He's certainly letting his voluntarist-anarchist flag fly:
"What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.
The answer to that is that for thousands of years the acceptance of government force, to rule over the people, at the sacrifice of liberty, was considered moral and the only available option for achieving peace and prosperity.
What could be more utopian than that myth—considering the results especially looking at the state sponsored killing, by nearly every government during the 20th Century, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. It’s time to reconsider this grant of authority to the state.
No good has ever come from granting monopoly power to the state to use aggression against the people to arbitrarily mold human behavior. Such power, when left unchecked, becomes the seed of an ugly tyranny. This method of governance has been adequately tested, and the results are in: reality dictates we try liberty.
The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried. The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war. The theory of a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time. It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause, rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do."
"What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.
No, my objection is that Ron Paul wants to pretend property titles are not acts of aggression backed by the state. I'm no anarchist, but I am a believer in the Enlightenment and the social contract. When a regime of property has grown unbearable to the people, it is the right of the people together to abolish it and free themselves of its burden.
Whereas Ron Paul would say that anyone wishing for even the slightest alteration of existing property arrangements is exercising the "offensive use of force." No, we are simply withdrawing force once exercised because we no longer approve its usage.
You are not entitled to a police force that defends your plantations, factories, mines and, yes, server farms and retail outlets from the angry, starving masses. You receive that defense because you're part of a society that works together and must work for everyone.
"Anarcho"-capitalism is in no way anarchist: without hierarchies.
Any proper anarcho-capitalist has no choice but to agree with the majority of your comment. The alternative is to endorse whatever system currently exists, decomposing it into the an-cap framework in terms of one entity, the government, owning everything. So any individual anarcho-capitalist must have a certain idea of what constitutes an unjust property distribution that should be revolted against.
The idea of the 'social contract' isn't terrible - for any sort of stability, there must be a rough consensus on what constitutes society's Schelling points. The problem comes about when the concept is taken as an immutable condition and used to nebulously justify the specifics of the current system, lulling people into believing in change from within. Any contract needs to have well specified methods of exit.
These days, the most profitable ways to violate other people don't involve physical aggression. But as someone who makes a living based on people trying to screw other people over, I don't think the need for government to reign in such behavior is any less now than it ever was.
It is an oversimplification to think that Ron Paul's politics have been anti-governmental, because he has consistently stood up for states' rights, and state governments are governments.
Granting monopoly power to state governments to use aggression against the people would have resulted in the continued application of that aggression against slaves.
"What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian, dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.
The answer to that is that for thousands of years the acceptance of government force, to rule over the people, at the sacrifice of liberty, was considered moral and the only available option for achieving peace and prosperity.
What could be more utopian than that myth—considering the results especially looking at the state sponsored killing, by nearly every government during the 20th Century, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. It’s time to reconsider this grant of authority to the state.
No good has ever come from granting monopoly power to the state to use aggression against the people to arbitrarily mold human behavior. Such power, when left unchecked, becomes the seed of an ugly tyranny. This method of governance has been adequately tested, and the results are in: reality dictates we try liberty.
The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should be tried. The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war. The theory of a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time. It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause, rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do."