Armed people are those who make the choice. Gun does not kill, Putin does not kill. Armed dude who can follow or not follow the orders kills.
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.
So what? That's sad, but in the end we rely on existence of these armed guys to do whatever we need to do. In post-apocalyptical fantasies where government armed guys cease to exist, who would usually thrive? Organized armed guys.
At least we have some mechanisms to influence the armed guys we have now.
In places with lack of central government, (ruthless) armed group tends to become the de facto ruling regional organisations, like Somalia, Libya, etc. This is debatable that the lack of government is the only issue with these areas. However, I don't have examples who come to mind where the lack of central authority transitioned in a peaceful coexistence of different factions/regions/tribes.
Let's conduct a thought experiment: tomorrow everyone in the US wakes up and realizes there's no government, no cops, no army etc. And for the purity of the experiment, let's say there is no way to create a new government. Do you think it'll be like Syria or Somalia? Do you think the demand for security and peace will suddenly evaporate?
It is really too far-fetched to provide a meaningful answer or discussion. Does it includes prison guards ? Are the inmates left to starve, or running freely ? Does it includes fire-fighters ? FDA, can I sell you my cure for cancer ? ...
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.
I would recommend a non-fiction book "The Machinery Of Freedom" by David D. Friedman, it depicts and discusses how a society could function without a government.
1. Government doesn't provide food
2. Government only provides SOME jobs
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.
I think you'll find that the presence of effective, competent governance is pretty strongly correlated with the availability of both food and jobs.
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 proposition is not to remove the framework, but to de-monopolize it. 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.
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.
> The proposition is not to remove the framework, but to de-monopolize it.
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.)
Yes. I don't know (and frankly, hardly imagine) of any societies without any hierarchies though. I could imagine communities with democratic collegial decision-making, but it still implies there is a way to enforce decisions, which means armed men.
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.