While I'm not often inclined to agree with Texaggie79, and I don't share his views on the use of drugs in the context of this discussion, there is a point here. It is not apparent, even to libertarians, exactly what "force" includes or does not include. For instance, is abortion an illegitimate application of force? What about the death penalty?
It seems that the non-initiation principle is not so obvious when boiled down to one absolute sentence. Does this make libertarianism fatally flawed? I don't think so, but I do think it does it a great disservice to represent a single creed as the end-all, be-all of a political philosophy that is clearly more complex.
All I ask is that your recognition of the fact that there can be no objective definition of force and the application of law thereto, leads you to see that the original intention of STATES by our founders solves that problem to the best it can be solved. Each state, city, and/or community can decide for themselves at which point something becomes force, beyond that of the BoR.
It is to this libertarian.
For instance, is abortion an illegitimate application of force?
No. Abortion represents an initiation of terminal physical force, against another human being. It is therefore prohibited by the philosophy.
What about the death penalty?
The death penalty is an altogether different story. The death penalty is not an initiation of force. It is an application of force, in response to force intiated by the individual to whom it is being applied.
In general terms they are both force. The issue is not whether force was applied, but whether force was justified.
It seems that the non-initiation principle is not so obvious when boiled down to one absolute sentence. Does this make libertarianism fatally flawed? I don't think so, but I do think it does it a great disservice to represent a single creed as the end-all, be-all of a political philosophy that is clearly more complex.
Yes, I agree with that. By oversimplifying it you break it. It's no better than Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's definition of obscentity: "I know it when I see it." That's not very helping, really, for determining right and wrong, for determining what is force, or violence, or obscenity.
Libertarian often try to explain good government by falling back on this, without explaining why. However, the key aspect of government is that it is the organization from which we expect initiatory force. The police are giving the authority to go out and get people, when it's clear the crook has not personally wronged that particular policeman. If government must live by the Golden Rule as Rothbard suggests, how can it go out and collect taxes or apprehend fugitives? The answer is it can't. The answer doesn't lie in absolutism, or anarchism.
Sure, we want government to be fair, we want it to be honest. We don't want it to do things like steal from or kill innocent people. We don't want other citizens to do these things, either, so it's handy to try to lump them together. The reason this doesn't work, and you're right for bringing it up, is because of what government is. It is not a person and it is not society. It is held to a different standard because of what it does. The people in it are held to out standard. We expect the people holding offices to not be above the law, but the Golden Rule does not apply to the police. You can contort yourself to say they are acting in retaliation for someone else (which is true) but that is not the Golden Rule.
What makes government special is we cede certian powers to it. Rights are not grated to the people by the government. Rather, the government is empowered by the people to do a limited number of limited things. We give it the authortiy to go out and get people. To go out and take people's money. As George Washington said, it is a fearful servant and a terrible master. It is force. That's what the government is. We give it the power to break the Golden Rule, so it can go out and get people who do the same and remove them from the rest of us.
While it may be comforting to hold the government to the same standard as we, that's not correct. This isn't to say that it is held to a lesser standard. If anything, the government should be held to a higher standard as we, evidenced by the principal of jurisprudence of assumtion of innocence before guilt when charged with a crime. It needs to be held to a different standard. That standard we are all familiar with, it's the governing charter, the constitution. It dictates what the government is allowed to do, and by ommission what the government is not allowed to do, throught the doctrine of enumerated powers. In time, it has become almost ignored as the standard by which the government should operate.
I think that's what's wrong with the country today. So, in conclusion, I liked the Rothbard essay, it appealed to the libertarian in me. However, you're right to bring up its shortcomings.