And you're wrong about Somalia btw: they do have a government, which collects taxes, introduces regulations and does all good government supposed to do, including corruption. [1][2][3]
> Ed Snowden put a lot more on the line by blowing the whistle than I am by signing.
Well, yeah, by signing you are putting absolutely nothing on the line so that's true :)
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5176102.stm
[2] http://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2011/jan/17383/somalia_s_govern...
In Somalia you do have a lot of government interference - you just have many smaller (wannebe) ones there, fighting against each other for power, vs. one big.
And that is precisely my point: people think of freedom as a scalar, as the absence of constraints on their personal decision-making. But this is wrong. Your decisions are always constrained, if not by "government" (however you choose to define it) then by your fellow humans. And if not by your fellow humans (e.g. if you go live in the middle of Nunavut) then by the laws of physics.
It's an incentive for other actors to try to imitate the role of government through other means.
Actually, not just Somalia - Africa is ripe with examples of these.
Also, I've never met a "true" (in the sense that they tell you about it as soon as you talk to them) libertarian who isn't also a raging asshole.
But there are assholes on all points of the spectrum, so I'm not sure what that proves. :D
And no, I am not being facetious. People like to think of freedom as a scalar, but it's actually a vector with complex interactions among its various dimensions, one of which is the government.
That said, I am absolutely signing the petition. Ed Snowden put a lot more on the line by blowing the whistle than I am by signing.