Now, now.

We shouldn't let the bad ones give the other 5% a bad name. ;)

Less than half of those eligible to vote participated in the 2004 election. 2002 was even less. Of those who voted, only a slight majority voted for Bush. Please do not include all Americans in your indictment of "those people". You cannot blame the actions of a mob on those who were not a part of it - and the majority of Americans were not.

Also, if you think that things would have been much better under Gore, or different AT ALL under Kerry, you are tragically naive. No matter who you vote for, the state always gets in. And as Randolph Bourne famously said, "War is the health of the state."

And furthermore, the most that the vast majority of Americans suffered on 9/11 was indignation. That did not excuse their bloodlust, nor justify the mobilization of the entire nation, including those who objected to military action, against nations full of innocent people.

Those who were actually harmed - that is, who lost loved ones or property - had the right to demand that the perpetrators of the attacks be brought to justice. But the government never intended to do that. It was an excuse for invasion and occupation from the start. Knowing that, they had no right to call for mobilization, because the justice to which they were entitled was not even on the table.

If someone shot your dad, and the police said they were going to kill 20 people who didn't even know the guy, you would have the right to say, "NO! Go after the guy who did it!" You couldn't just say, "yeah, sure go ahead and do your thing" in the knowledge that what they were going to do was criminal.

And it's not like we didn't know. I remember the mental gymnastics I had to go through to justify supporting the war myself. And I was only a high school kid. I listened to every word Rush Limbaugh said at the time and I still knew in my heart that the war was wrong.

I didn't say you were a neocon. I said you are using the same principles for your own purposes.

Irony: a "progressive" who shuns the altruism advocated by an evil, capitalist libertarian.

But yes, that's fair. That's your right. Forced charity is no charity at all, and I do not believe that you are my slave. Can I say the same thing about you towards me?

In principle, no. But as a matter of practical reality, when people use the United States government as a means of security and/or justice, lots of innocent people get murdered, others get pissed off at Americans on their behalf, and we are therefore less secure with no justice to show for it.

Similarly, I'm not going to say to the average person, "don't call the cops" while the police are the only thing keeping them "safe" as far as they know, and that's what they've paid for. But they should be aware that there's a good chance the police will use force indiscriminately and improportionally, and (per Supreme Court ruling) they have absolutely no obligation to protect them AT ALL, and they may end up wishing they'd taken measures for their own protection despite having paid for protection from the police.

"And all successful defenses against "initiatory force" rely on the threat of death, since I might kill the one who initiates force against me."

...You do realize that implicit in this statement is a concession to the point to which you are replying, right?

Anyway, of course they do. But are you really unaware of the chasmic moral difference between the threat of retaliatory force and the threat of initiatory force? I guess that shouldn't surprise me.

"Problem is, the cops work for the state, that great "force initiator," but I'm frail and my gun is out for repairs. What is a poor anarchoid to do? Woe is me."

You don't even read the responses of your opponents, do you? Too inconvenient to address their actual arguments, eh? Also, your childish attempts at caricature do not help your argument at all.

I've already said that I see no problem, in principle, with people making use of the services made available to them by the state when they have no other choice. I am only arguing against advocacy for the continuation of the condition in which they have no other choice - i.e., advocacy for the existence of a monopoly state.

And contrary to your caricature (and apparently unlike yourself), I am not so pants-wettingly terrified of other people that I think I need to hide behind the biggest bully on the block, and grow the size of his gang, in order to be safe.

Of course they did.

They were wrong.

I am not included in the "we" that rejoices when innocent people are turned into corpses by U.S. bombs and bullets simply because "they" live near someone who killed an American, and I will not support an institution that produces that kind of result.

Apparently, you are. Welcome to the world of right-wing collectivism known as "neoconservatism".

...Wow.

You do realize that Bill the Butcher was the VILLAIN, right?

Not that I'm surprised. Progressives have a long history of siding with villains because it's convenient, or because they don't think that principle can "work". In this case, you're siding with neocons. Congratulations. But at least the neocons have the integrity to admit that they are in favor of force against innocent people when it serves their interests.