Search the Community

That old meme still circulates that without government people would run around killing each other. But keeping the peace seems to be a big problem for big government.

I've recently run into people who follow the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. I hadn't heard of him, but they are like, the ultra statists, who have a particular penchant for demonizing libertarians/anarchists.The level of misunderstanding they have of the evidence, history, and track record of governments, along with their starkly diametrically opposed approach to things that I have is just so bewildering and astonishing. I had a lot of hope of how clarifying and sobering, and just logically comfortable the way Stefan approaches things, but once I ran into these Hobbesians, I became so discouraged. Like, as strong as we believe in logic and peace, there are those who so strongly believe in the state as a "place for people to come together" and the only method for protecting against criminals, and just the delusional, delusional track record of the government, and just... so much misattribution, and so muchdelusional fact-twisting. It made me think that people stick to waht they want, for all the emotional reasons Stefan mentions in his podcasts. You do go for the redeemable ones, and use your time effectively. I suppose it might help me if i looked at it with true statistics, just as I told the Hobbesians to look at a holistic view of the fruits of government.Anyway, this is partially my reflections of my encounter with Hobbesians, and my open invitation for discussing the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes as far as the an-caps are concerned. I'm not about to devote a ton of time reading books on Hobbes, but if someone is familiar already, I'd really appreciate distilled points that come down to the most fundamental level as possible (for example, NAP, empiricism vs mysticism, etc), and i'm sure it will be beneficial for the rest of us an-caps when we encounter, what seems to me as the absolutely possibly most opposite camp... possible.