So even with a valid passport, Russia would have had to make an exception to their normal rules.

What do you think is stopping Google from non-complying with an order to install a fedbox in their datacenter? Armed guys who would go in and confiscate equipment, or even put some managers in jail for "aiding the enemy". "Court order" is just a paperwork to justify concrete violence.

What stops you from not paying your taxes (when you dislike war, spying or whatever gov is doing)? It is armed people who would come in and extract your property from you. And they will always be slightly more violent than amount of self-defense you'd try to apply.

Your argument is silly. "Armed people" are just a tool to enforce policies enforced by governments. It is them, not the soldiers, we should be worried about.

I think one of the big injustices of our time we will look back to with disgust (like slavery 200 years ago) is not allowing people to go wherever they want to go. What gives us any right to deny people to live anywhere on the planet they want to?

It’s just that I absolutely do not believe that abolishing (all or large parts of) government is any kind of solution to this.

(And, yes, this would have often dire economic consequences for some. Just as abolishing slavery had dire economic consequences for some. Doing the right thing isn’t free.)

The whole point of my comments is that what is generally considered immoral (threatening and killing) becomes 180 degrees different when some man in a nice costume says so. Don't you think someone was bullshitting us?

In my view, murder is never justified. Even in self-defense. However, in case of self-defense, you don't have much choice (and people around might understand you), while guys in the airport don't have any kind of attack and everyone can be peaceful and nice to each other and walk their way.

At least we have some mechanisms to influence the armed guys we have now.

As scientifically established by hollywood movies. Brilliant.

It is probably due to my education, and the time I was born, but I can't imagine a society working without "safeguards". Maybe it is because of lack of imagination, but I would like to see a working example, before making the jump. Which is a kind of chicken egg problem, because if no one tries, you can't know it works. Maybe it will seem obvious retrospectively in 500 or 1000 years, but currently it is not.

Even if we assume that ALL people who can no longer be employed because government disappeared cannot find jobs, it would only demonstrate that they can't work on jobs no one wants to pay for voluntarily. That is, if people wouldn't need cops anymore, because (let's imagine) there was no crime - no one would pay to private protection agencies and they would have to find something else to do. "Jobs" are not the desirable result, it's "doing something valuable" that's important.

You missed my point, anyway, which is that your comfortable notions of a safe, orderly society will go right out the window once the economy breaks down, which it would if you removed the framework in which it operates, which is basically indistinguishable from government.

"Any society is only three square meals away from revolution"

The major difference in this situation would be that clients of such firms would voluntarily pay money to be protected by them. If they don't want protection or don't like specific laws, they stop paying or switch. The monopoly we have now extracts money from taxpayers at gunpoint and provides a rather crappy service.

To demonopolize it is to remove it. The monopoly is the essence of the framework.

> We currently have a government framework of law, but nothing (except people not realizing it's even possible) prevents us from having multiple frameworks, each operating on its own client base (even when those clients physically live on the same territory) and negotiating with each other when disputes between clients of two different agencies arise.

This kind of patron/client system is not novel, and most people do, in fact, recognize that it is possible.

> The major difference in this situation would be that clients of such firms would voluntarily pay money to be protected by them.

Unless there is some supervisory entity that does have a monopoly enforcing it (in which case, this remains a monopoly system with low-level enforcement farmed out, not a demonopolized system), voluntariness seems, well, dubious. You've just invented a system competing warlords (well, invented is too strong a term, its the basic model of primitive feudalism.)

"A general reminder whenever budget issues are discussed: the U.S. government is — this isn’t original — best thought of as a giant insurance company with an army. When you talk about federal spending, you’re overwhelmingly talking about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense. And the bulk of the insurance — all of Social Security and Medicare, about 2/3 of Medicaid — is for the elderly and disabled."

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/an-insurance-com...

So: the decisions of the armed dude are real, but "legal statement" is just a virtual abstraction invented to hide the fact that some violence will be applied.

So lets simply pray that gunned men are educated well and let them do their thing. E.g. killing innocent people overseas.

In that case you'll have to consider all kind of perspectives, because what's considered right or wrong varies greatly by who is doing the consideration.

I'm not the one who teaches you what's good and what's bad. I'm just pointing out grave contradictions in other people's justifications that lead to all sorts of things that many consider "evil".

In other words: I'm not the one who will violently oppose your lifestyle, nor will I support those who will violently intervene in your life. Believe in what you want, live with people you like. I'd only like the same respect from you towards me. And in case we have some conflict, I'm all for peaceful non-violent solution. E.g. dialog, public debate, "defamation", boycott, economic ostracism etc. But no guns and ass-kicking (unless someone pulls out knifes and forks, in which case I'd have to run away and/or fight back, but I still don't justify violence).

What real armed obedient guys on the border?

Not true. When you are complying because a gun is present, you fear that gun. There for it is being used.

"You imply you obey laws only because there are men with guns. "

Which implies the specific law may be wrong.

"This indicates you will use violence to avoid obeying laws. "

This indicates that you don't believe in opposing unjust laws, and shooting any one who disagrees.

"That is why I need protection from you."

Or from you.

If you believe it's wrong, work to get it changed through non-violent means.

> This indicates that you don't believe in opposing unjust laws

Using violence to oppose laws perceived by you as unjust is wrong so long as there is a democracy at work. And no, I will not accept the argument that because the majority happens to disagree with you, the democracy must not be working.

> and shooting any one who disagrees.

As far as I can tell, it is you who wants to shoot anyone who tries to enforce a law you don't like. I call that reprehensible and have no sympathy for you.

Its not as black and white as you think. If a minority is oppressed by a majority, then yes, the democracy is broken. The point of democracy is not legalized mob rule, it MUST protect minorities.

The last bit you just made up.

People don't always do the right thing, film at 11. That's not a reason to eradicate law enforcement nor government as a whole.

> Most existing approved methods to change law simply dont work for most normal people.

Failure to change a law to suit your own whims is not a failure of the mechanisms. It is your failure to persuade.

> The point of democracy is not legalized mob rule, it MUST protect minorities.

In the end, minorities are only ever protected by consent of the majority. A society whose people do not believe in rule of law cannot and will not effectively protect minorities, no matter the governance structure or what any piece of paper says.

All we can do is try to instill the rule of law, and set up rules and institutions to protect everyone's rights in anticipation that, at any given moment, the majority may wish to treat a minority unjustly. We must then hope that either the majority is persuaded that their hatred does not justify damaging those rules and institutions, or that the majority view changes before it succeeds in punching a hole in them.

> The last bit you just made up.

You made up my alleged desire to shoot people who "resist" laws.

If you're just using guns as a proxy for "someone is telling me what to do and I don't like it", then how about being a little more honest and just saying "I don't want to obey rules I don't like"?

Both my and your lives are 95% peaceful anarchy - we voluntarily interact with who we want and ignore people we dislike or disapprove of. The remaining 5% - is when some dudes in costumes brainwash us to comply with a well-hidden gun. Try to "disagree" by not paying your taxes and see what happens.

All I hear when someone talks about how laws are enforced with guns is "I am civilized only so long as someone has the capacity to be more violent than I.". To me, this is madness.

If I fail to pay my taxes and I sit at home completely non-violently, at some point, a man with a gun will come to my house and move me.

If I ignore liens, my home will be foreclosed, and eventually the sheriff will forcibly remove me from the property.

If I am subject to asset forfeiture and my cars, trucks, bulldozers, gold bars, or prized kittens are ever found, they will be forcibly taken from me.

This is all done through the use of force by men who wield guns.

If you ignore liens, you have forfeited the right to live in that home by not paying your financial obligations.

Your arguments imply that the men with guns are the cause of the use of force. In reality, the men with guns are the consequence for disobeying the rules of a civil society.

The gun isn't there to be used against you unless you're going to be violent. The gun is there because they can never be sure when someone might become violent.

It is not a crime for anyone to ask me for my wallet. Nor is it a crime for anyone to tell me they will shoot me if I attack them.

It appears I can simply walk away. Neither crime nor violence will have occurred.

A crime occurs when the robber threatens to shoot me unless I comply with demands he has no right to make.

On the other hand, an IRS agent telling you to pay your taxes has every right to demand that you pay your taxes, and will never threaten to shoot you if you do not. He will threaten to shoot you if it looks like you're about to physically threaten him.

But, more importantly, it seems to be that your point is that crime is not a crime as long as it appears to not be one. As long as a robber asks and I cooperate, it's not a crime. As long as IRS doesn't use force first, it's okay to steal things from me. I don't agree with that. What right on earth does anyone have to take away from me the money I honestly made? Who gave anyone this right? Why should I comply except for the reason that if I don't, they will make my life difficult and will still manage to take things away from me? I haven't stripped anyone off their money, I created value and sold it to people who were willing to buy. Explain to me: why does anyone have the right to take money from me?

This is the reality of human society. We are herd animals, and the herd has spoken. Your extreme anti-social views have not and will not prevail, for the logical (and observed) results are intensely undesirable to those of us who wish to live in relative peace.

Who makes up this society? Just the people in your political borders? What about the people in other countries? Or would they count only after their military successfully invades your country? And when their military does this, everyone in that country is responsible, right? Cause it's their "agents", right? So if it is an illegitimate invasion, they are all guilty? Or would the guilty just consist of the immature and irresponsible anarchists who didn't support any of the warmongers up for election? How would we know if it is an illegitimate invasion? Society decides, I guess?

It's amazing how the blatant conflation of state and society that you make is allowed to pass in debates about anarchism with such frequency. And how often the people who make that conflation pat themselves on the back for being all "nuanced" and mature when in fact, through sloppy thinking, they managed to avoid dealing with all the problems that the anarchist has had to work through in order to arrive at his position.

And this is, I believe, why it's so comparatively common with computeristas; it is a worldview which is much more logical and binary than the current one, with the implication that such a worldview is obviously better. No nuance is necessary but there are no nuances to perceive in this system.

This is, of course, why the system is not suitable for general implementation. It will be quickly and immediately co-opted by those who can perceive nuance where others see only black/white, who will eventually bring the whole edifice crashing back down again.

He takes away things that aren't rightfully his.

The robber has not performed services for you. He hasn't maintained your street, educated your children, or ensured the safety of your food. He's not saving for your retirement or using your money to create a social safety net for those in need. You don't owe him anything.

All US citizens benefit from government services in some form. If you'd like to opt out, you are free to move to Somalia and renounce your citizenship. But as long as you're living in a civilization, you have to help maintain it.

That is my point. By indicating you expect guns to be used, you indicate that you expect to be violent. At that point, you have surrendered your right to not be subjected to violence.

If you feel you are personally entitled, will you consider it moral to come and get what's yours? Will you allow other citizens to do so towards you?

About income tax: imagine I work an hour and sell some artwork to a friend. How did this affect anyone on the planet so that government is entitled for an income tax from what my friend gave me? If I tell you about that transaction, will you consider it moral and good to report it to IRS? Will you do that to any of your friends, or only people you don't like much?

Make a thought experiment what would happen if you try to peacefully move to another country without a passport.

First and most important attribute of a sovereign is monopoly over violence throughout the specific sovereignty.

No guns no sovereignty. Thats how it goes.

As I said in my post the first and mandatory requirement for one to be sovereign is to have a monopoly upon violance within particular geographic region.

What you declare is absolutely irrelevant. You are sovereign if and only if you are firstly capable of defending yoursef from harm and second unleashing harm upon others within this teritory.

There need not be any justification for violence beyond whim of the sovereign. So if you walk outside the airport against sovereigns will, local sovereign may do harm unto you.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with morality.