Hugo

Not the same thing. I asked what you would do in a hypothetical situation. You asked me what a hypothetical person would say in a real situation. If you create "public space" to which all can have access, the minute you legislate that public space you are claiming a right over it, which means it isn't public, it's yours (and if majority mandate makes the law, it's owned by the majority). Sure, until you aggress against another person - then you've broken the rule of decent human interaction. Replace 'in front of me' with 'on my property' and you're an anarcho-capitalist. Democracy gave rise to Nazism, socialism and communism on several occasions. Democracy is still statism, but instead of a dictator, you place power in the hands of the majority or, in practice, in the hands of a few people who managed to convince more people to back them than their opponents. Then perhaps you should watch fewer action movies! Those are achievements in and of themselves! Chaos has a bad name, but in practice, we see that it is better than order. Capitalism is chaos, and it gives us better standards of living and more for less than communism, which is ordered. Democracy is chaos, and it gives us more freedom and rights than totalitarianism, which is ordered. A free press is chaos, which gives us a wider range of opinions and ideas and greater progress than state media, which is ordered. And as regards lawlessness, I fully agree with Leo Tolstoy's opinion: "Laws are rules made by people who govern by means of organized violence, for non-compliance with which the non-complier is subjected to blows, to loss of liberty, or even to being murdered." That being the case, I would vastly prefer lawlessness. Are you a nihilist or something? Would government stop killing its people? Which is exactly why no human should be granted power and monopoly over violence. If there was no clear case of abuse, why would a judge have ruled that there was? Was he insane? Was he bribed? What?

I think you are making another ad hominem argument. You have no evidence that I'm not intuitive or that I don't apply my knowledge properly, I think you'd just like to believe that because you probably have a mental image of me as some book-smart intellectual without any aptitude for "real life" and, at the risk of sounding insulting, you want to maintain that image because it allows you to retain some sense of superiorty over me - "well, he may be book-smart, but he ain't street-smart." If you are a Marine, then you've been conditioned to arrogance and the conviction of your own superiority.

Yes, I am. There's another thread in which I go into more detail. What if somebody refuses to pay a fine or go to prison and threatens to use force - including deadly force - to defend themselves? Moreover, government is an institution of individuals. What you are saying is that some individuals have a right to fine and imprison other individuals, which is iniquity and the making of tyranny. So, it's acceptable for government to decide life and death for foreigners, just not its own citizens? If you pass an anti-abortion law without pro-life opinion having become at least the vast majority, you are asking for civil disobedience and a vast number of crimes that will fill your jails with abortionists and mothers-to-have-been. Marriage is not a covenant, nor is it between two people and God: "However, I say to you: do not swear at all, neither by heaven, because it is God's throne; nor by earth, because it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King. Nor by your head must you swear, because you cannot turn one hair white or black. Just let your word yes mean yes, your no, no; for what is in excess of these is from the wicked one." -- Matthew 5:34-37. Therefore, the only Christian interpretation of marriage is that it has nothing to do with God but is an agreement between two people, and their word should be binding: a contract. You refute your own argument. You state that Mr. John has done all these things, and he has. The institution of prostitution has not done any of them. Therefore, your argument is merely a converse accident and is false. I asked for proof, not your opinion. Regardless, pornography can be as destructive to the soul as it likes, self-destruction is the right of the individual. As regards "dehumanizing people", this allegation has been made against many things: wage labour, Social Insurance Numbers, uniforms, military service, collectivism, and organised religion. All of them are subjective, none are defensible. Revealing a woman's ankle in public was once thought to be all of the things you level at pornography. I think it highly unjust for the government to dictate to a landowner what he may use his own possessions for.

When you threaten to use the state as an instrument of your will, that's exactly what you are talking about. Governments fine, imprison, and execute. I wouldn't call any of these guys "extremists." I consider very few people radical enough to be labelled extremist, the vast majority are just compromising somewhere on the same scale rather than on the polarised end of it. I didn't mention abortion. I will, however, say that legislation without universal acceptance is not going to be a solution. That's a fallacy of converse accident. What you have described is a separate offence - Mr. John's violation of his marriage contract resulting in bodily harm to his wife - and therefore is not an argument against prostitution. Prove it. That's not a priori fact. Once again, this is a failure of public goods and public space, not law or society. For instance, there's a McDonalds near my home that's near a sex shop. I take my kids to the McDonalds sometimes because there's a playground there and they can have a happy meal and play around while my wife and I have a coffee and a chat. If there were no public property, I could complain to the owners of McDonalds and of the street, and any neighbouring businesses, that I wouldn't be doing any business with them because I didn't want my kids to see the sex toys in the window of the sex shop. If enough people complained, the stores could sue the sex shop for causing them a loss of business, or could persuade the street owner to evict the sex shop by threatening to move elsewhere themselves. So there's a way around that problem without resorting to the violent activities of a state. And the solution will truly reflect what people want, rather than what some politician or judge has decided is best. I wrote about this at some length here. Rather than repeat myself, I'll ask you to read what I wrote and argue from there. The Libertarian Party will not get anywhere, ever. The main problem they face is that so many libertarians are opposed to electoral politics altogether, so they will never support the party or vote for them (or at all).

Neal, You're not spotting the problems in your own arguments. Firstly, you've argued for a minarchist state to uphold a universal "good" law. You've also made it plain that you believe this law should not allow same-sex marriage, drug abuse, prostitution etc. These are all consensual acts, so what you are basically arguing is that the state should have the right to override individual free will in favour of some desired, better outcome. There are two fatal flaws in this argument. Firstly, there is no logical optimum extent for this law. If you agree that the state must legislate for the good of its own citizens, even against their will, then you are creating a good case for state outlaw of extreme sports, pornography, explicit lyrics, driving cars at high speed, driving cars at all, buying non-organically-grown food, watching mindless television, swearing, tattooing, piercings, impractical haircuts, skimpy clothing, and so forth. Before long, your minarchist state would have ballooned to ridiculous proportions and become a giant nanny-state dedicated to interference in every aspect of the lives of citizens - which is exactly what you are decrying now. Secondly, what's good for people is purely subjective. Your minarchist state will suit you well as long as you are in power, but what happens when somebody is elected who holds a radically different opinion of what constitutes "good"? What if Blackdog is elected (for instance), reverses all your policies and enacts ones you find abhorrent, all in the name of the greater good? Using state power to try and ensure good, or eliminate sin, is fundamentally anti-Christian. Jesus Christ was a libertarian, pacifistic anarchist. He said, "Go forth and sin no more", not "Go forth, and if you sin again I'll kick your ass." A good act committed under duress, under coercion, has absolutely no moral value. This is why God gave humans free will: so that they can be truly good by choosing what is good, rather than being forced to do what is good. Government also inevitably and invariably involves the use of force against the unwilling. Jesus was so opposed to this principle that he would not use force even to save himself and his friends from an unspeakably horrible death. Given that, I find it hard to believe he would approve of your using force to stop somebody getting high, holding a Gay Pride parade or paying for sex.

I think there are two factors. First is simple self-interest, as when an institution provides an individual with a livelihood and a comfortable existence they will generally try to protect and nurture that institution. Corporate management is a good example, as they try to grow and nurture their company as much as possible. What prevents this being a major problem is all the other corporations whose managements are trying to do the exact same thing. With government, however, there is no competition, no mechanism to stop politicians expanding government to their hearts content. The only potential restraint is a very dubious reliance on public awareness, which collapses when the public becomes disinterested or, worse, buys into the idea that government should be bigger. The second is the misguided desire to do good. This can be seen in a lot of government programmes that are designed to benefit people but actually end up hurting them: minimum wage, price and rent controls, affirmative action, welfare, socialised medicine and so forth. In this case, it's clear that what is happening is misguided and ill-informed people are being allowed to give their ideas free reign. In the market, fallacious and wrong-headed ideas don't survive, but when these ideas are backed by force and a monopoly on violence, it doesn't matter how impractical they are. Of course, but we're not faced with "no solution at all." We are faced with preferable, viable and superior alternative solutions. The state maintains power not because it is a good idea, but because it has the inertia of long tradition, a strong grip on the minds of the populace and a monopoly on violence.

That sounds like more of the problem to me. I can't see Jesus saying, "I really disagree with what the Pharisees are doing, but if I complain too loudly I might play into the Romans' hands." Basically, it is a continuance of the same politics-as-religion problem. So-called Christianity that is profoundly anti-Christian is not worth defending against "radical secularists", in my opinion.

Animals can reason, I think you give me far too little credit. I can reason perfectly well, and it's my opinion that you are just suffering a little cognitive dissonance. Be honest, is this the first time you have come across somebody with my opinions? I want you to drop the issue. As I said, all you can prove here is your abilities as a debater, so stick to that. I would not divulge my profession, firstly because it's a false appeal to authority, and secondly, because I couldn't prove it anyway. That isn't the same thing. You said that wisdom can be found in ignorance, and then gave me an example of how happiness can be found in ignorance. Wisdom is not happiness, nor does wisdom necessarily coincide with happiness.

Oh, of course we do. It's my opinion, though, that if you allow one group to monopolise law, courts and police, they will inevitably abuse that monopoly to their own ends. Cost of housing was pushed up by rent controls and price fixing. The reason health care ever became so expensive is because government outlawed the mutual aid societies that were keeping healthcare extremely cheap, and raised the cost of healthcare as they were lobbied to do so by doctors who wanted more money from their patients.

I don't think that's a fair question. You're asking me to pretend I hold somebody elses opinions and then argue from them. Eureka isn't an anarchist and doesn't agree with the Patriot Act, so I'd suggest you continue this with him. This is a problem stemming from the notion of public or communal property, not from drug use or prostitution. Since the government won't stop people using streets where they aren't wanted, they have to stop people even participating in society at all by imprisoning them. As regards what's healthy and safe for people, let's remember that the government has permitted suicide, alcoholism, tobacco addiction, freefall parachuting, abortion pills, steak knives, chainsaws, SUVs, and many other things besides. The claim that outlawing prostitution and drug use is for the interests of public health and safety just doesn't ring true given all the dangers to public health and safety that the government is not interested in. If you admit this, I'm curious as to how you justify your statism. Who decided that? This is the most common objection to anarchism I see. Basically, your fear about anarchy is that another government would appear, therefore, you want to keep government. It makes no sense. Besides, as I said, the empirical evidence proves this wrong. Historical anarchy has never collapsed or disintegrated into despotism of its own accord, it has always been destroyed by foreign aggression. Therefore, it follows that the most pressing problem facing anarchist nations is defence against statist nations, not any kind of internal problem. I'm sorry, but I can't trust governments. In the 20th Century alone, governments killed 170,000,000 innocent people and another 34,000,000 in wars. The empirical evidence is clear: the greatest threat to human life is not terrorists, but governments. Governments don't really care about their people, they care about themselves - continued power, government jobs, and tax income is what they care about. There are far too many abuses taking place with the blessing of government for me to believe that they have the best interests of their citizens at heart. As I said, a federal judge already found in their favour.

It represents further accumulation of government power. Since government consists of individuals, what this effectively means is that some individuals are being granted a lot of rights and power over other individuals. The simple rule of just human relationships is that if a person has a right over me, I must have the same right over them. Anything else is justification for iniquity and, ultimately, slavery and oppression. If you wonder what was wrong with Nazi Germany, consider that, ultimately, they just considered that some human beings deserved to be awarded rights over other human beings. In this, the Patriot Act differs only in the extent and the measures, not in the basic principle. You will have to ask the government. They generally don't like prostitution and drug dealing because the opinions of the man in the street give them a good excuse to oppress people with different opinions (if someone wants to sell their sexual services or inject drugs, what business is it of yours?), and also a good excuse to confiscate the money of the man in the street to do so. They also allow the government to couch its actions in a cloak of moral superiority, which disguises the true nature of government, which leads us on to the Mafia. The Mafia basically compete with the government. They run themselves along exactly the same lines: they demand money in exchange for dubious protection, and should the the protectees refuse to pay up the Mafia will do them bodily harm. This is exactly how the government operates. Of course, as violent extortionists, when the paths of the government and the Mafia cross they generally start being violent to one another. It's interesting that you mention that. The US government was supposedly receiving money from US citizens to protect them. It failed catastrophically on 9/11, and many times before and since. If I was paying money to a protection agency that allowed massive harm to be done to my loved ones, I would immediately cancel my contract and consider a lawsuit against them. What happened to the government? They got more power and more money. Rewarding incompetence and stupidity, that's what I like to see. The fact is that terrorism and WMD are basically the death knell for the state and for government. In order to kill thousands of people in the past, you needed a big army, a state. Now, all you need is a box cutter, apparently. To kill millions of people in the past required an army like that of Jengiz Khan or Adolf Hitler, now, all you need is a phial or two of pneumonic plague bacteria. Government cannot respond to these threats. Terror and WMD are taking power and initiative away from government and into the hands of individuals. The only way for government to survive against this radical and violent individualism is to become massive, a police state, and we all know what happens to police states: they tear themselves apart from the rage of their enslaved populations. The Patriot Act is another step down America's road to the totalitarian police state.

I don't agree. Implementations of Marxism in history have almost always accompanied totalitarianism, and a tendency towards free markets has usually accompanied democracy. Not that this has to be the case, but if you are contending that Marxism is the natural accompaniment to democracy and capitalism to totalitarianism, the bulk of empirical evidence is against you and you will have to explain it very well to make a case. You should also note that I'm against democracy and totalitarianism. Consider that anarchists generally label themselves anarcho-capitalists or anarcho-socialists, the "anarchist" part describes what they want to do, and the "capitalist" or "socialist" part describes what they think will happen. Without a state and without coercion, neither capitalist nor socialist has any way to ensure that their desired outcome will be the actual outcome. Another point for you to think about is this: If you are against totalitarianism, and you are against anarchy, then you eliminate the polar opposites on the power scale. If that is the case, you must believe that there is an "optimal" amount of government we should have. How much is enough, and why is it not too little, or too much? The fact is that any defence of a non-anarchist or non-totalitarian argument is purely arbitrary and thus indefensible because it rests solely on opinion rather than on any a priori truths. Science and nature are based on simple and universal truths. Anarchism is based on simple and universal truths. Statism, however, is based on highly convoluted and subjective opinions. I see that as plainly false. Democracy means that those in the majority are superior than those in the minority, because the majority is allowed to force its will upon the minority. Therefore, democracy revolves about inequality and iniquity. Think about this carefully. The only example you mention is lobby groups. How are lobby groups able to "taint equality"? The only way is by influencing government, and without government, lobby groups would be utterly useless. The most anyone can do without government, without coercion, is to ask. Nobody can demand. I'm afraid I don't know what you're getting at here. Can you clarify?

Of course. No anarchist would tell you that anarchy will relieve human error and suffering, it is impossible to do so. What anarchy will do, however, is remove human error from positions of power where those errors are able to do massive harm to millions of people, by eliminating those positions of power. Think of it as damage limitation. Capitalism is to say, "people are greedy, how can we minimise this problem?" as anarchism is to say, "people are fallible, how can we minimise this problem?" Socialism is denial of the existence of greed, just as statism is denial of the existence of fallibility. Socialism requires belief in New Socialist Man to work, statism requires belief in the Philosopher-King to be feasible. Since I know you are a capitalist, I hope this comparison will strike a chord with you.

Then explain how, because I don't see it. Anarchy is about freedom, not about telling people what to do. So I can tell you what I think would happen under anarchism, but I can't tell you what will happen and nor can anybody else. If both owned the entranceway, then both would presumably reap the benefit of renovating it, therefore both would pay for it. If one did not want to, but the other desperately did, there are still options. If Y thinks the benefit would be so great, he could offer to buy Z out. He could propose that they seek an arbitrator. But in the end, no, there is absolutely no way to coerce Z into spending his money - his property - in a way he does not want. And that is right, moral and just, and if the entranceway goes unrenovated and all the tenants move out, Z has been given his just desserts for his economic irrationality.

Firstly, it's not Pareto-efficient because you can demonstrate a way (private law enforcement) that will provide better for less. I'm basing that on historical private law enforcement (for instance, after Peel introduced the metropolitan police force in London the crime rate didn't actually drop at all), and on historical evidence of the free market vs. the public sector, for example, the drop in price and increase in quality of the UK electricity supply after it was privatized. Secondly, all citizens are also in the same boat of needing food. Is this an argument for nationalising the food industry, from farm to grocery store? Or is it instead an argument that the free market is quite capable of providing a necessary and universal good, more capable, in fact, than nationalised food industries which have caused more deaths by famine than any natural disaster ever could? I think the latter. Yes, and rightly so. Humans are greedy, with some noteworthy but incredibly rare exceptions. You can either deny that and hope everything works out with a system that assumes humans are angels (socialism), or you can accept that and try to devise a system that will harness it for good (capitalism). For an analogy, consider that atomic power can be incredibly destructive but, when harnessed in the correct way, can be used for great good. "True communism" as most communist thinkers such as Marx, Bakunin, Chomsky or Proudhon saw it would be anarchy, not democracy. Perhaps you'll tell me which communist thinker you're basing this claim on. Furthermore, since both democracy and communism-by-force (which is the kind overwhelmingly used in history) rely on coercion, they cannot be Pareto-efficient. If somebody has to be coerced into an economic transaction, that very fact means that it cannot be Pareto efficient. But the police are individuals. So you are saying that individuals can be trusted to do what individuals cannot be trusted to do, which is wholly self-contradictory.

No, it does not. The police or army are (supposedly) there to enforce your rightful claims should you be unable to yourself. "Property ownership" merely means that you are morally entitled, or have the right, to dispose of your property as you will, save that it infringe upon another's rights. Involving the police presupposes that 1) somebody is interfering in your rights and 2) you cannot or will not pursue another avenue towards resolution of the conflict. The difference is that the force allows no competition and lacks the incentive to actually meet the demands of the masses, being disconnected from pricing and demand feedback. A monopolistic police force is not Pareto optimal and therefore is unjust and economically unsound. This can easily be seen because the only way the police are able to continue their monopoly is by the exercise of violence.

Ah, so I see you don't know any Latin. That's not surprising, given that your English is so rudimentary. Ad populum means "of the people", and if you understood that you would know that I was referring to your fallacy of "since 99% of people reject anarchy, that proves it wrong." Consider that exactly the same argument can be used to prove the foreign policy of the USA is wrong, since most of the world disagrees with it. Does that illustrate the fallacy well enough for you? Your claim to be a Marine, on the other hand, is simply a fallacy of insufficient evidence. The only thing you can prove here is your ability as a debater, so I suggest you stick to that, and refrain from making claims to false authority that you cannot substantiate. A federal judge already proved you wrong. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. You call the question "stupid" because you wish to divert attention from the fact that you have no answer satisfactory either to me or even to yourself. What if the only reason they were firing at you was because they wanted you to leave them alone? What if their firing at you is, as they see it, an exercise of their right to defend and protect themselves? Countless times in history, US troops have fired upon and killed US citizens. I'm asking if, as a US soldier, you would join the example of your historical colleagues? Good thing, too, or we'd be discussing yet another fallacy. None of this is the case but, even if it were, it's utterly irrelevant. You further prove your inadequacy with such ad hominem attacks. I'm sorry, you don't know Latin, do you? Ad hominem means an argument against the debater rather than against their viewpoint. It's another fallacy, which shouldn't surprise you. Pretty much everything you've said has been a fallacy so far. Well, somebody would have to start before I could know if I would get tired. I'm not trying to back anything up, nor do I have to, because it was your contention in the first place, therefore the onus is on you to provide evidence of it. Until you do, I won't believe you.

So a couple hundred people decided one day to pool their money and build a condo to live in? In that case, if they set up a management committee, they are all there of their own free will and expressly consented to abide by the decisions of the Committee, therefore, that is not an analogy for the state because consent is unanimous, competition is not outlawed and contribution is mutually agreed upon by all. This is both an irrelevant and an unanswerable question. Irrelevant because the prices set are of no consequence to the question of how and why they should be charged, unanswerable because there are as many answers as there are people. Ideally, a person would make an economically rational decision, but there are many different outcomes that can all be described as economically rational, and then you can add all the economically irrational decisions that people frequently make. He might perform a cost/benefit analysis, do a survey, read some tarot cards or tea leaves. It's really irrelevant.

No. Is it getting under your skin that I spotted your ad populum fallacy? Sorry, but it did, and no amount of denials from you will make the lawsuit that they filed go away. I don't even know what this means. It's not English. By all means, let us have your thoughts on the PA. I don't think you have any, though, all you're doing here is trolling. I'm sure I'll get no answer. I think you'll find that hypothesis is, in fact, an essential part of social and political science. I also know your allegation that I'm "setting you up" is because you know full well that you can't answer that question without portraying yourself as a liar, or an idiot, and you'd rather just drop that hot potato. A "manic deppressant" [sic] would be something that makes one manic depressive, like a drug. You're calling me a drug? An inferiority complex is a psychological condition. A syndrome is a group of symptoms. Very much so. If what you say is true, you're an aggressive and heavily armed man with the moral reasoning of a rottweiler, and official sanction to do massive violence and murder to other people. Any sane man would be threatened by you. Yes, that might bother me. I'll let you know if it happens. Why don't you just PM me the results of the Google search you did to come up with those terms? That would save me a lot of time! Then why ask?

I think it was Tolstoy who said that the Church ceased to be Christian when it became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Since that point, organised Christianity has generally indulged in thoroughly anti-Christian behaviour, such as pursuit of earthly wealth and power, incitement to and even perpetration of violence, idol-worship, blasphemy, claims to intercede between man and God, evangelism and loud public worship, and so forth. What you have mentioned, Blackdog, is more of the same: people who call themselves Christians as they reject the teachings of Christ.

We really need to define what's going on here. Does somebody own the whole building and charge rent to tenants (in which case, he'd just tack the renovation costs onto the rent)? Or do condo owners buy the individual apartments and leave the ownership of the actual building and its infrastructure (hallways, elevators, utility supplies) to another (in which case, he'd "bundle" the renovation costs into the condo fees they are paying for upkeep of the building and infrastructure)? In any case, there is no need for a Management Committee or anything like it. It merely boils down to "who owns what." You could have a Residents Committee, but they wouldn't have any jurisdiction over what they didn't own, e.g. whether or not an entranceway gets renovated. Any association with voluntary membership is perfectly acceptable - as long as they agree not to infringe upon non-member rights. But as you'll see above, I don't think that a Management Committee is necessary or useful. Ownership is rights, August.

Is the world flat? Was it when 99% of people thought it was? What about when bleeding and leeches were good for your health? When fresh air caused disease? When mental illness was heresy? The ACLU. Yes, it is, and I even quoted you saying it! Well, it's not automatically at all, for a start. The law is somewhat of a lottery. I don't remember anyone arresting Clinton for the self-confessed crime of marijuana possession - does the fact that it happened 30-odd years ago mean it is no longer a crime? As regards losing rights, the fact is that one institution decides the rules, enforces them, sets your punishment and so forth. So therefore, it's not surprising when that institution decides to grant itself far too much power (as in the Patriot Act) and decide that since all rights stem from the institution, it has the right to revoke them. Why? It's pretty simple. If you received a legitimate order to fire upon US citizens, in any circumstance you care to name, would you follow it? Yes or no? You see, Dookie, here's my problem. All that information is on the web and can be found by anyone. I don't believe for two seconds that you're actually a Marine. You can't/won't prove it, and furthermore, I have been contacted by people from forums you apparently frequented where you trolled ferociously and made silly Walter-Mitty claims about yourself. So I'm told, at least, by people I consider more trustworthy than you. And no, thank you, I don't think I want to earn the title of "rifleman" or to define it more accurately, "government hitman." Soldiers are mostly mercenaries and assassins, Dookie, they kill people for money.

Actually, August, you have given a simple but good argument for a private-property society. Basically, your argument rests upon rights coming with ownership, which is exactly my point. Your analogy about the condo hinges upon the fact that the "Condominium Management Committee" is the legitimate owner of the condo or represents the legitimate owners. The Government is not the legitimate owner of Canada, nor does it represent the owners of Canada (if it did, you'd get one vote per dollar's worth of property you owned). What are you digressing from? Is it an answer to my point about your theory of collective ownership of Canada embodied in the state? I put my property in a bank along with others, at which point it becomes the collective ward of the bank. However, I can ask for my property back at any time. I cannot ask the government for my property back at any time, therefore, the government cannot be the trustees of our collective property.

Am I to understand, then, that you view the violent expropriation of land (theft) as legitimate when conducted by the Crown? That the Crown had the right to expropriate land from the Indians and the French by violence? If you think this is the case, then perhaps I should come to your house and take away all your possessions. It would be perfectly just. If not, then the "Crown" and thus the Government has no right to what it supposedly owns. If the "people of Canada" owned anything, wouldn't it be better to place it in their hands directly (as in anarchy) rather than to insist that it be held by so-called representatives who in fact only represent 16% of the population? Doesn't that just guarantee that a lot of people are going to be denied the right to collective property that they supposedly own a part of?

Why am I obliged to run? This argument suffers from the fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question. You assume that one should be obliged to participate in the system without demonstrating why one should be obliged. Your argument stems from an assumption. If I can only truly opt out by leaving the country, this means that either a) the state owns Canada and everything in it or something gives the state the right to violate property law. Either way, you've got some explaining to do, because neither of these are a priori knowledge. The opposite of anarchy is totalitarianism, so is that your idea of progress? The march towards the totalitarian state and the communist economy? Orwell's 1984?