[ExI] Conscientious objections

[James Clement]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 8:25 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:36 PM, James Clement <clementlawyer at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > As an Anarcho-Capitalist / Agorist, I concur that it's unreasonable to
> > insist that living in a geographical location is automatic consent to the
> > governance of that location by a State. A State is a legal fiction we
> > substitute for the people who claim power over other people's lives,
> usually
> > at the point of a gun. If these people lose their control over a
> location,
> > including by way of the passive disobedience of residents of that
> location,
> > then the fiction of the State will become far more obvious.
>
> Isn't "the State" as likely to treat you as a criminal for your
> disobedience no matter how passive?
>

The people who represent the legal fiction we refer to as a State may
absolutely treat dissenters, however passive, as law-breakers, and attempt
to punish them. For example, it's illegal to merely hold up a placard that
disparages the President, unless you are located within a designated "free
speech zones,"<http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/how-big-deal-hr-347-criminalizing-protest-bill>which
is often a barbed-wired area miles from the President's motorcade
route.

Keep in mind that those who hold the guns may also, as is frequently seen
to be the case around the world, treat as criminals people who do anything
which they can write a law against (including obscure tax or regulatory
rules, homosexuality, prostitution, drug use, etc.).

I'm not an Objectivist, but I like Ayn Rand's dialogue in Atlas Shrugged
between Dr. Ferris and Hank Reardon: "Did you really think we want those
laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better
get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against...
We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so
many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live
without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's
there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither
be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a
nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the
system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be
much easier to deal with."
-- Ayn Rand <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/432.Ayn_Rand>, *Atlas
Shrugged <http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/817219>*

James
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20121114/7540dae9/attachment.html>