Anarchy vs. the Right to Life

Mercurial Times ^ | February 11, 2002 | Aaron Armitage

[A.J.Armitage]

Joe Sobran, as evidenced by his recent columns, seems close to being convinced, if not already convinced, by Hans Herman Hoppe's book, Democracy: The God that Failed. As you might have guessed from the title, Hoppe thinks democracy was a bad idea, but he goes further than that; he thinks government, in any form, was a bad idea. He's an anarcho-capitalist. In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his.

I don't know if Sobran realizes this, but anarcho-capitalism sits poorly with his pro-life views. The unborn, and for that matter born children, will be unable to hire an agency to protect them from their own parents or, in the case of some already born children, step-parents. It's not an accident that Murray Rothbard, the founder of anarcho-capitalism, was pro-choice. In chapter 14 of The Ethics of Liberty, he defends the legality of abortion, as indeed he had to, because if abortion is a crime and an abomination that ought to be punished - and it is - that constitutes a fatal weakness in anarcho-capitalism.

But it extends beyond abortion to child abuse and neglect. Continuing, he wrote that parents, specifically mothers, since pater incertus est, have property rights in their children because they made them. But then he pulls back, and inconsistently advocates limits on parental authority, both by ending it at adulthood and by excluding physical abuse from the things parents can do (but he does not exclude neglect). If, however, you apply the labor theory of property to human beings and not merely the non-human world, neither of these restrictions makes sense. If mothers own children the same way they would own a statue they carved or acorns they gathered, there's no logical point at which the ownership ends, not at 18, not at 21, and not when the kid moves out (Rothbard's own suggestion).

In the case of abuse, his position faces an even greater problem. Not only is his insistence that parents lack the right to "aggress against his person by mutilating, torturing, murdering him, etc." inconsistent with property rights over the children (why can't I mutilate my own property?), in an anarchist society, there's no one to enforce a prohibition against torturing or murdering one's own children.

Locke himself, the originator of the labor theory of property, did not consider children the property of their parents, and for very good reason; it would've been half way to Filmerism. What he said instead was, "The power, then, that parents have over their children, arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their children, during the imperfect state of childhood." (Second Treatise, para. 58)

The only kinds of crimes that could be punished in a pure anarcho-capitalist scheme are ones directly harming paying customers of a defense agency. This certainly has the advantage of doing away with non-crimes like drug possession and prostitution, but, by the nature of how the system operates, it must also leave unpunished real crimes against those other than paying customers. Children, especially unborn ones, are out of luck, and they aren't the only ones. Protection of those outside the charmed circle of paying customers would be based only on charity, and it's easy to imagine pro-life agencies emerging to punish abortionists, but there would just as certainly be pro-choice agencies, and the two kinds of agencies would necessarily exist in a permanent state of war. Once you've gone beyond the model of agencies simply selling protection, there's nothing to prevent agencies from "altruistically" punishing the smoking of marijuana or, for that matter, the drinking of alcohol. An anarchist society can only be peaceful if all force-users other than purely profit-driven defense agencies are excluded and punished (which would mirror the exclusion of other force-users anarchists criticize the state for), and if they are excluded, the unborn will be left with no protection at all, and legal abortion will be more secured by the legal system than any Supreme Court ruling could ever make it, because it would be secured by the structure of the system, and not merely by a changeable rule.

[VRWC_minion]

You get married and earn enough to support you and your family. You have ten children. You get bored. You leave your wife. Your ten kids are at my back door looking for food. Your problem just became my problem.

This stuff is so basic, I cannot fathom anyone giving anarchy anything more serious than a passing thought.

[VRWC_minion]

The govenment decides to kill you, who is to stop them? (It's happened a lot recently.)

Logical fallacy. Can't anarchy be supported without ignoring reality or resort to logical fallacies ?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Let's address the question of women who murder their unborn babies (and I concede nothing about what it is. Unlike Rothbard, I recognize that murder is murder). You tell me. What penalty do you advocate for their actions? Death?

For the actual murderer (the abortionist), the penalty must be Death. (Genesis 9:6)

For the complicit accessory (the aborting woman), penalty might vary dependent upon mitigating factors.

And how do you answer Bob Lallier's objections here? To wit: "To violate this right of individual sovereignty opens many fearsome Pandora’s boxes. For one example, if abortion is homicide then innocent women who have suffered miscarriages can be hunted down by the state and hustled off to gynecologists and investigated as possible crime scenes...A state that can define its jurisdiction so as to include the insides of our very bodies will leave absolutely no room left for any individual humanity at all. Such a state will not be above dictating the genetic engineering of people to make them more ‘fetus friendly’ in the interest of protecting "our" little "proto-citizens." Believe me, even Catholics do not want to go there..."

At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. -- Deuteronomy 17:6

An "empty womb" is not a "witness" to the act of murder.

Two witnesses are required.

False Witness in matters of Capital Crime to be punished by Death.

One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong; Then both the men, between whom the controversy is, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, which shall be in those days; And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you.

The Bible authorizes the State to wield the Sword; and the Bible also so restrains the State's Use of the Sword as to answer Bob Lallier's objections.

The Bible has the answers.

[A.J.Armitage]

If I own land, it's mine just as much as my body is.

Absolutely correct. Do you think that other people have the right to use your land against your will?

I certainly don't have the right to kill someone inside that land who's there through no fault of her own, and if I do, it's not outside the government's jurisdiction because it happened inside what I own. It happened to someone I don't own, and that's the key issue. (Or, rather, I did it to someone I don't own, and would therefore deserve punishment.)

[VRWC_minion]

I get it. The entire purpose of anarchy solely to be able to do drugs without fear of punishment ? No wonder the practical aspects are ignored. Adoption of this concept yields a desired result.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

You get married and earn enough to support you and your family. You have ten children. You get bored. You leave your wife. Your ten kids are at my back door looking for food. Your problem just became my problem. This stuff is so basic, I cannot fathom anyone giving anarchy anything more serious than a passing thought.

Actually, her problem just became her local church's problem.

And His Grace is sufficient for us.

But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. -- I Thessalonians 4:9

[Hank Kerchief]

Logical fallacy. Can't anarchy be supported without ignoring reality or resort to logical fallacies?

If it were a logical fallacy, you used it first. However, it is not a logical fallacy. It is both logically correct (government has the exclusive legal right to initiate the use force) and practically corract (Waco).

Finally, I am not an anarchist of any flavor, I am an autonomist. Have all the government you want, and suck-it-up when they come after you.

Hank

[jmp702]

Thanks for the link.

There is a wealth of truth to be found.

[Semi Civil Servant]

"In an anarcho-capitalist society, instead of using police and an official court system to punish criminals, individuals would hire defense agencies, in much the same way we hire insurance agencies now. Then, if you're robbed, your agency would try to track down the guilty party, and, when they catch him, bring him to trial, probably before a judge agreed to by both your agency and his."

How long would it take before this system degenerated into a series of gangs and turf wars on a gigantic scale? How long would it take before you were paying "protection money" to every thug in your neighborhood? You have to assume a basic universal decency among all humans for a system like this to work. I don't buy into that at all.

You also have to assume that the "judges" in this system could not be intimidated or killed out right by one side or another. That isn't realistic, either.

Granted, the most dangerous (non-spiritual) thing you will ever encounter on earth is likely to be your government. Granted, most governments in history have ended up killing a fair number of the governed. But I'd rather be under the rule of our government (or any in Europe) than at the mercy of all the wacked-out, mean, evil, heartless, cruel brutes that live in my town (or yours). Protection rackets are pretty nasty enterprises. Even when it's called "insurance".

[nunya bidness]

Thanks. Good to see Merc is back in business.

[A.J.Armitage]

Sounds good to me.

[A.J.Armitage]

I get it. The entire purpose of anarchy solely to be able to do drugs without fear of punishment ? No wonder the practical aspects are ignored. Adoption of this concept yields a desired result.

I think people should able to do drugs without fear of punishment, and said so in the column above. Anarchy is more about getting rid of taxes. Not just high taxes, any taxes.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

To: OrthodoxPresbyterian Sounds good to me. 71 posted on 2/12/02 7:50 PM Pacific by A.J.Armitage

Sadly, many, many abortions would probably go unprosecuted. Biblical evidentiary standards, if consistently applied, are too rigorous to permit invasive wild-goose-chases; only clearly evidenced crimes, with ruthless penalty for false evidence.

But, abortion would be illegal. It would be classed as Murder.
The Magistracy's Law would be right in the eyes of God.

[VRWC_minion]

Logical fallacy to argue that not x therefore y. Which is what your attempting.

[veryconernedamerican]

All of the problems of our government are scrictly the responsibility of the citizens as we have total control in the long run as to what happens. big government can only be made, and only be abused with our consent.

[Hank Kerchief]

So you believe that justice as described in the Bible is what ought to be instituted in the USA. So, if by intention or accident someone causes someone else's eye or tooth, hand or foot, to be lost, they should loose theirs:

Deuteronomy 19:21 And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

This prescription is stated at least two more times in the Bible, Exodus 21:24, and Leviticus 24:20

And you believe this, even though you know the Bible clearly teaches that God determines who the rulers of countries are, and chooses the basest of man as those rulers: Daniel 4:17 This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men. Or maybe you only believe those parts of the Bible you like pertain to the government today.

Hank

[A.J.Armitage]

Containing the use of force is the issue. Anarchists think you can solve the issue of Liberty vs. Power by abolishing Power, but that won't happen. Their force-users are still Power as much as the federal government is. So you're right in granting that the government is the most dangerous physical force in existence, but the alternative will be just as, or more, dangerous for the same reason government is dangerous in the first place.

[VRWC_minion]

A Church is a form of gov't. Anarchists think they can construct a society without one. They ignore practical realities. Having to invoke another form of gov't to make up for the impractical aspects of anarchy proves it doesn't work.

[A.J.Armitage]

True, but as William Blackstone said, "It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer."

[VRWC_minion]

Anarchy is more about getting rid of taxes. Not just high taxes, any taxes.

But in your made up world you are just renaming and reasigning responsibilties. Instead of taxes we have insurance. Instead of gov't we have agencies. If you follow the natural course you will be right back where you started. I can't imagine you can't see that. I think the desire to make drugs legal is clouding an otherwise rational mind.