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Government originated by conquest. When the first human beings decided to settle down and live in the same place (following the invention of agriculture), they became an easy target for criminal elements. Eventually, some bandit gang must have decided that it would be more profitable for them to stick around and live off of a particular group of victims
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There is nothing deplorable about publishing the name of a rape victim anymore than there is something deplorable about publishing the name of a murder victim (personally, I don't see how anybody who isn't a misandrist could oppose publishing the names of rape victims). In the cases in which the alleged rape victim is actually a "victim"
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Assuming that Hobbes is right, it doesn't necessarily follow that we need a State. What does follow, though, is that we cannot trust the free market to determine the content of the law (of course, just law is solely based on the non-aggression axiom). Assuming a free market of competing protection agencies within the same territorial area (which
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This is not difficult at all. If a parent is initiating force against a kid, then the kid has the right to press charges against the parent. If the kid does not choose to press charges, then no crime has been committed. A kid also has the absolute right to run away and either live on its own or seek other parents. However, it is a violation of the non
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I'll give the Frank Chodorov answer. People either believe in leaving other people alone or they believe in the need to engineer society to their liking. For the most part, this is innate in a person's character. The problem for libertarians is that the conservatives have hijacked what ought to be our positioning. The one silver lining here
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I watched part of Trump's embarrassing speech (I was waiting to listen to Rand Paul). From what I heard, he seems to be ignorant of the most basic principles of economics. Trump went on a tirade against OPEC, accusing them of raising oil prices and criticizing Obama because he allegedly refused to pressure OPEC to sell oil below the market price
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First, let me clarify that the status quo is NOT a free market, which is something that all "centrist" and "right" libertarians (personally, I regard myself as a "center-right" libertarian, as my views tend to be somewhere between Rothbard and Hoppe) recognize. Yes, the State's interference in the economy is harmful
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I found Molyneux's original review that started this debate and he lost me at the start where he pointed out that the Zeitgeist kooks agree with his nutty human nature denial and exaggeration of the prevalence of child abuse. Molyneux is sound on economics and I'm sure he refuted the economically ignorant Zeitgeist kooks, although he usually
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From a pure Rothbardian perspective, the answer is that all "taxation is theft." Thus, no taxation is justifiable. However, there are certain kinds of taxation which are less bad than others. The best form of taxation would be a single tax on voting. Since voting is a choice, everybody would be able to avoid taxation merely by not voting.
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When somebody calls themself a "left libertarian" or a "left Rothbardian," that usually means that they are trying to combine some leftist views with libertarianism and/or Rothbardianism. The "leftists" are often trying to smuggle in support for labor unions or even some of the bigoted beliefs of anti-male feminists (I