Over and over again, when discussing a free society with statists, they object that without "government" there would be freelance mobs forming that would still steal from and attack the innocent, and that these mobs would be worse than government- which is supposedly restrained by the laws. To me it is a very weak, and bizarre, justification. It's grasping at straws.
I don't doubt that freelance thugs would arise. There will ALWAYS be bad guys. The freelancers might even be more openly brutal than the tax parasites that infest society now. (Although, I am beginning to doubt that, after seeing how many people are killed mistakenly (?) by reavers and other Registered Liberty Offenders every week. Dead is dead- what do the dead care who it was that murdered them?)
Even so, I would prefer the honesty of a mob to the lie of government.
Plus, if I shoot a mob goon who is threatening or robbing me, few people would pretend I had done wrong. If I shoot a puppetician or an IRS mugger I can count on being tried, convicted, and executed by a brainwashed "majority", and probably in reality by the perforated government employee's gang.
Even if the dead freelance mobster's associates came after me, I could keep shooting them. I could hire people to help me shoot them, or even invite people with a grudge against the mob to shoot with me. They'd probably jump at the opportunity. No one would pretend I didn't have the absolute right to do so. Well, no one but the mobsters, themselves.
With government it is different due to the fact that even people who recognize how corrupt, evil, and broken the "system" is have been brainwashed into believing there is some sort of nebulous "legitimacy" in the theft and aggression committed by government goons. So not only do you have to face The State's wrath if you justifiably kill some of its employees in self defense or defense of property (really, the same thing), but you have to face condemnation and betrayal by your neighbors who support the bad guys.
If the same sorts of people will always find some gang to join so that they can attack and steal, why not remove the veil of legitimacy and make them at least be open about what they really are? Since cops and criminals have virtually identical personality traits, why let any of them practice their craft openly? Good people still outnumber the bad- we don't need them. I don't need them.
Mob or government... why pretend a difference, beyond indoctrinated perception, exists? Cast off your indoctrination and see things as they really are.
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