The Underlying Message

Whether we're in front of a camera, keyboard, or microphone, Toby and I usually try to focus on timely news stories and current events and how they relate to the ideas of freedom and liberty. We mostly do this because people tend to take more interest in developing stories than broad generally philisophical debates, but sometimes it is important to bring our discussion back to why we believe what we believe. Like other libertarians, my co-host and I try to adhere to a core guiding principle rather than just reacting to to the world's events off the cuff. At Free Minds Media, we don't have any pretense of being objective journalists. In fact we're no more objective than Rush Limbaugh, although in the writers opinion we are much more consistently principled in our message.

Since the whole point of doing the shows and this blog is to sell an idea, it might be useful to delve into exactly what we're selling. The underlying principle behind our libertarian stances is the idea that it is wrong to initiate force or fraud against other people. Put another way, we believe that people should be free not to be agressed against, so long as they respect the equal right of others not to be agressed against. Most decent people do not personally steal, assault, rape, kidnap, or murder, however many people do support a number of inherently violent activities when the are carried out by the institution that is government.

When the government demands that you pay certain taxes under the threat of imprisonment, it is no different, as Lysander Spooner put it, than a highwayman who says to you "Your money or your life". Although it is important to note, as Spooner did, that a common criminal does not pretend to be robbing you for your own benefit, and once he has your money he will leave you to carry on with you life. Government lacks the common decency to do either of those things.

A government ultimately enforces all laws and taxes at the barrel of a gun. If this sounds overly dramatic, then try refusing to pay taxes for a number of years, and then treat the government agents who come to kick you out of your home like common criminals. On second thought, just take my word for it, because doing what I just suggested would get you shot. The point is that all governments exist through the use of violence or the threat of violence. Most reasonable people don't agree with the idea of using force against their peaceful neighbors, which leads us to the question of why we have government in the first place.

The American Revolution was one of the most significant events in the history of government. The Founders generally agreed with the idea that government and the taxation which funds it is neither eloquence nor reason, but force. However, the Founders made the same concession that I have made, which is that a certain number of men are violent and unjust. Without a government in place to provide a legal system to punish those who rob, kill, or rape, there would be disorder. Without a government to provide a military defense, a stateless society would be overtaken by a more repressive regime which did have a military. There are certainly very scholarly arguments made which profess that we can have an orderly society without a coercive government, but I cannot agree despite the well thought out case that is made for a society governed completely by the forces of the free market.

The viewpoint that we express on Free Minds Media can best be described as small government libertarianism, or minarchisism for the more scholarly readers. I believe that a very small government is the best practical solution which can be reached. A government that is only large enough to keep violent criminals and foreign governments at bay, is what I believe to be the best realistic system of government for humanity. For the sake of clarification, saying that a very small government is necessary is not the same as saying that it is good. All government is evil, because government is a monopolistic institution that inherently functions through the initiation of force, but a very small government is a necessary evil in the eyes of the writer, because without any kind of court system or military defense a society without a government would fall prey to violent criminals and men at home and abroad who wanted to establish very repressive forms of government.

So, I think we could do away with 80%-90% of the government that we have today and be far more prosperous and secure for the effort, but I don't think that we can do away with government completely.