The state’s monopoly on violence should be used judiciously and sparingly to secure our individual rights, not as a catch-all tool for coercing (or outright forcing) people into making the choices you want them to.
(For instance, Hummers are allegedly already technically illegal by weight on California residential streets. When was the last time that was enforced? When was the last time an owner paid fines on that?)
This old article mentions a lot of advantages of electric velomobiles vs cars like doing average commutes in roughly the same time, dramatic increase in road capacity, tiny power consumption if everyone was to switch etc etc
But write-ups hardly ever mention how hard it is to damage a pedestrian with it. Crashes involving just velomobiles usually leave little more than a scratch.
May I steal this, please? I know a few people who don't get my political philosophy, and I want to help them understand.
Absent this, one of three conditions exist;
1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.
2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious. This is your condition of tyranny (unaccountable power).
3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition the State.
The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy
Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California P. p. 54.
https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...
There's an excellent explanation of the common misunderstanding in this episode of the Talking Politics podcast: https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership
The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard, and was further popularised by Nozick.
Of course. Glad it was cogent enough to be useful.
We as humans only really internalize the things we see.
Farther out in the sticks, sure, those things may be so inconvenient or unavailable that it's not an option, but it is for the average Suburban Assault Vehicle owner.
Doesn't make sense to make e.g. farm tractors that rarely see a public road, pay for public road maintenance when fuel's purchased for them. Or trucks and other vehicles (some farms are really big and may include road-worthy vehicles that hardly drive on a public road more often that the tractors do).
If you're going to only drive on private land, you also don't need tags/plates for your car, at least around here. No registration. Just personal property tax and you're good to go.