In a recent article Steven den Beste discusses the fate of human shield Faith Fippinger. If I were to look at this in a narrow context I’d probably agree with him. However… there are parts of the argument expressed by den Beste and others which I find troubling.
I cannot imagine myself standing in a Saddamite factory to stop speeding american bullets, but I can indeed arrive at scenarios in which I would find civil disobedience of this sort or even greater personally justifiable. So let us play “invent a scenario”.
It’s now 2015 and a bunch of us libertarians have gotten so fed up with statists that we’ve built a floating island and anchored it to a Pacific seamount. Unlike an earlier group displaced by a Tonga gunboat, we’re well armed, well trained and ready to defend our new country.
Everything goes well for a few years. We expand the island with landfill and more platforms, the population grows and our little libertopia waxes wealthy and happy as we always imagined it would.
We won’t join the UN or become signatories to any of its treaties. After all, how can we? We don’t have a government. Any individuals on our island may sign if they wish, but by doing so they bind no one else. They can not even bind their own children once they leave home… and in some families not even before…
Some are making a good living with little floating pot-patches. Free market banks are popping up all over the island with rules on privacy which would have made a 1930’s Swiss Bank president smile. We do not recognize tax collection attempts by other countries. Sure, a bank may cave in if it wishes, but there are other banks and the market will decide. The new cloning business is bringing in money hand over fist. A bunch of the top nanotech people have moved in and are pushing things ahead quickly. Several commercial space launch companies got fed up with the spaceship size stacks of regulatory paperwork and left America. They now consider themselves citizens of the island… or whatever you call yourself in a place without a government.
However… there is a fly in the ointment. All of the above are extremely threatening to the existing world order. Our very pacific existence undermines the rest of the world. One day after some dastardly world event it is decided by the President and her men that we are an easy target. Our banks won’t give them details on fortunes hidden from tax collectors and we’re getting all too technologically successful.
Now as either a resident of that island or a resident in the US, I know exactly which side I am on. The issues are crystal clear to me. I do not support or give allegience to a flag; I give it to particular principles and the people who at any given time best embody those principles. For most of the last two centuries and certainly for all of my lifespan, that has been the USA.
But what if some place comes along that is freer and is considered a threat to the USA because of it?
I would suddenly find myself an Enemy of the State.
I think the answer here is “Yeah? So what?”
If you give up your current (US?) citizenship to become a citizen of Freedonia, then you’re a Freedonian citizen and either a civilian or an enemy combatant.
If you don’t give up your current citizenship and go fight on Freedonia’s side, you’re a traitor and in big trouble if they catch you.
The tradition of civil disobedience is that you disobey and accept the consequences. Trying to come up with a “defied the law but can’t be punished because I’m really really sincere” ain’t a-gonna work.
If you give up your current (US?) citizenship to become a citizen of Freedonia, then you’re a Freedonian citizen and either a civilian or an enemy combatant.
No government; no citizenship.
If you don’t give up your current citizenship and go fight on Freedonia’s side…
There is no Freedonian side. There can be no common defense as that would be coercive of who would not fight.
Otherwise known as cannon fodder.
There is a reason for that whole ‘provide for the common defense’ thing.
Accepting the consequences of one’s civil disobedience is probably the better part of the protest. If your cause is just, going to jail serves to embarrass the state that put you there. It also garners further support and publicity.
If the protester doesn’t want to go to jail perhaps she doesn’t believe very strongly in the justice of her cause.
I like the floating island thing! Dozens of floating islands would be good, so that dispersal can be used as a defence strategy. Would it not be wiser to refrain from politically incorrect commerce during the first few decades?
I don’t hear a Libertarian scenario. I hear an anarchist scenario. You have no government, you are not a citizen… hey, that’s anarchism, by definition.
And, like any utterly silly utopian philosophy, an anarchist group like you are talking about wouldn’t make it…. for several reasons..
First of all, psychopaths would join your little group, convince a number of your members to join them (not hard to do – utopians are easy to brainwash), and then take over your little island. After that, you wouldn’t have libertopia, you would have North Korea.
Or a bunch of power or money hungry people would get together and attack you. You imagine that you are well armed, well trained and ready to defend your new non-country, but you can’t be, because you don’t take orders, aren’t citizens, and in general only cooperate when you feel like it. So regardless of the level of armament of individuals, you won’t be able to fight as a team, so you will be invaded and conquered.
The problem with utopian ideas is that they don’t take into account human nature. As soon as you start taking that into account, the need for government (and its related coercion) becomes obvious.
Rich is correct. No government? No taxation? No military capable of defending “Freedonia”
And it WILL need defending.
Which is why the Libertarian fantasy of everyone living in Libertarian utopia is a fantasy.
Too many people don’t want to be responsible for themselves, and far too many of them are willing to do as they’re told in order to be taken care of. Thus humanity will always have governments, and governments will always compete.
And you just described the competition you cannot win.
Just as a side note, does anyone else think this little thought exercise seems drawn directly from the novel Distress by Dale Egan?
She freely chose to go to Iraq, knowingly or not, in violation of US law. As far as I know, she also freely chose to return to the US, again either knowingly or not, having violated US law. As I have been taught for as long as I can remember, ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
Also, as far as I know, she could have stayed in Iraq (I am not sure if there would be any consequences if she had been captured by coalition forces) or could have went to another country which perhaps would have granted her status as a political refugee. But she didn’t do that. She returned to the US.
D Anghelone writes: “No government; no citizenship.”
Also, as I understand it, you can relinquish your US citizenship simply by going to any US embassy or consulate and declaring your intent. You don’t need to have secured citizenship with any other country prior to doing this (although it would probably be wise). In fact here is the exact wording inside my current US passport:
Loss of U.S. Citizenship – Under certain circumstances, you may lose your U.S citizenship by performing, voluntarily and with the intention to relinquish U.S. citizenship, any of the following acts: (1) being naturalized in a foreign state; (2) taking an oath or making a declaration to a foreign state; (3) serving in the armed forces of a foreign state; (4) accepting employment with a foreign government; or (5) formally renouncing U.S. citizenship before a U.S. consular officer overseas.
Now if this information is in my US passport, I’m fairly certain that it’s in all US passports.
Even those of us that believe there might be
a time and place for civil disobedience realize
that it is against the law and one should expect
bad consequences.
In actuality actually having the US acquiese to relinguishing your citizenship is contingent on tax stuff.
My understanding, passport verbiage notwithstanding, is that the IRS and US Gov will continue to consider you a citizen until a pile of paperwork is in order, and you have interview with someone. Failing to do so means that eventually IRS/INS goons will nail you if you visit the US.
Afterall, you belong to them, filthy taxpayer. 🙁
On a tangential topic, what IS the general status of a “stateless/passportless” person crossing borders?
I’m sure most western governments take a dim view of it. After all you have, effectively, no recognizable ID. they’ll probably stick you right back on the aeroplane whence you came.
Fred
No government; no citizenship.
The operative term being “no citizenship”. You’ve given up your US citizenship and allied yourself with people at war with the United States. That makes you an enemy combatant, whether you call yourself “a citizen of Freedonia” or “just a guy who coincidentally happens to be hanging out with a bunch of other folks in a place called Freedonia”.
Faith Fippinger kept her US citizenship. She’s a traitor, and should be executed as one.
The critical issue is that Ms. Flippinger freely chose not civil disobediance, but chose to actively work against the stated and agreed upon policy of the goverment of the people. She gave aid and comfort, and I think it’s only because she’s a little old (nutcase) lady that the gov’t isn’t going after her harder.
By the way, your Freedonia analogy is flawed in that the US has the “Bank Secrecy Act”, which allows the gov’t to spy on your financial records and the bank is PROHIBITED from teling you about it. Some “Secrecy”. Oh yeah, it means “Government Secrecy”. The US Treasury would simply add your state to the list of prohibited nations, thereby forbidding any US bank from sending funds to Freedonian banks.
The “lots of little islands” solution is called “getting a sailboat and living aboard”, and I’ve seriously heard that discussed as an option by some people — Heinlein mentions it in I Will Fear No Evil, come to think of it.
The limits on “treason” in the constitution are so stringent I’m not confident thatFaith could be convicted on treason — but that doesn’t mean she should get a free pass.
If the arguement is that she impeded a US military operation then I’d have to disagree. I strongly doubt any of those bombers were close enough to see her.
Personally, if I were in a position to affect it (piloting a bomber or judging her case afterwards), I’d consider it attempted suicide — no reason for legal punishment, nor reason to pause firing if she’s spotted for that matter.
Charlie’s reference to Heinlein prompts consideration of the anarchist society depicted in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which manages (in a credible fashion) to bring an arrogant Earth to a satisfactory stand-off and ultimate defeat. Of course, they have space and gravitational ballistics on their side, unlike Dale’s notional Pacific paradise. This interesting & provocative post has at least brought out of the woodwork a few closet statists who can’t stand the thought of anyone bucking Uncle Sam – especially interesting given that Freedonia is a creation of the Marx Bros IIRC – wasn’t it Duck Soup? – and he who is against the Marx Bros is also against Mom, Apple Pie, and All That Is Decent.
If you would strike the king, you must kill the king.
I think that pretty much sums up her position.
And by the way – sitting in front of a government building in your own country with linked arms, refusing to move, is a weensy bit different than going to a foreign country and waging a propaganda war to thwart your home country’s war effort.
If the concept of nation state is worthwhile – and I think it is – we should walk with care if we choose to free lance in national security matters.
All the Libertarians I know are in favor of very small government. The smaller the better. I don’t know any who believe it possible to have no government.
For those who do believe it possible, could you use Libertopia as an example and explain how your society would operate with no government?
For example just take the free market banks that would exist on Libertopia:
Would there be laws to regulate the banks?
If so, who would make and enforce them? If not, how would you get people to trust the banks?
What would be desposited or withdrawn?
One of the functions of a government is to make an agreed upon currency possible. Without a government, how do you handle this?
What would happen if someone robbed the bank?
Our local governments collect taxes and hire police. What would take the place of this to keep the money safe?
I’m trying to get my mind around the idea of no government. To me, this means anarchy and chaos. Obviously, this doesn’t mean the same thing to others. So, I’d like to understand how a bank would operate with no government, if someone would explain.
Thanks ..
If you set up such an island, the LAST country you should fear is the US. The biotech, nanotech and financial industries you would attract would probably be American. The venture capital, at least, would be. And the trade, don’t forget the trade, would be almost certainly in large part with the USA. As a market and a supplier. Where else would you get rocket parts? And your weapons? Any action against your island would be immediately opposed by lobby groups on Capitol Hill. Any equipment destroyed subject to compensation. You might even have a large number of American libertarian sympathizers.
On the other hand, the UN would treat you worse than Taiwan, which is in some sense, a non-State in their eyes. I doubt anyone prominent from your island could travel without raising a diplomatic storm, however you deny that you are not a government. Then someone would discover that you are in violation of the Kyoto protocol, and that you have not signed the UN Declaration of Human Rights (how can you as a non-state?). What follows next you can imagine. You’ll get the Israel treatment. Universities will refuse to print scientific papers from your island. And you will have no European Libertarian sympathizers to speak of.
In the end, probably only America will save you from destruction.
Chris Josephson:
“All the Libertarians I know are in favor of very small government. The smaller the better. I don’t know any who believe it possible to have no government.”
The smallest is none.
Chris,
The banking question is an interesting one. The only example of true free market banks that I know of is the banking system in early America (but there are likely many others).
There was no national currency, so banks issued their own paper — ostensibly certificates of deposit which denoted a share of the bank’s gold. Bank notes could be exchanged upon demand for their equivalant in gold.
The banks were of course completely unregulated. They were a sucess in the sense that they financed the growth of the frontier when the gov’t could not (it was too small, too poor and too far away), but when market forces caused a bank to go under its depositors lost their whole “investment”.
I suppose that this promoted efficency in that it meant that only the most prudent banks (and their market-savvy depositors) survived, but it did magnify the boom-bust cycle in an alarming way. And it was very hard luck for those who chose their bank foolishly. I suppose this is really just a choice between eggs and omlets …
I will cop to “Freedonia” being a conscious reference to Duck Soup but to no deeper meaning than it seemed like a great name for the libertarian utopia and I want to be Groucho Marx when I grow up.
Harsh Mistress, though, refers to a minimal-but-real State; the government has a head of state, a Cabinet, an Army — several different services, in fact — elections, etc.
He also shows it degenerating into a bureaucratic state, in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
I have my own doubts about the ability of a group of n>1 humans to maintain any kind of useful order without a government of some sort.
Tonga with a gunboat??
What kind of crazy talk is that.
Dale,
Your commentary was completly nonsensical. You sound more like an anarchist that a libertarian. Libertarians acknowledge the need for government.
What if your hypotheticle rocket companies dump toxic fuel wastes in the waters aroun your pristine island? Gonna make nasty faces at them? Kick them off the island? How? What force do you have to do it with? Sorry pal, Den Beste had it right and you need a brain transplant.
Chris Josephson writes:
“All the Libertarians I know are in favor of very small government….. I don’t know any who believe it possible to have no government.”
It’s about time you got to know some more libertarians then.
Merlin writes:
“Libertarians acknowledge the need for government.”
Perhaps Merlin might like to understand what he is talking about before he writes something else.
omnibus bill writes:
…sitting in front of a government building in your own country with linked arms, refusing to move, is a weensy bit different than going to a foreign country and waging a propaganda war to thwart your home country’s war effort…
I must agree; protesting against the Iraqi war in the US is quite different than flying to Iraq, giving Saddam a propaganda victory, then flying home with your tail between your legs when Coalition forces end up taking Baghdad in 3 weeks, and THEN complaining when the US gov’t prosecutes you for your actions. Any or all of the “human shields” could have moved to another country, e.g., Canada, France, etc. I’m sure Faith Fippinger’s teacher’s union pension would still be available to her. She SHOULD be fined, or jailed if she refuses to pay that fine. Let Amnesty International howl about “political prisoners.”
I don’t know, Paul, Merlin sounded about right to me. Anarchists believe in no government, so if you believe in no government why would you call yourself a libertarian as opposed to an anarchist? Because it sounds more respectable? The belief in the necessity of some kind of limited government is what makes you one instead of the other. I always thought libertarianism was analagous to classic liberalism, and classic liberals believed that government was necessary.
Abby: You make some interesting points about early American banking. However the big difference is that now the network effect of capitalist edifice is vastly denser. Competing insurance companies can go a long way to replacing the state in ‘regulating’ the behaviour of banks (and other things) without the moral hazard of force imposed political regulation.
There are several major threads within libertarianism and you will often find them mixed within groups of one.
The capitalist-anarchist and minarchist threads are perhaps the biggest ones. Many of us here are drawn to the c-a position but have decided to remain in the miniarchist position for the time being. We feel it is a dangerous world out there and while desirable, we can’t yet get to the full c-a position. Some of the critiques are indeed questions which need to be answered. It may be best to either move to the farthest limit of a miniarchist society possible or have a spin off nation embodying those principles in a Compact that all agree to before joining the settlement. This has been tried before. And yes, Tonga really did run a libertarian group off a seamount in international waters with a gunboat. They financed the effort by minting andselling gold coins. I’ll leave that as an extra for experts in your Google final exam.
If you really want to find out what the capitalist-anarchist world might be like, get hold of some L Neil Smith novels like Hiroshima Vector.
Not to leave anyone out… there are also Georgists and many Objectivists under the same umbrella. Not to mention those with philosophical roots in Popper or Rothbard or Hayek or Mises…
I’m really suprised that all the people above are talking as if she was being prosecuted for being a human shield, judging by the story she is not. She is being prosecuted for going to a ‘forbidden’ country, and then spending money on food and suchlike.
I don’t know how many countries do this, I don’t think many do, but I know Britain doesn’t. I think the idea of having a list of countries your citizens will be prosecuted for going to is stupid, counterproductive and anti-freedom.
Henry,
1. I do call myself an anarchist.
2. I have never been worried about appearing respectable.
Della, do you believe in apartheid? During the days of South African apartheid, this country passed laws making it illegal to do business with South Africa. It was even illegal to purchase South African products in a country other than South Africa. For example, if I would have traveled to Europe, purchased krugerands and then returned to the US, I would have been prosecuted, even though I never stepped foot in South Africa.
How about slavery? It is legal and common in north western African and eastern European countries to buy and sell people. It is common practice in Korea to purchase “work contracts” for eastern and Russian “entertainment workers”. If I were to purchase another human being, even for a night, it would be a violation of US laws and subject to prosecution. How is traveling to a declared enemy country, purchasing their products and posing for cameras in direct opposition to your governments laws any less illegal? Even if you are a retired old lady?
Dale: you mean “The Nagasaki Vector”, not Hiroshima; else might confuse the unwary searcher. Though someone new to L. Neil Smith should probably start with the one that began it all, “The Probability Broach”.
I’m sure any libertarian could tell you that the way to handle the Krugerands issue in the seventies would have been to open a numbered box in a Swiss bank while you were over there and keep the gold there. There were lots of places around the world to squirrel your wealth away out of the hands of Statists back then.
They’ve been beavering away ever since though, doing their best to bring about the financial side of 1984. All in good causes of course!!!
I have no problem with say, the NSA or MI6, spending several million to trace the funds of one terrorist using very expensive spook ways and means. Partly because they cannot pass the information on without undermining their methods and partly because it is too expensive to do for any but the most serious of national security threats. That limits the danger of it to anyone not planning on killing lots of people.
I do deny that statists have the right to do it as a matter of course for revenue collection, stopping entrepreneurial import and export (statists call it smuggling and contraband) and in general being a Big Brother nuisance to free people.
Perhaps to be shorter and pithier about the desire of the state to prevent purchase of Kruggerands, Cuban cigars, etc::
Screw ’em.
Ok, here is a shameless plug for L Neil Smith.
his site: http://www.lneilsmith.com/
the NAC FAQ: http://www.lneilsmith.com/world.html
Amazon’s Selection: http://makeashorterlink.com/?S4FE23406
BTW Dale hit’s it right on the head. Libertarian is a huge super group of people made up of many different sub groups. ancaps and minis are the two main streams of the group. Like Dale, I’m a mini only because I think the shock of a ancap society would be too much for people to just jump right into. It has taken us 2000 years to go from god kings, to kings, to presidents. I fully expect it to take another few years to get to a ancap friendly place.
Still if setup correctly there is no reason for the “State” in a minarchy to be much of a problem, after all if set up properly it will be little more than a figure head organization anyways. Strip the “State” of it’s powers of Taxation, Legislation, and Conscription. All that is left is a PR position, a quaint debating society, and the trappings of a charity. After a while of living with that, people I think will naturally tend into a ancap society.
As for “Faith” my personal opinion is she is a dumb bint, who was lucky she didn’t catch a 500lb bomb, or a full metal jacket in the head. However I think calling her a traitor is too strong. You have to remember she was protecting oil refineries, schools, and hospitals. It wasn’t like she was out in the desert burying WMD, or protecting palaces, and military targets. What she did was dumb, not criminal.
Absolutely correct, Nagasaki (not Hiroshima) Vector. Just one of those wetware parity errors that happen from time to time…
The S Andrew Swann “Hostile Takeover” series is rather fun also, but not as much a model of an ancap society as the LNS books.
Another interesting anarchist society is Vernor Vinge’s story “The Ungoverned”. Lays out a scenario where ungoverned lands are succesfully defended from an invasion by a modern state. Private security forces, tornado busting gizmos, and a farmer with his own nuclear weapons all figure into the defense.
I’d sooner expect to see a minarchist state ala The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (which I need to get my hands on). Another issue of contention could wind up being the age of majority. Without public schools, citizens of our minarchy could become educated self-sufficient adults during their early-to-mid teenage years, and the society could set its age-of-majority accordingly (about 13). The flow of teenage runaways from the United States would definitely annoy the powers that be; also, lack of restrictions on sexual activities with these “adolescents” might knock our minarchy right out of the “civilized” category in the eyes of America, making it easier for a regime change to be sold to the American public.
Dale,
You wrote: It may be best to either move to the farthest limit of a miniarchist society possible or have a spin off nation embodying those principles in a Compact that all agree to before joining the settlement.
For how long can that compact be viable? Should after a time some two-thirds of the signers decide on the need for a common defense force then would that decision be binding on the rest? Would the only “moral” option for the rest be to forfeit what they’ve invested in the venture to start over elsewhere? And *sniff*, what of the children? They would be born into a compact not of their making just as we are born into national compacts not of our making.
In this country (the UK) during the days of apartheid if we wanted to buy South African stuff we went down to the shops and bought it. If it were the case that if one was to buy South African stuff one would go to jail, would it have made very much difference to the South African situation? I doubt it. It would just have made black South Africans a little poorer, and made the eventual collapse of the apartheid system messier.
One also has to consider that the US embargo on Cuba is one of the major things holding together the Cuban regime. The Cuban goverment points all the time to the US embargo as the cause of the economic problems, when in fact, without communism they could get along quite niceley even if they were still embargoed by America because almost all other countries do not embargo Cuba, and America does not produce any important products that cannot be obtained elsewhere.
One should also consider the position of women in Saudia Arabia, supposedly one of Americas key allies in the middle east region. The positon of women there, and the restrictions placed upon them are in may ways more onerous than the South African apartheid regime, but apparently America is perfectly happy to trade with them, and happy to supply them with arms.
We don’t go in for extra-terratorial laws so much so we would have to be prosecuted for such crimes in the country where it occured, slavery is not legal anywhere, it’s just that in some places the laws are not enforced very well.
What she did was not in any way evil, she did not fight America (not that fighting America is inherently evil, the UK has fought two just wars with the US), she just did something that seemed like a good idea at the time and she didn’t hurt any anyone.
Ken, the age of consent in Spain and Japan is already 13. Of course whatever it is in Thailand, no one cares.
So I don’t think that that would be a major holdup for ‘freedonia’ or whatever such a thing gets called.
Quoting both Heinlein and L. Neil is quite appropriate; but one should remember several things when doing so.
In no particular order: In “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”, those lunar anarchists revolted-and set up a state which is described as a “rational anarchist” one-and which uses the American Declaration of Independence as it’s founding template. In the convention that follows, the chaotic attempts by the loonies to develop a constitution is used to generate enough disinterest to allow Professor LaPaz and his cohorts to sneak through a document bearing great resemblance to the American Constitution. So, this minarchist state is templated on the original Declaration and Constitution-which is Heinlein’s point, that America was designed as a minarchist state, regardless of what it has become.
Note also that Heinlein, in “Time Enough For Love”, has Lazarus Long suggest that it should be legal for police to shoot anarchists out of hand; but also notes that they are quite inclined to be armed, and willing to shoot back. While these two books, as well as most of Heinlein’s oeuvre, certainly suggest that he was a friend of liberty, they also suggest that he was aware of the probability that an anarchist “state” would be no more capable of functional existence than any socialist state;and for much the same reason=the supply of saints capable of actually living by their principles is drastically limited.
While my heart is certainly anarchist, my head realizes the fact that, without removal of the strain in mankinds heritage that produces Hitlers, Stalins, Napoleons, Torquemadas, Maos, and the like, there is little chance of a true anarchist state ending up in anything other than tyranny.
Dale – the founders of America were in a similar situation in the late 18th century. A ragtag bunch of “traitors” faced the most powerful military force on earth, and still managed to win. However, many of them died or suffered mightily for it, and the extent of their “repressive” taxation by Britain was laughably small in comparison to today’s levels. Americans are less free today than they were as British subjects.
Some of the objections to a “Freedonia” are straw men. Any wannabe Hitlers would quickly be assassinated. And once enough money is raised to develop a military capability (WMDs might not be necessary, as long as Freedonia had the ability to kill all the ministers of any hostile government), it wouldn’t have to worry about Tongan or even US gunboats (the US would probably be fairly friendly anyway).
The problem is one of lack of will by libertarians, and nothing more. So long as it is easier to attain practical liberty by becoming a roving international traveller or resident of a tax haven, that is the route most libertarians will continue to take. It is simply much more achievable and hence rational to pay zero tax, keep out of harms way, and rely on the fact that most governments don’t bother hassling non-citizens. Most pursuits that are repressed by the majority of states can be effectively practised in at least one part of the world. This makes a lot more sense than trying to take on the combined power of the world’s nation states by founding a revolutionary society.
“Tonga with a gunboat??
What kind of crazy talk is that.”
Wasn’t that one of Pournelle’s? I think it was “Oath of Fealty”