Utopia means, literally, “nowhere.” This idea is thrown at voluntaryists and anarchists as an argument that their vision for society could never exist. Because Utopia is and will always be “nowhere,” then the Utopians are those who champion a vision for society that can never exist. Stateless, anarchistic societies have existed before, proving their compatibility…
Tag: justice
A False Equivalency
When libertarians talk about criminal justice reform, we often draw a distinction between real crime and “victimless crime.” The term is actually an oxymoron, however, as an act that does not victimize another cannot be a crime. What we are referring to are voluntary actions that do not harm anyone against their will, but which…
Theft is Never Justified
Theft is despicable. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily worse than assault or murder, but while those actions may be the result of elevated passions in the heat of the moment, theft rarely is. Theft is a cold, calculated act designed to deprive an individual of their owned property. Perhaps the only thing more contemptible…
Crime and Punishment in a Free Society
Would a free society be a crime-free society? We have good reason to anticipate it. Don’t accuse me of utopianism. I don’t foresee a future of new human beings who consistently respect the rights of others. Rather, I’m drawing attention to the distinction between crime and tort — between offenses against the state (or society) and offenses against individual persons or their justly held property.
On Honor and Edward Snowden
Honor, to me, is keeping your promises and staying true to your principles. Honor does not seem to be a very important part of the lives of Westerners. I only ever heard the term growing up in movies and, more recently, in book series like John Carter, Narnia, and the Lord of the Rings. If…
Hazlitt, Balko, “Private Sector”
Send him mail. “Finding the Challenges” is an original column appearing every other Wednesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Verbal Vol. Verbal is a software engineer, college professor, corporate information officer, life long student, farmer, libertarian, literarian, student of computer science and self-ordering phenomena. Archived columns can be found here. FTC-only RSS feed available here. It never…
A Jury of Slaves
The DeKalb County Court in Georgia made headlines this week when it was reported that its online questionnaire for jurors included “slave” as an option for occupation. While the term was quickly scrubbed from the website, I believe that it was actually quite appropriate because the American system of compulsory jury “service” is in fact…
“Justice”
On the Law
I came to the realization that “law” was not synonymous with “the law” a few years ago. More recently, however, I came to the realization that “the law” should always be held in contempt. Why? A few reasons: 1) because “the law” is necessarily decreed by a ruler or group of rulers, who are always…
Re: Assassination Politics
Alex, where to start? While I would much rather see state leaders assassinating political opponents than invading their country, thereby preventing mass murder, I have a hard to time with something that ignores due process. That being said, if one were found guilty in a private court of some crime and justice demands the perpetrator…