Skreimey

I second the recommendation. This is a really insightful book, and I think Grossman brings some excellent points up in his work. I can tell you first hand that the training methods used by the military are very effective at producing people with a desire to kill. Life-like targets to shoot, providing role-models whom are characterized by cruelty and the complete alienation of enemies (all Muslims are "Hajj" and Hajj are a bunch of barbaric homosexuals and pedophiles). What was most intriguing to me was the bit about archaeologists recovering rifles from the Civil War that had been reloaded multiple times. Grossman posited that given that the killing-rates of both Confederate and Union units were far below their capabilities, soldiers were willing to go to a battlefield yet extremely reluctant to fire on another person. Some soldiers would just load their rifles again and again, putting themselves between enemies and their allies while unwilling to kill these enemies. I think it is a huge testament to the selflessness of the human spirit. Modern militaries are very good at removing this empathetic links between people, though.

In the analogy of boxing, one is making a voluntary decision to engage in sport. My participation in taxation is involuntary and cannot be avoided without great cost (monetary in the case of expatriation and opportunity cost in the case of being a nomad or outlaw). Even assuming that the social contract and democracy itself are moral (and I don't think so) in the United States, there is almost no meaningful representation of American's wishes at the federal level (ie, TARP. [80%+ public oppositon; legislators pass it anyway]), which renders these arguments invalid. To liken it to the boxing analogy, it would be like someone saying that by simply being on a certain street, you have an implicit agreement to pay for and participate in a boxing match, and if you wish to leave, then you must pay a hefty toll at all of the exits. The core of my argument comes down to this: 1) Taxation is enforced by violence 2) Most Americans (or anyone for that matter) have no meaningful representation in the law making process, therefore taxation is involuntary. 3) Democracy (popular opinion) is not equal to morality. 4) Individuals are not exempt from moral behavior simply by acting on behalf of the state (an abstraction) If taxation is done without representation, relies on a system of government which lacks moral justification, and is enforced by morally self-responsible individuals whom are aggressing against the taxed, then I can hardly see how somebody could justify that there is any morality in taking somebody's money at gunpoint to buy them something they didn't want because you think that it's good for them. --EDIT-- @ DaVinci, The problem with the second argument you made is one of individual vs universal applicability. If a woman enjoys or wants to be subjected to a series of actions most reasonable people would consider rape, that's her prerogative and choice. It's a false analogy, though. If an individual wants the oppression of a god-state, then I see no reason why they could not go live under one . . . just leave ME out of it. I am not waving guns at people and trying to force them to live an anarchistic lifestyle. I think I should be given the same courtesy.

For those of you interested in classic works concerning economics and politics, I highly recommend Frederic Bastiat. He was a French political economist and classical liberal whom wrote during the French Revolution. Many of his works are freely available online, and for those of you with android phones, I know several of his writings are available for free from the Google play store. You can also find them for free on Amazon's book store if that's how you roll. The Law is probably his most well known work. It is also one of the most compelling arguments against state inteference that I have read. http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html Also, if you were to read his essays on political economy such as Capital and Interest, I think you will be amazed at how similar the economic issues confronting France in 1848 are to the issues we face in America today. The English translations are easy reads and his arguments are often supported with very intuitive illustrations. There are a few religious overtones in his work, but keep in mind that he wrote at a time where heresy was still dangerous. What I found most interesting was his assessment of the effects of market uncertainty on the usage of capital. Bastiat wrote that in revolutionary France, owners of capital were very reluctant to invest in production due to the risk of rapid political changes destroying their investments. The bourgeois therefore spent their money on luxuries instead of wealth-producing endeavors because, as the saying goes, "eat, drink and be merry; tomorrow you may die." This seems extremely true today as luxury good sectors have seen unprecedented growth in the last few years, while jobs and investment in the elements of production continues to decline. It's amazing how little changes in 160 years.

Thanks for the welcome Demitri! I'm glad I'm not the only one on the board with a military background. I can relate to your motivations for joining. I was getting pretty far behind on repaying my student loans (which is part of a much longer story), and at the time I thought that I really needed a change of pace to get things back on track.. The allure of world travel and getting useful training were also big motivators. I'm glad that my job is more focused on saving lives rather than taking them, but I suppose making a contribution to the process isn't much better (though my unit is very unlikely to deploy anytime soon on anything but humanitarian missions).

DaVinci, I don't think "okay" or "justified" are appropriate terms for this situation. I think people use language like that to cloud the issue at hand (theft) and soothe the paine of cognitive dissonance generated by simultaneous feelings of pity and indignation. I could agree to the argument that stealing food to prevent starvation is 'less wrong' than stealing for pleasure or for gains beyond needs for survival. I think this is true in the same way that calling someone whom has provoked you a "bastard" is 'less wrong' than murdering them. By no means do I mean to say that either of these scenarios is "okay," but rather one is a less serious breach of ethical behavior than the other. The key disagreements I have with utilitarian arguments is that utilitarianism is in itself ends-oriented, which is to say that any moral atrocity is completely justified by a net increase in a population's happiness. The non-aggression principle and the ethics of Aristotle are means-oriented (good is defined by actions, not goals). Also, as another member pointed out, people whom subscribe to utilitarian views rarely volunteer themselves to be the sacrificial lamb for the common good (in my experience). This ethical system almost always seems to apply to everyone else. Finally, is it ever truly impossible that this starving man could provide nothing of value to the shopkeeper or anyone whom could give him the money to buy what he wants? I think there would be at least someone whom might exchange a meal for taking out the garbage or sweeping the street by the shop, even if only out of a sense of charity.

I like the changes you made. I think that you've bridged any logical gaps in the first post and made a good defense for what stayed. Now the real fun is in application of the theory. How can we use this belief that the majority of people hold incorrect views on a given subject to affect real world decisions that we make? Also, would it be possible to expand the theory to include which subjects majority views are more likely to be mistaken about and to what degree? For example, I think most people realize that a dense object will fall to Earth when dropped, though they probably have a limited understanding of why. On the other hand, most mainstream economists' predictions (typically widely adopted by the public) are wrong the majority of the time. Maybe we could say something about the complexity of an subject and the likelihood of accurate predictions by the majority. Let me know what you think.

Hello indefiance, I like the idea of putting a contrarian viewpoint into writing. I think it's a useful worldview (I made some decent returns in the market by contrarian investing [or at least before HFT algos and QE took over the market]). Here's my criticism of your argument. Premises 1-3 look sound to me. Premise 4 links human decision making with the mere possibility of such decision being made. I don't think human thinking is entirely random and follows some sort of Gaussian distribution of all possible viewpoints. Premise 5: complex != random. There are reasons (at lease perceived) for human action, so I don't think we can gloss over the bulk of decision making as completely chance. Furthermore, by what evidence do we agree to the assertion that all people are partially or completely mistaken in their philosophies? I agree, but I think there should be some evidence to support this statement (ie: X% of the world population believes in fallacy Y, therefore most people are at least partially mistaken). Furthermore, we would need a clear definition of what "right" is. The book on philosophy has yet to be closed, so this may not even be possible. Perhaps it would be better to say, "integrated with reality." I think it would be much easier to prove that there are very common beliefs which are completely unsupported by empirical evidence (omnipotent invisible friends control complicated events and influence human action, governments are the only way to get certain services, solar cells and wind farms could easily replace coal and nuclear power). Premise 6: Why must people agree that most people are wrong? Does it make sense that a person must admit that their worldview is almost certainly mistaken . . . I mean, people I've met seem to almost always believe that their viewpoint is correct (otherwise, why would they adopt it?). How often have you willingly chosen a belief which you knew with a high level of certainty was incorrect? I think that the majority of the population does have flawed worldviews, but I think if you posit those six points as a proof, they should be supported by evidence.

I appreciate the welcoming! I have just a couple anarchist friends, and they're all people I've met in Colorado. I would say that most of the guys here on post are politically apathetic or conservative (though rarely very serious about it). I have met one communist, though. I have found that Anarchy isn't something you can immediately introduce with most people (even outside the Army) without completely discrediting yourself in the eyes of others. I've been slowly feeling out the views of the other medics in my platoon, but there are only a few people whom seem like they might possibly be open to some of the ideas. I try to introduce anarchist perspectives subtley whenever I can; I've found that if people don't know an argument is from a voluntarist/anarchist perspective, they typically agree with it. I don't think finding or recruiting anarchists in a place like Ft. Bragg is an intractible problem; however, most people here have little concern for philosophy, politics or much of anything outside of strip clubs and getting wasted. It might seem like soldiers would all be Neo-Cons chomping at the bit to kill Muslims (and there are a few), but most of us are here because we just didn't have anywhere else to go. You might think of the Army as the island of misfit toys. That's the regular Army, though. Special groups like Rangers and Special Forces are where you sometimes get true believers, and those guys are terrifying.

Hello everyone. My name is Sam Kreimeyer, and I was first introduced to Stefan Molyneux and his online publications back around 2008 through a close friend I had while studying mining engineering at CSM in Golden, Colorado. I have been a proponent of small government and considered myself a Libertarian since my high school years, and I made the transition to being an anarchist after meeting the friend I mentioned previously and educating myself on his (a)political viewpoint. Honestly, I had never previously known that such a thing as an anarcho-capitalist even existed (I espoused the common stereotype of anarchists as molotov throwing communists with a penchant for punk rock and a vaguely defined resentment of corporations). Reading more the works of Rothbard, Mises and Bastiat was what really gave me the impetus to evaluate my ethical views and distill them to the conclusion that an anarchistic society, or at least a voluntaristic government, are the only possible moral means of social organization. Full disclosure: I am a medic in the US Army stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC. Essentially, I am one of the bad guys, but I hope you all won't see any of my comments or contributions as poisoned with insincerity. The story of how I came to be here is a long one, but the gist is that, despite being familiar with the legend of Faust, I made my own pact with the devil to predictable consequences. I greatly admire the work being done at FDR, and I am very excited after a long absence from the listening community to see how much Stefan's work and ideas have progressed (especially when it comes to framing people's worldview in the context of childhood experience [i couldn't agree more on the importance!]). I hope I can contribute some useful thoughts here in the community, and I look forward to seeing what other like minded individuals have to say about their own experiences and ideas.