Yes. It is the question. If you want to pretend that you are arguing with what I am saying, then you must at least acknowledge that we have the same definitions for common words such as murder. If you are going to now argue that you can re-define murder as long as there is no state to prosecute you, then after laughing in your face, I'll tell you that you are advocating people getting away for murder as long as they do not get caught.
Either murder is going to be something we agree is wrong, state or no state, or we're not. Is murder (the taking of an innocent life) always wrong or isn't it?
A mere state or the citizens of such? Come on, they can't even outlaw pot!
Who are they to kill me?
"Socialism...confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."
Present-day writers -- especially those of the socialist school of thought -- base their various theories upon one common hypothesis: They divide mankind into two parts. People in general -- with the exception of the writer himself -- from the first group. The writer, all alone, forms the second and most important group.
These socialist writers look upon people in the same manner that the gardener views his trees. Just as the gardener capriciously shapes the trees into pyramids, parasols, cubes, vases, fans, and other forms, just so does the socialist writer whimsically shape human beings into groups, series, centers, sub-centers, honeycombs, labor corps, and other variations. And just as the gardener needs axes, pruning hooks, saws, and shears to shape his trees, just so does the socialist writer need the force that he can find only in law to shape human beings.
"[Socialists]...look upon society as an artificial creation of the legislator's genius...To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.
"Moreover, even where they have consented to recognize a principle of action in the heart of man -- and a principle of discernment in man's intellect -- they have considered these gifts from God to be fatal gifts. They have thought that persons, under the impulse of these two gifts, would fatally tend to ruin themselves. They assume that if the legislators left persons free to follow their own inclinations, they would arrive at atheism instead of religion, ignorance instead of knowledge, poverty instead of production and exchange."
"According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that Heaven has bestowed upon certain men -- governors and legislators -- the exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own sake but also for the sake of the rest of the world! While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race."
"The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction."
Excerpts taken from The Law.