Quote (thundercock @ May 21 2021 11:55pm)

Indeed. Rothbard's argument is pretty juvenile IMO because he doesn't go to the logical conclusion. If there was no penalty for breaching your contract, idiots would pay less in taxes because people want to freeload. Then society would devolve and we'd look around and say, "wow this is really fucking shitty...let's come up with a mechanism to address these problems." Then we'd be back to where we are today. The very existence of the state shows that the argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny and it takes a rather static view of the world.

Quote (cambovenzi @ May 22 2021 12:07am)

Calling his argument juvenile is not an argument.

Who said anything about no penalty for breaching a contract?

No the existence of the state does not refute the argument. That doesn't make any sense.

Taxation is not the only way to address a given problem. But lets say it was. That still wouldn't make it 'not theft'.

You aren't willing or able to identify and refute the argument.

Quote (cambovenzi @ May 21 2021 09:07pm)

Calling his argument juvenile is not an argument.

Who said anything about no penalty for breaching a contract?

No the existence of the state does not refute the argument. That doesn't make any sense.

Taxation is not the only way to address a given problem. But lets say it was. That still wouldn't make it 'not theft'.

You aren't willing or able to identify and refute the argument.

Quote (thundercock @ May 22 2021 12:21am)

You're correct that calling his argument juvenile isn't a refutation. It wasn't intended to be and it's simply my opinion. It's no different than calling Ghot a fucking idiot. I'm entitled to a little bit of color, aren't I?

You seem to be struggling to understand my argument so I'll break it down piece by piece. The first question I have is if you believe that contract enforcement is legitimate. Yes or no?

Quote (Skinned @ May 22 2021 12:10am)

What penalty could there be for breaking a contract without political force Cam? There would be no judges, courts, or any law. It would be what the Greeks did before the Draconian Code, which was basically dynastic blood feuding between families.

Contracts would be all honor system and that is silly in realpolitik.

Quote (cambovenzi @ May 22 2021 12:32am)

This is a false assertion. you know this

Quote (thundercock @ May 22 2021 12:21am)

You're correct that calling his argument juvenile isn't a refutation. It wasn't intended to be and it's simply my opinion. It's no different than calling Ghot a fucking idiot. I'm entitled to a little bit of color, aren't I?

You seem to be struggling to understand my argument so I'll break it down piece by piece. The first question I have is if you believe that contract enforcement is legitimate. Yes or no?

Quote

even if the majority of the public specifically endorsed each and every particular act of the government, this would simply be majority tyranny rather than a voluntary act undergone by every person in the country.
Murder is murder, theft is theft, whether undertaken by one man against another, or by a group, or even by the majority of people within a given territorial area.
The fact that a majority might support or condone an act of theft does not diminish the criminal essence of the act or its grave injustice.
Otherwise, we would have to say, for example, that any Jews murdered by the democratically elected Nazi government were not murdered, but only "voluntarily committed suicide--surely, the grotesque but logical implication of the "democracy as voluntary" doctrine.

Secondly, in a republic as contrasted to a direct democracy, people vote not for specific measures but for "representatives" in a package deal; the representatives then wreak their will for a fixed length of time. In no legal sense, of course, are they truly "representatives" since, in a free society, the principal hires his agent or representative individually and can fire him at will.

Quote (cambovenzi @ May 21 2021 09:45pm)

As a general concept, yes.

Quote (thundercock @ May 22 2021 01:09am)

Great. We've established that you believe in contract enforcement in the general sense. Now, here is the next question: If there were no contract enforcement mechanisms, many people would breach the contract due to greed or some other vice. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?