrees with anything the government does. Then you either believe that society is "breaking the rules" (your rules, if you are self-interested, or the rules that would correctly govern the situation, if you believe you have a unique perception), or you believe that your own objection is immoral (if you believe that society is right but you still disagree).

Did they not come from the advantageous standpoint of an existing state, however? And, where states have been destroyed and replaced with more egregious ones, were these more egregious states not the goal from the outset, rather than the goal being statelessness which ended up producing an egregious state? But how could this happen? The entire country could commit suicide tomorrow, but it isn't very likely, you have to admit. It's not enough to state that something is possible, what you need to do is prove not that the emergence of a more sinister state is certain, only that it is likely. What makes it unlikely, in my mind, is that anarchy starts with statelessness. Nobody has formed a state, so one will have to form. While it is forming, it will not have the monopoly on violence or law that a state enjoys, and so there will be time to recognise what is happening and prevent it. Of course, it's possible that nobody would notice what was happening or would not care about it until it was too late, but self-interest makes this a pretty unlikely outcome.

Perhaps you will enlighten me as to why. It would be in the self-interest of others to co-operate against a powermonger, after all, only he will benefit from his power! Regardless, your argument seems to be that the worst possible scenario for anarchy would be the emergence of another government, which is hardly a great indictment of anarchy or a great defence of government, I must say!

The first question is not irrelevant. If you are repaying such a vast, diverse and unindentifiable group as "society" I want to know how you think you are doing that. So I take it that you have no answer, then? If taxation were not violence I think it would be no great problem for you to define it in such a way that did not define robbery. But you cannot. No. And why not, exactly? Your extremely brief, insulting and uninsightful comments are not doing your argument any favours. This comment is made in complete disregard for what I have said on the subject. It is as if I never spoke! Your accusations that I am "repeating mantras" are a mere smokescreen to hide the fact that that is exactly what you are doing. You are still assuming your conclusion. But according to you, nobody may leave his house or be free from his abuse until they have found another house-owner to take them in. What????? You heard me. Enough of the insulting, one-liner or one-word replies. Debate like an adult. Until I see some evidence from you that the two are not seperate I shall indeed. I have offered my arguments as to why the two are separate, namely, the fact that there are many people in Group A (society) who do not agree with or consent to the actions of Group B (government), therefore, the two groups cannot be one and the same unless we are literally a nation of schizoids. I want you to justify the legitimacy of government to me. Until you can do that, the "like it or leave it" argument is moot. I am going to state, yet again, that as long as there are those in society who disagree with government, government cannot be an instrument of society. This would be a government court. In this case, this is not a chance for everyone in Canada to be a part of and have a say in government policy, it is merely a chance for everyone in Canada to be subjected to government policy. Well, you have done what I specifically warned you not to. The fact that the debate has gone on this long, and that you are contradicting yourself rather than me, means that these points are not highly refutable at all. I disagree. Then what is your third alternative?

Unfortunately, government is designed and exercised by men. If men are prone to greed, then this will be also true of the men in government, therefore, such a system will not solve anything because it is still vulnerable to the problems it is supposed to solve. As Alex Tytler said, "A democracy... can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." I don't think I have identified either. Anarchy depends upon human beings behaving as they always have. Basically, you don't grant anybody a license for coercion. This effectively harnesses the human proclivity for co-operation for self-interest. Humans, when placed in groups, are still selfish but can recognise that they can get even more for themselves if they work together e.g. by division of labour. Therefore, if one person was to make a bid for power, others would co-operate and work against him. Anarchy simply removes the illusion that this concentration of power and license to violence has any kind of legitimacy. You should also know that, of the historical examples of anarchism, none have collapsed or been destroyed through anything except foreign intervention. Whatever the internal pressures of anarchy, they are apparently insufficient for the task of its self-destruction.

How are you fulfilling your obligations? Who set those obligations out for you? It was not the people you are indebted to! The state initiates violence against your property in the form of taxation. If you don't believe this, please define taxation in a way that does not also describe high-minded theft (bear in mind that payment of taxes is not optional before you start on some wrongheaded "money for services" explanation). If you refuse to pay taxes, the state will initiate violence against your person in the form of jailing you. That's a dodge. Answer the question: does not government exactly fit the description of an entity "abusive to general welfare" that you gave earlier? Were you wrong then or are you wrong now? Are you sure? 77% of the Canadian electorate did not consent to be governed by the Liberal Party, and yet here we are! The fact is that as long as there is one man in Canada who does not consent to the rule of the current government, their legitimacy does not rest upon the consent of "the governed" but upon "some of the governed." Then, you merely have another tyranny. All you have done is to expand the number of people able to exercise tyrannical rule. How can the next-door neighbour be a thief if he steals your TV and you are free to move house? How can a wife-beater be a criminal as long as his wife is free to leave his house? Furthermore, would you have said this to German Jews in the 1930s - that they agreed to their oppression and murder because they did not leave? You should note, most importantly, that in claiming that those who don't like the government should leave, you are assuming what you are trying to prove. We are trying to establish whether the government has legitimate authority over Canada, or if that authority is obtained by illegitimate means (violence). If you claim that those who don't like it should leave, then you are assuming that the government has legitimate authority over Canada - which is exactly what you must prove! You cannot have your conclusion as an assumption in your own argument, you know. Explain how. What are they? If they are what you have listed above, then one notes that you are having great difficulty refuting them, so your comment is necessarily wrong. I asked you to tell me what made you think that I planned to "exempt myself from the obligations but expect society to continue to extend the benefits". Instead of answering, you have said, "well, that's what you think." Once again, you are assuming what you need to prove. Because you have said that society gets to make the rules. If they make the rules and you object, then this means that either you believe that there must be an underlying set of rules that society could break, or you believe your own objection is immoral. Can you? Where are you going to go, exactly?