Posted on 02/20/2006 6:24:40 AM PST by Shalom Israel
In a recent article, Carl Milsted uses Rothbard to argue it would be permissible to use force to make people pay for a service of which their benefit is at least double its cost. His conclusion is that it is reasonable, and even preferable, to establish a minimalist state if it is to people's advantage.
As has already been argued by N. Stephan Kinsella, he totally misses Rothbard's point. Furthermore, he fails to show why people would not choose to voluntarily pay for services which would benefit them double, as has been pointed out by Bob Kaercher.
Even so, I wish to offer another analysis of Milsted's reasoning. His article is a good example of why statists always seem to get it wrong — and why they always fail to understand what we're talking about. The bottom line is that they fail to realize the costs of force due to their unwillingness to see the state for what it is. I will therefore use Milsted's own example to shed light on his fundamental mistake.
Milsted takes the case of national defense, which is commonly considered an institution that would face the free rider problem if supplied on the market. Argues Milsted: "suppose the majority assesses a tax on everyone to spread the burden of supporting the new defense system. This is theft of the minority. However, suppose that the economies of scale are such that this tax is less than half of what people would have had to pay for defense on their own."
That's the argument, plain and simple. If it is morally permissible to steal when the victim is compensated double, the equation seems to fit. Well, let's look into this in more detail and see if it really does.
First, consider a situation where everybody benefits, say, $10,000 on a yearly basis from being protected by a national defense. That would mean, if the premise is correct, that it would be morally permissible to force costs of no more than $5,000 on everybody.
Were it a company supplying a service worth $10,000 to each of its customers paying only $5,000 for it, this would be easy. Anyone willing to pay the $5,000 would get the service, and the costs associated with administration and so forth would have to be covered by the $5,000 paid. But Milsted argues the $5,000 should be taxed, and that makes it much more difficult.
First of all, we know state-run businesses and authorities (especially if they are monopolies) tend to be much less efficient than private enterprises. That means people in Milstedistan would get less than they would in a free market society. But even so, there is still the cost of coercion totally neglected by Milsted in his article.
Forcing people to pay for a service means there will always be someone who tries to avoid paying or even refuses to pay. So "we" (i.e., the state) need to invest in collection services to get the money. Now, let's say Murray, who is one of the people we're trying to coerce, goes out to buy a rifle and then declares that he's "anti-government, so get the hell off my property." Perhaps he even threatens to kill the collection agents. Dealing with him would take a whole lot more out of the budget, meaning there is even less to provide for the defense (which is the reason we're in business in the first place).
But that's not all. Let's say Murray won't give us the money no matter how much we ask or threaten him. We will simply have to take it by force, so we need to invest in the necessary tools and we go out to hire a dozen brutes to do the forcing. (More money down the drain … ) It is already pretty obvious we're in a very expensive business; there will not be much defense left if there are a lot of Murrays in our society.
Now imagine our hired brutes go down the street to Murray's house and knock on his door. He sticks his rifle out the window and shouts something about having the right to his property and that he will shoot to kill. Anyway, the brutes try to open his door only to find it is locked and barred. They will have to break in to finally get their hands on Murray's cash.
Our small army goes back to their van to get their tools, then returns to break down Murray's door. Going inside, they manage to avoid all the bullets Murray is firing and they tie him up and put him in the closet. They eventually find that he does not have any valuables and that he keeps his cash in a locked safe. So they have to break it to get the money.
Now we have a problem. To make this operation morally permissible, the benefit to Murray, which we know is $10,000, must be at least double the cost forced on him. The cost is now a whole lot more than the cost of the national defense; it includes administration and collection costs, hiring the brutes and their tools, as well as the broken door and safe, and the time and suffering (and perhaps medical expenses) Murray has lost while we were stealing from him. How much do you think is left from the original $5,000 to invest in a national defense? Not much.
What if Murray suffers from paranoia and therefore had invested $1,500 in an advanced special security door and $2,000 in an extra security safe? Then the total cost of simply getting into Murray's safe would probably exceed the $5,000 we are "allowed" to steal. What then? Should we break in anyway since it is a mandatory tax, only to give him a check to cover what's above the $5,000 mark? That doesn't sound right.
But on the other hand, if we just let him be, more people would do the same as Murray only to get off, and we would have a huge problem on our hands. This is a typical state dilemma: it costs too much to force money from some people, but it would probably be much more "expensive" in the long run not to. It's a lose-lose situation.
Now, what if Murray is very poor and doesn't have the $5,000? Then we would have to take whatever he's got and make him work off the rest. We need to get the $5,000 to cover our expenses of the national defense, and we have the right to take that amount from him. It could, of course, be argued he couldn't possibly benefit $10,000 from a national defense if he has no money and no property. If we trust Austrian economics, that might very well be correct; the benefit of national defense would, like any other product or service, be valued subjectively and thus the benefit would be different for each and every individual.
If this is true, it means we have an even greater problem: the state can rightfully levy costs of a maximum of half the subjective benefit enjoyed. Well, that's a task that would keep an army of Nobel Prize winners busy for a while. If possible, I wonder how much that would cost in the end.
This is the problem statists face on an everyday basis when discussing philosophy and politics. It is easy to make nice equations and formulas, and theorize on great systems and cheap solutions neatly enforced by the state. But when consistently failing to realize the costs of coercion it makes their reasoning fundamentally flawed. Just scratching the surface reveals they really have no clue whatsoever.
Per Bylund works as a business consultant in Sweden, in preparation for PhD studies. He is the founder of Anarchism.net. Send him mail. Visit his website. Comment on the blog.
It's been done multiple times in history, including Penn's colony (where I now reside). Since the experiment can't be set up at will--Kennedy would send goons to get us--we have little choice but to rely on rational arguments.
However, humans are insufficiently evolved herd animals; I do consider it unlikely that the experiement could be tried or, if tried, could work. Humans often become terrifiied if they don't know who's been designated to do their thinking for them.
Look here, and search on "Pennsylvania", for one example.
Why? The subject is rationality (def: based on reason), not validity and I think you must agree that the arguments and choices people make are rational to varying degrees.
I have responses yo your other points, but let's do it one at a time. Don't you agree that people make arguments and choices that aren't rational?
For an argument to be rational, it is necessary but not sufficient for the argument to be valid. Very few political arguments turn out to be valid.
Don't you agree that people make arguments and choices that aren't rational?
Arguments: fer sure. I only object to your suggestion that an argument can be a "partly rational." That's on par with "a bit pregnant" or "somewhat dead."
Choices? Is a choice ever "rational"? I think that in this context you are ditching the usual meaning of "rational," and calling a choice "irrational" if you disagree with it. Is my choice in music, food, clothing, a mate, or anything else "rational"? How do you identify the "rational" from the "irrational" choices? Choice is a product of human desire, not human reason.
I'd agree, though, if you'd asked, "Don't people often try to rationalize their choices?" Sure they do, but it's futile. The reason is always, "because I want to." No platonic argument can render a choice inescapable.
We are talking about Pennsylvania right? From here
Although Penn's authority over the colony was officially subject only to that of the king, he implemented a democratic system with full freedom of religion, fair trials, elected representatives of the people in power, and a separation of powers—again ideas that would later form the basis of the American constitution.
That is not true. They are not the same concepts. Rational means based on reason. Valid means logically correct. An argument is either logically correct or it is not. Because of the rules of logic, if any single step is not logically correct the entire argument is invalid. In fact, every valid argument is also a tautologies, it may be wonderfully interesting but, in the end, it is empty.
But an argument can be based on reason to varying degree. As I suggested, visit a DPW thread and it is clear.
Also, rationalize is not what I mean. People do that too certainly, but I am talking about the real process by which they choose.
Tell you what though, arguing over the meaning of words is wasteful and beside the point. What word do you want me to use for a choice made partly based on reason and partly not?
It's been done multiple times in history, including Penn's colony (where I now reside).
The Quakers of Pennsilvania were not anarchists. They were a society governed by their own beliefs.
Tell us izzy, - how did Quakers as a group [in your supposed 'lawless' era] deal with groups of violent criminals?
Two bits Quaker society sanctioned group defense.
Check the lnik I gave you, or the reference William Penn's "Holy Experiment" by Edwin B. Bronner. The authority set up by Penn was completely ignored for many years. When he created a council, it refused to meet. When he appointed a governor, everyone ignored his decrees, including the council--one of whose members insisted that decrees must be sealed to be valid, and then hid the official seal. It's great reading.
You seem to be claiming that an argument can be "based on reason," while at the same time "logically incorrect." That's a contradiction in terms. The relevant definition is, "Consistent with or based on reason; logical: rational behavior. See synonyms at logical."
The word "rational" can also mean "sane," which isn't relevant here, and it can also mean "capable of rational thought," which also isn't relevant.
What word do you want me to use for a choice made partly based on reason and partly not?
Choice is utterly subjective. Attempts to rationally justify a choice are inherently post-hoc rationalizations. So "choice" or "preference" simply shouldn't be used in the same sentence as "rational." As for arguments, anything less than a fully rational argument is "irrational," or "incorrect," or "invalid," or perhaps simply "bad."
What fuzzifies matters is that people constantly interject their preferences as premises. Doing so always invalidates the argument. The argument can be rescued by clearly identifying those assumptions, at which point the focus will shift to the validity or invalidity of those assumptions. In general, if your assumption is one of preference, then it's fine for you to act on it--but it's not fine for you to consider me to be bound by your preferences.
You never tire of embarrassing yourself. By your reasoning there is no such thing as anarchy; after all, everyone is always governed by his own beliefs. And, that being the case, a government is superfluous.
It's been done multiple times in history, including Penn's colony (where I now reside).
The Quakers of Pennsylvania were not a society of anarchists. They were a society governed by their groups beliefs.
By your reasoning there is no such thing as anarchy;
Didn't say that.
after all, everyone is always governed by his own beliefs.
Brilliant.. But we aren't discussing individual beliefs. - Your remark is an effort to dodge the question.
You claim Penn's Quakers were an ungoverned society of significant size that truly functioned more effectively than a governed one --
Tell us izzy, - how did Quakers as a group [in your supposed 'lawless' era] deal with groups of violent criminals?
Two bits Quaker society sanctioned group defense.
"You claim that your culture launches a blood feud to avenge one of your own when he died in the course of committing a crime. I'm sorry if you don't like the word "hillbilly", but that"s the only culture I know that behaves that way. I've known hillbillies when I went to grad school in Syracuse. "
I'm not saying I agree with all of the following, but it conveys the kind of thing I was talking about when I brought up "Blood Feud" better than your hillbilly reference does.
I believe what you advocate leads to society significantly comparable to that of the Dark/Middle Ages. Naturally, I don't think you'd agree with the moot so that just leaves the blood feud.
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Blood Feud
I.
Avenging the wrongful death of a person's kin by killing the murderer or by receiving compensation from the murderer's possessions.
During the Middle Ages all European nations had similar customs concerning the murder of their inhabitants. The closest next of kin to a person who had wrongfully died at the hands of another had the primary duty to retaliate against the killer. This obligation was subject to certain laws and customs concerning the type of permissible vengeance, the amount of compensation that could be exacted, the location at which the compensation was to be made, and the circumstances in which compensation was not required. For example, a blood feud was not sanctioned if the person killed was a convicted thief or if the person who did the killing did so to defend his lord or a close female family member. The idea of the imprisonment of a person who had committed a homicide was unknown during this period of history.
There is dispute over whether the blood feud was legal under Teutonic or Anglo-Saxon law. During the ninth-century reign of Alfred, a feud could lawfully commence only after an attempt was made to exact the price of a life. The price, called weregild, also applied when other atrocious personal offenses were committed and was paid partly to the monarch for the loss of a subject, partly to the lord for the loss of a vassal, and partly to the next of kin of the injured person. In Anglo-Saxon law, the amount of compensation, called angylde, was fixed at law and varied with the status of the person killed.
The Catholic Church exerted much influence to have a death avenged through the payment of compensation, not further violence, but the blood feud continued throughout England until after the Norman Conquest (1066). (From: Legal Encyclopedia, Thomson Gale)
II.
For most of its long history, what is now known as tort law functioned as what may be called a "peace system," an alternative to violence that facilitated the peaceful coexistence of people in society. To explain precisely what I mean by this, let me ask you to cast your minds back to the dimmest recesses of the Dark Ages when Roman rule had faded not only from the British Isles but from most of Europe. The absence of centralized authority during these times did not, of course, imply an absence of society, and our ancestors lived together in the kinship and tribal groups that would eventually evolve into the hundreds and shires of medieval England. Given human nature, the primary requirement for the survival of these social groupings was a deterrent against the use of violence. This was provided by the blood feud.
When someone was assaulted, killed, or otherwise wronged, the members of the aggrieved party's household or clan were entitled to take direct and frequently violent action to extract compensation from the wrongdoer. This "blood feud" was the expected, socially accepted response to aggression. Although it suffered from the obvious drawbacks of vigilantism, the blood feud constituted an admirable deterrent; the prospect of an immediate violent response from a victim's entire family or support group was sufficient to give a potential offender pause.
Despite its effectiveness as a deterrent, the blood feud was not very convenient in practice. The victim's supporters were usually not anxious to risk life and limb in its prosecution and the members of the larger community, who found themselves in the position of the proverbial innocent bystander, had reason to discourage it as well. Thus, its own violent nature provided strong personal and social incentives to find an alternate method of resolving disputes. As a result, the practice developed of holding the violence in abeyance while attempts were made to compose the dispute through negotiation.
The forum for these negotiations was the moot, a public assembly which served as the chief instrument of social administration. If both parties agreed, they could lay their dispute before the moot, whose members, much like present-day mediators, attempted to facilitate an accommodation that both parties found acceptable. If no accommodation could be reached, there was always the blood feud; however, if one could, violence had been avoided.
This method of composing disputes was extremely popular among both the community at large which thereby avoided strife, and (especially) among the parties' family members or supporters who would otherwise have had to do the fighting. As a result, community pressure gradually transformed the effort to reach a negotiated settlement from an optional alternative to self-redress to a necessary prerequisite for receiving the help of one's support group. In addition, the negotiations were usually successful, and typically resulted in some sort of compensatory payment being made to the injured party or his representatives since the easiest way to avoid the violence of the blood feud was simply to purchase peace.
To illustrate this process, let me ask you to imagine two sturdy Anglo-Saxon yeomen; let's call them Alfred and Aethelred. I'll ask you to further imagine that Alfred and Aethelred reside in Essex and are farmers with adjoining lands separated by a row of hedges. One day, Alfred's cow breaks through the hedges and eats a great deal of Aethelred's vegetables. As a result, Alfred and Aethelred have a dispute; and, in these agrarian times, a fairly serious one since Alfred was counting on those vegetables to get his family through the coming winter. Alfred is entitled to take direct action against Aethelred to make good his loss; he could get out his sword and round up the members of his clan or support group to prosecute the blood feud. This response is both risky and costly, however; risky because Aethelred and his clan or support group might be superior swordsmen, costly because of both the time, effort, and potential for injury involved in the fighting and the ill will Alfred may engender among his supporters for getting them involved in the unpleasantness. Therefore, Alfred has fairly strong incentives to find an alternative means of resolving the dispute.
As a result, before prosecuting the blood feud, Alfred is likely to summon Aethelred to the moot and make an "appeal," a public statement of his grievance against Aethelred and a request for help from the members of the community in redressing it. Considerable bargaining and discussion will then take place with many members of the community offering advice about how best to compose the dispute. Perhaps someone will suggest that because Aethelred's cow ate Alfred's vegetables putting Alfred's family at risk during the coming winter months, Aethelred should provide Alfred's family with milk from the cow during those months. If both Alfred and Aethelred agree to this, the dispute is resolved and no fighting need take place.
Of course, this proposal may or may not be a good way of resolving this dispute. If it is, peace will be restored between the neighbors and before long they will be inviting each other over to play cards as they did before the trouble started. If it is not, one of the neighbors is likely to be coming after the other with his sword before too long. One way or the other, there is fairly immediate feedback about whether the proposed solution was a good idea.
Conditions being fairly stable in those days, it was extremely likely a similar dispute would arise before too long. Assume that several years later, two other neighbors, Edward and Harold, appear before the moot because Edward's goat got loose and ate a large quantity of Harold's hay. If Alfred and Aethelred's dispute had been successfully resolved, someone is likely to point this out and suggest a similar solution; say, that Edward compensate Harold by supplying him with a three-month supply of goat cheese. On the other hand, if Alfred and Aethelred ended up at each other's throats, then the suggestion that Edward compensate Harold with goat cheese is likely to elicit a response such as: "Hey, we tried something like that with Alfred and Aethelred, and you know how that turned out."
As this process of copying successful methods of resolving disputes and discarding unsuccessful ones is repeated over time, rules of social behavior gradually develop. After enough disputes like Alfred and Aethelred's and Edward and Harold's have been brought before the moot and successfully resolved with the relevant compensatory payment, all future cases will quickly be dealt with the same way. Eventually, the community comes to accept and abide by a rule that requires the owner of livestock that damage another's property to compensate the injured party out of the products of the livestock.
This and the other rules that we anachronistically refer to as customary law were wonderful labor saving devices. They allowed people to avoid the extremely labor-intensive blood feud; they saved a great deal of bargaining time at the moot; and most importantly, they served as a guide for future behavior that enabled people to avoid disputes in the first place. Further, because they arose out of the repetition of successful dispute resolutions, i.e., those that were effective at restoring peace, they embodied the practices that tended to facilitate peaceful social interaction in the relevant community. Thus, our earliest law consisted in what were essentially "peace rules."
It was from these prosaic beginnings that what we now call tort law evolved. Following the Norman Conquest, an ever increasing number of the disputes that had been heard in the local moots were brought in the King's courts instead. These were presided over by royal "justices" who rode circuit (eyre) around the kingdom. When these justices, who were as interested in saving their labor as anyone, came to believe that the rule of a particular locality was effective in resolving disputes of a certain kind, they would apply it to similar disputes at other points along their ride. Thus, a royal justice who saw that the rule in Essex governing damage caused by a neighbor's livestock was an effective way of settling agrarian disputes would apply it when a similar controversy came before him in Wessex. In this way, the royal justices carried the local rules that were successful in restoring and facilitating social peace with them throughout the kingdom. Eventually, these rules became common to the entire realm, giving birth to the "common" law of England, including the common law of tort.
I will spare you the story of the growth of the common law, of how the practice of repeating successful dispute resolutions evolved into the doctrine of stare decisis, of how this doctrine gave the law the flexibility it needed to respond to changing conditions and mores, and of how this allowed for the development of new rules to provide for the peaceful redress of new grievances. I will point out, however, that until the mid-nineteenth century the development of these rules continued to be guided by the sensibilities of the ordinary citizen. This is because until that time cases were decided by juries which exercised both law and fact-finding functions. Unlike their present counterparts that are empowered to decide only factual matters, early juries simply heard the case and decided whether relief should be granted. These decisions, which reflected the jury's opinion of what was fair to the parties rather than the demands of any abstract theory of justice, established the precedents out of which the rules of tort law evolved. As a result, by the middle of the nineteenth century, tort law consisted in an essentially uncoordinated set of rules which 1) had proven successful at resolving disputes and 2) corresponded to the common person's sense of what is fair in the circumstances.
Up until this time, it is fair to characterize Anglo-American tort law as a peace system, a set of rules which provides a nonviolent way of resolving serious interpersonal disputes. As a peace system, our early tort law was characterized by four features. First, its scope was limited to fairly serious controversies. Because the rules developed as a way of avoiding violence, the complaints they addressed were usually those that were likely to give rise to violence if they were not redressed. As a result, a lawsuit was generally viewed as a last resort, something to be pursued only when no other social mechanism provided an effective way to compose the dispute. Second, the jury was the ultimate decision-maker. This made perfect sense because the average juror would have as much insight into what would be fair to the parties to the immediate dispute as any expert; more in fact, since highly educated experts were less likely to be in touch with the sentiments of the lay people who were the litigants in most tort cases. Third, the system was evolutionary in nature. Actually, it was a good example of what Friedrich Hayek referred to as "spontaneous order" in that there was no guiding intelligence behind it. Tort law did not embody any ideal of justice; it did not exemplify any rational conception of what the law should be. It was merely a collection of rules that facilitated the peaceful coexistence of human beings in society. Juries would respond to changing social conditions and the concomitant changes in human sensitivities and conflicts with new judgments of what was fair to the parties. These new precedents would expand, contract, or simply change the rules which constituted the tort system. As a result, tort law was constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of the citizenry for dispute settlement. Finally, the system was essentially "consumer driven." For it was the consumers of legal services, the ordinary citizens, who decided what cases to bring; and it was the resolution of these cases that gave rise to the rules of tort law. Therefore, it was "consumer" choices as to what issues were serious enough to require redress through the courts that drove the development of the system. (From: What's Wrong With a Little Tort Reform?, John Hasnas (J.D., Ph.D., Philosophy, Duke University, LL.M., Temple University, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Kennedy Institute of Ethics.))
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The bolded lines above relate to the social contract.
If there are no rules the implied contract you have written about does not exist and you have no claim to more land than what you are standing on at the moment.
"You're very repetitious."
You repetitively miss the point necessitating the point be repetitively made.
"That was an example of ad hominem, if you're interested in learning how to spot it. "
'Every mention of the other guy, nor even every insult, is an "ad hominem argument"'. If you know so much about ad hominem then you know about strawman which implies you are using it on purpose everytime you attribute something to me that I did write so you can tear it down which is generally easy for you because you put forth the attribution for that purpose. Why does any of that matter since you claim that apart from self-defense there are no rules at all. ?
"You, on the other hand, believe there are all sorts of rules which, unless I follow them, I'm subject to capture and incarceration, or worse. "
And you believe in rules which, unless I follow them, you will harm me and claim self defense when no equivalent harm was done to you. That's in contradiction to your previous statement "that there are no rules at all" but I don't think you are lying. I think you believe both things as it suits you.
"Which of us is dictatorial around here?"
I'd say you are. After all:
I deny signing by any means any kind of contract or agreement with the blanket terms you are trying to force on me, and you threaten me with violence for not meeting an obligation to which I did not commit to when all the while you refuse to acknowledge you have any obligation under the social contract because you did not agree to it in the same way that I did not agree to your unilateral ravings.
Like any dictator you want to dictate the terms.
2. Shalom Israel wrote: "Now you're applying your false logic to the act of discussion itself. Words mean what we mean by them; in order to discourse, we must understand the definitions in use. That isn't a political exercise, and it isn't pointful to "vote" on what the words shall mean. It suffices if you know what I mean, and vice versa--and I've explained what I mean, more than once. You just keep forgetting. "
KrisKrinkle writes: You assumed we had some agreement that "force" is shorthand for "initiation of force" which we did not. The words at 2 above convey little meaning except that you seem to be laying out some sort of rules as you did when you said "force" is shorthand for "initiation of force", but that can't be because you said "I make no rules, terms or conditions..." and also "I claim that apart from self-defense, which is itself an unalterable force of nature, there are no rules at all." so you couldn't be laying out rules even though you seem to be. What are you doing?
"This is getting increasingly ridiculous. "
We would differ on why.
"I foist nothing whatsoever on anyone. I merely point out that nobody has a right to impose their will on another's person or property. You are free to try and prove otherwise, but so far you haven't tried."
You keep missing the point and complaining that I repeat myself when I write:
I deny signing by any means any kind of contract or agreement with the blanket terms you are trying to force on me, and you threaten me with violence for not meeting an obligation to which I did not commit to when all the while you refuse to acknowledge you have any obligation under the social contract because you did not agree to it in the same way that I did not agree to your unilateral ravings.
You keep trying to foist on me that I have signed what I deny signing and would impose your will on my person which if I recall correctly is also my property by your standards.
"Everything else I have said proceeds logically..."
Very little you say proceeds logically.
"...from the observation that nobody has the right to push anyone else around."
Ahhh, "to push anyone else around" How well defined. I'm sure we both take the same meaning from that.
'Every mention of the other guy, nor even every insult, is an "ad hominem argument".'
" I've been privileged to do some very interesting research."
All privately funded I trust.
As to the rest of your post, it doesn't matter.
What matters as far as I am concerned is::
You refuse to acknowledge you have any obligation under the social contract because you did not agree to it in the same way that I did not agree to the implicit contract to which you would hold me.
You deny you should be subject to violence for failing to meet obligations to which you say you did not commit but threaten me with violence for failing to meet an obligation to which I say I did not commit.
In relation to the above, most of what you've posted (to me at least) in this thread looks like strawman and red herring. (By the way, there's little challenge when it's so easy to use your own words against your words nor when I can just keep repeating a statement you don't or can't comprehend. You don't or can't see the paradox.)
You say "I claim that apart from self-defense, which is itself an unalterable force of nature, there are no rules at all" which makes it everyman for himself where you are concerned. I don't see how you can survive like that but it's your problem not mine.
We have no common frame of reference.
Yes. I will give an example. I assume you are familiar with the concept of reasoning by analogy, also called Argument from Analogy. It is a form of inductive reasoning which is, obviously, a kind of reason. But analogy is not deductively valid. So an argument that employs analogy in an essential way is rational but not valid. There are many other forms of reason that people employ all the time that are not deductively valid.
So "choice" or "preference" simply shouldn't be used in the same sentence as "rational."
That's wrong too. Very often I make a choice after careful consideration of the consequences and try to, for example, maximize return or minimize cost or risk or some such. It is therefore based on reason. But it is still a choice, after all I could have still chosen the other way despite the argument (e.g. I might do it out of spite or simply because the mood strikes me). Since it is both rational and a choice what else should one call it but a rational choice?
What link? I am interested.
Will it tell me what happened? Why the good people of the colony decided in the end to form a government?
Very wordy, but missing the point. Self-defense isn't homicide, and vengeance is not exacted in that case. In the case of homicide, it probably is the heirs who pursue the killer, so in that sense the medieval custom (which is in fact far more ancient than that) would be practiced again.
Self-ownership is not the result of a contract. It is a fundamental part of being human. If you ultimately fail to grasp that, then no worries: eventually you will be eliminated in an act of self-defense. It will both be a rightful death, and an instance of natural selection at work.
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