I have a question on your analysis.

What do you say to the individual who does not see murder as immoral?  I think we have plenty of them in government.  Is it their moral obligation to ignore laws against murder, (which is what they are doing)?  What

I think one of the problems with morality is that it is relative.  Abortion, taxes, homosexuality, war... almost any topic has players on both sides.

Interesting logic, and an interesting question you raise, Chili. On the whole, Larken's logic is fairly sound, if simplistic (there are far more than just TWO solutions to the dilemma he puts forward...there are in my opinion myriad grey solutions. So while the logic is a little swiss-cheesy, I find myself more or less in accord with Larken's conclusions, up to a certain point.

He essentially hits us with the Nuremberg question. Should the rank and file have disobeyed certain immoral orders? Unequivocally, we answered YES and formalized it into a revised international legal system. I think that when you extrapolate the Nuremberg result to it's logical extreme, the abolition of Statism does really follow, just as Larken says it does. It's funny that everyone knows about this, but they self-censor due to habit and, more or less, fear or insecurity. But there is more complexity that needs to be incorporated before this abstract tidbit can manifest in the real world.

One riddle I've yet to see anyone on the anarchist side adequately deal with is: if the State is utterly removed, what mechanism will prevent an almost immediate insurgency by neighboring States and/or the local Biker Gang instantly creating an even worse form of Statism...a rogue, lawless Statism that doesn't even provide the modest checks and balances of our current system, flawed though it is. I've never had anyone explain how a railroad can be built without a central bank...it just seems silly. (Sure, my bank would have interest-free constitutional money, a bank would be formed to do a project and then dissolved when its term expired. It would NEVER have personhood. Does this make me a Statist? Or just a freedom loving realist who like trains?)

Is there a happy middle ground? The founders speak of a well-regulated militia. Ponder the "well-regulated" part. Is that a compromise between Statism and Anarchism? Why is it that throughout history organized groups with leaders have annihilated their unorganized neighbors time and time again. Is it good to be without some organizational structure when the neighboring State comes for you and yours?

Lest you think I'm a Statist, know that I do not see an irreconcilable gap between voluntarism and regulation (law). I do see one between idealism and realism. I can offer thousands of situations in which ideas that are logically/abstractly sound, fail epically because while "true" they just aren't "real".

Larkin: The choice isn't just between Statism and Anarchy, there is also a third choice... the great American Experiment: Self Government.

Chili: What you say to a person who thinks murder isn't immoral is convince 1 out of 12 of your peers of your opinion and you walk.

In America you are free to do as you please up to the point you damage another person.  There need not be ANY regulations placed on the People because the People are responsible to eachother for damage (and success) they cause one another; damages are regulated by both Grand and Petit Juries on a case by case basis. 

I can't beleive Larkin would even write something like this.  Although if he had a public school education like mine, I guess I can.  This is America Civics 101.

The "great American experiment" (which failed utterly) was an attempt to legitimize the initiation of violence, based on the same insane premise of "government" that EVERY tyrannical empire has been based upon: the notion that some people can have the right to rule, and that others have a moral obligation to obey. The list of types of aggression the Constitution sought to legitimize was a lot shorter than most attempts to create a ruling class, but it was NOT about "self government." Giving the crooks called "Congress" "the power to tax," and the power to "regulate," was not about PROTECTING rights; it was about VIOLATING them.

A few quick responses:

MC, "American Civics 101" is self-contradictory, insane propaganda designed to indoctrinate people into the cult of state-worship, so they will stop behaving like human beings (with free will, responsibility, etc.), and instead behave like easily-managed cattle. The fact that we were all taught the same lie does not make it true.

TC, If someone actually thinks murder is moral then, from his perspective, that's what he should do. And my conscience would tell me to try to stop him. I'm not saying that everyone's judgment is perfect (far from it), or that we'll all agree on everything (far from it). But no one can ever have a moral obligation to ignore his own conscience. And it is the belief in "government" that leads otherwise good people to advocate, or even commit, theft, assault, and murder, because they believe that obedience is a virtue. Compare the rates of theft and murder committed by individuals on their own, to those committed by people in the name of "authority." It's not even close. Dealing with the occasional nasty guy or looney would be a piece of cake compared to dealing with the "legal" acts of aggression committed by the indoctrinated statists.

DD, Actually, there is NO gray area in the point of this article. There can be a lot of factors and gray areas that go into trying to figure out what is the right thing to do in any given situation. But no one EVER has a moral obligation to do what he thinks is WRONG. No one EVER can be obligated to obey "the law" over his own conscience.

And no, there can't be a compromise. If my conscience and "the law" conflict, I can follow one or the other. I can't follow both. I can't be obligated to "kind of" follow "the law," or "kind of" do what I think is right. One must outrank the other.

As for the threat of other control freaks taking over, the VAST majority of "government" power comes, NOT from its ability to use brute force, but from its perceived LEGITIMACY in the eyes of its victims. Frankly, I would LOVE for the U.S. to be taken over by "foreign" tyrants, because then the American people would be able to SEE the tyranny for what it is, and would feel no qualms about resisting it. Right now, they're so indoctrinated into the belief that obedience to their "representatives" that they can be stomped into the dirt, and all they will do is say, "Please, massah, stop ... if you want to."

Larken, thanks for your response. We're mainly in agreement, I think. In the abstract, if you assume that there will always be a clearly delineated choice between common law vs. personal morality, then I guess you can say "there is no grey area" and paint out a black-and-white abstract world. I tried to concede that by saying that what you said is "true". But is it "real"? You point out that grey areas and grey solutions exist in the real-world decision one is faced with. Every possible application of your reasoning will be real-world. Ergo...see what I mean? You have not resolved this.

I'm with you on the non-initiation of violence ideal. I'm with you 100% in the abstract. But again, back in messy reality, there will always be a wide spectrum of individuals initiating violence within and without the state, from tyrants to drunken idiots, and even and especially within organized, centralized religions, which might be the ultimate uber-Statists, owing to their black-and-white treatment issues in an abstract.

I hope you would agree that the actual, real-world problem devolves down to a MINIMIZATION of the initiation of violence. My hinge-pin question was very clear: if you remove the entire organizational infrastructure of a Nation-State, then what prevents a real-world increase in violence? What prevents the local bikers from taking over the whole works pronto? This was incredibly commonplace in the uber-libertarian Wild West. Worse, what prevents a neighboring state that stayed organized from taking over the whole works? Such as Mexico did to us for a while, or we did to the Indians to this day?

In the question of freedom, we see the same. If I am absolutely free, then I can punch your nose freely and you would be in clear moral violation of the abstract ideal of absolute freedom (which you treat as notionally black and white, having stated there is NO GREY AREA in your arguments) if you dared to interfere with my fist breaking your nose. I mean, in the ideal, my utterly free fist must not be impeded by any noses. On the other hand, we could get all Statist and say my fist has no business even existing without a license, let along going around anywhere. That also, would be a bad, simplistic, black-and-white error. Neither case MAXIMIZES the level of freedom we all enjoy, both "black and white" solutions are epic fails. The practicable solutions are maximizations and minimization problems. The optimal solutions are NEARLY ALL GREY NEARLY ALL OF THE TIME, but only if you want to move them from the abstract world of "true" into the useful world of "real". See what I mean? Black and white thinking is irresistibly beautiful in it's simplicity, and historically this has made "idealists" the most insidiously dangerous of critters. Typically, the young see in black and white, and age renders everything grey.