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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: CONSISTENCY?  Still waiting...
Message-ID: <1879@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 03:57:24 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1879
Posted: Mon Jan 14 03:57:24 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 15:49:01 EST
Lines: 41
Nf-ID: #R:ucbtopaz:0:inmet:7800262:000:2277
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Jan  9 11:42:00 1985

>***** inmet:net.politics / umcp-cs!flink /  9:38 pm  Jan  6, 1985
>In article <29200183@uiucdcs.UUCP> renner@uiucdcs.UUCP writes:
>>A protection agency should have the same right to force as does its
>>clients; that is, only in an emergency, when the police are not
>>available.  An agency which exceeds these limits on the use of force
>>will be shut down by the government.  Obviously this agency has used
>>force, so there's no problem with the point #1; the monopoly is
>>maintained, and there's point #2.
>>
>>There's no inconsistency here.  And this certainly isn't anarchy.  
>>Is this what Paul's been waiting for?
>
>Nope, sorry.  The inconsistency remains.  As long as the agency uses
>force only in retaliatory ways, it has a right (by libertarian std's)
>to do so, and therefore the govt. has no right to stop it.  The govern-
>ment you describe is not consistent w/ libertarianism.  QED.

Excuse me, but our government NOW allows some use of force under some
circumstances -- between parent and child, for example.  Does that make
it "not a government" because it is not enforcing a monopoly of force
within its borders?  Does the inconsistency you seem to see have
any consequences?  I'd say it does -- it probably shows to be
incorrect the original definition of "government".  That stipulated,
where's the inconsistency?  Remember, you're supposed to use 
"QED" only when the proof is all there, and I notice that there's
no quote about the "libertarian" definition of government.  By the
way, if you do decide to reprint the quote, please also reprint
its source, and the quote from renner, above, so that EVERYBODY
can see that you're merely arguing that one libertarian used
"government" in a way distinct from the way another used it.

Never was it more obvious why Thoreau said that "consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds" -- as near as I can tell, you're ignoring
the real points of libertarianism and "sniping on the boarders".  This
would not be inappropriate were libertarians promising utopia, or 
proposing a new mathematics, but seems a singular waste of time
when discussing politics (of course, that's probably what politics is for).

If this is what made you the "self-satisfied iconoclast", your self
must be remarkably easy to satisfy.