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I argued that individuals can often be just as oppressive to other individuals as government is,

No person could possibly be as oppressive as government. Your hyperbole which you began with in your 4 post.

Let me ask you Zon - are you, or are you not, in favour of having government arbitration of disputes between individuals when problems arise between them, or when one individual begins to act in a way that is detrimental to the life or property of the other? That's the important question because THAT is the crux of my point.

You know it is. I told you in my posts 8: "Objective law. When a person thinks they have been harmed they can take the suspect to court and do their best to convince an impartial jury that they have been harmed and to what extent so that you may gain restitution for your loss."8. I said it again in post 17 which you responded to.

You *are* aware that civil courts are part of the government too, right? The term "civil" does not refer to their composition, but to their jurisdiction..... Likewise, the zoning laws which you mention are ALSO instituted by government

Again, as plain as the nose on your face. That's an awful lot of words you used there to state the glaringly obvious. Sheesh!!

As for your argument, "But most people don't violate another person's property", it is perhaps true, but also meaningless.

It's not meaningless. It's the root of the Libertarian platform. BTW, I'm not a Libertarian. Anyhow, it's true that better than 95% of the populace lives by that. It's the 3,000 laws and regulations created each year by republicans and democrats that for the most part initiate force, thereat of force and fraud against persons and their property. And the populace continues voting for the lesser of evils knowing that it still always begets evil.

Ah, but did it ever occur to you that the *reason* 95% of them don't initiate force or fraud is *because* of the fact that there is the threat of "community enforcement"?

Yes it occurred to me. It's not because of the laws nearly as much as it is respect for their neighbor. That is, better than 95% of the populating lives by a sort of golden rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you. On the other hand, about 9 percent of the populace does recreational drugs despite that there are laws against it. And about 40% of the populace has at least once used an illicit drug, again despite the laws against it. Laws cannot force morality into people -- the 95% do it based on their own objective reasoning. Initiating force against a person is immoral, ingesting a drug isn't.

I fail to see how any of this is unreasonable,

Almost none of it is. This however, is unreasonable: " individuals can be as dangerous to each others' liberty as excessive government." It's unreasonable because it's false.

(contracts which, by the way, are also only enforceable, ultimately, because the government ensures compliance between the parties to the contract).

No person could possibly be as oppressive as government. Your hyperbole which you began with in your 4 post.

That's utter nonsense. I would assume (perhaps wrongly, but I'll go with it anywise) that you would agree that "oppression" can generally be defined along the lines of "burdensome, unjustly harsh, or tyrannical", and that in the context of our discussion, it basically has the idea of preventing a person from exercising their liberties in an unhindered fashion, no? Further, we all can agree that our liberties extend to, but do not end with, our freedom to life, liberty, and property (which is what Jefferson wanted to put in before opting for the broader "pursuit of happiness"), right?

Well now, however much we may not like paying taxes and whatnot, and justly preceive much of what the government does to be beyond the scope of what is proper, there are acts which individuals perpetrate against other individuals, on a day to day basis, which are far more egregious and acute violations of each others' liberties.

The government never violates the property rights of the vast majority of Americans, yet we burgle, rob, and larcenate each other to the tune of hundreds of thousands of incidents each year. The government doesn't physically harm or kill the vast majority of Americans, yet we murder, assault, and batter each other thousands of times a year. A person is far more likely to be kidnapped by a fellow citizen than by a rogue government agent. And so forth. While it is fashionable to pin the "gubmint" up as a catchall boogeyman, the fact remains that in the course of our lifetimes, you and I are much more likely to suffer the acute effects of having our rights trampled on other individual citizens than we are to suffer the same from the government.

As the classical liberal poliphilos pointed out, this is why government was instituted as a necessary evil in the first place - to provide a means by which the liberties of each citizen could be secured from the depradations of other individuals.

All this being said, then, I fail to see why you still have your knickers in a knot about anything I've argued.

Again, as plain as the nose on your face. That's an awful lot of words you used there to state the glaringly obvious. Sheesh!!

Yes, it DOES seem obvious, except that you didn't seem to show that you got it previously.

Well, your statement was meaningless because it didn't have anything to do with what I had actually written before. I am saying that it is "meaningless" from a "contextual" standpoint. Get it?

I never said you were a Libertarian. I have made statements, instead, about "libertarians", i.e. the "small-l" political philosophy.

That's where you're wrong. I do not believe that mankind is by nature "good". Instead, I believe that, by nature, mankind has a tendency to want to violate the rights of others, if he thinks it will be to his own benefit, if he has the opportunity and the means to do so. In this respect, I am right in line with the mainstream of classical republicanism and liberalism, from Machiavelli through Hobbes to Locke and Smith. This libertarian notion that man is by nature good and inclined to respect the rights of others out of the goodness of his own heart is nonsense from proto-socialists like Voltaire, and is unsupported by the actual evidence of a history full of human activity. Indeed, if people really were as inclined to follow the Golden Rule as you believe them to be, then we wouldn't have a problem from government, for it (being made up of people like you and me) would be as benevolent as the average man is supposed to be. We all know that government, however, tends NOT to be benevolent, and this is because power corrupts the human heart, using the material ALREADY THERE IN THE HEART. Government merely provides an easier way to exercise that corruption more broadly.

On the other hand, about 9 percent of the populace does recreational drugs despite that there are laws against it. And about 40% of the populace has at least once used an illicit drug, again despite the laws against it. Laws cannot force morality into people -- the 95% do it based on their own objective reasoning. Initiating force against a person is immoral, ingesting a drug isn't.

I never argued the opposite. This is just more of your projecting a straw man upon me because I said naughty things about libertarianism. Actually, I do not support the drug war, even though I personally find drug use to be immoral. I find the drug war to be excessively intrusive upon our property rights, and our privacy rights per the res privata.

All the contracts I've had with clients have designated arbitration as a means to their resolution. Correct me if I'm in error, but I assume you think private contracts should be protected so long as they don't initiate force, threat of force or fraud against any person or their property? Absolutely I do. But ultimately, it's not MY view on the matter that you have to worry about - it's the view of both the parties to the contract. Private arbitration is fine on paper, but unenforceable in an absolute sense if one party decides to shaft the other.