Welcome to Keith and I don't tread on anyone in the
Libertarian Institute. This is the libertarian lesson
from the movie Downfall. Once small government advocates
concede that war is a euphemism for theft, funded mass murder,
taxation is theft, and economic regulation turns productive
people into criminals, they will frequently say we at least need
a government to protect us from other governments.
Set aside the fact that death by government from wars,
starvation, blockades, and genocides yield a result no
private organization could ever come close to, since no one
imagines private groups have an arbitrary right to initiate
violence against peaceful people.
This mentality ignores the economic reality that one group
having a judicial monopoly on an entire geographical area means
that other governments only have to occupy a country's capitol
buildings. In order to take it over, the
excellent World War Two movie Downfall focuses on the National
Socialist government of Germany losing control of Berlin, the
capital of Germany, to the Soviets.
The reason Berlin of all cities was the downfall of the Third
Reich was because that was the central point of the
government's control over the people of Germany once this area
is taken over. And the masses of people have
been trained to answer to the people who occupy those
buildings. The country has effectively been
conquered. Even today, the war in Ukraine
is frequently referred to as the battle for Kiev.
Knowing the implications of how powerful it is to occupy a
country's capital under governments, nations essentially
put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, under a
free market. No group would have a recognized
judicial monopoly in the form of a capital, making it far more
costly for other gangs or governments to take control of
millions of people's lives through military intervention.
Progressives and conservatives alike always warn us about the
potential dangers of free market monopolies, while advocating the
state monopolize, law and order, compulsory schooling, taxation,
the money supply, and a host of other vitally important aspects
of society. It's true, monopolies give us
higher prices and poorer quality then we would otherwise have
under competition. It is also true that this
applies to government monopolies as well.
Far from being a utopian fantasy, private security is
already all around us. Recently I witnessed a company
experience a ransomware attack. Every file that made their
company what it is was in danger.
At no point did anyone say. Let's call 911 and the FBI and
the NSA and they can protect our property.
They immediately called a private IT company in Arizona,
got a hold of Sentinel one private cybersecurity, used
Google Cloud Security to back up their protected files and PayPal
private Security to keep their financial assets safe.
When push came to shove and they needed their most valuable
assets protected, they went to private security.
And ignored the state completely, knowing it would be
a waste of time. At shopping malls, baseball
games, banks, bars, hotels, amusement parks and concerts we
see private security voluntarily providing with the state claims
only they can give us. It's time we stop having double
standards. If government employees can't
voluntarily compete for our hardearned money, they should go
bankrupt and cease to exist. I'll end with a quote by author
Michael Malice. If the government didn't have a
monopoly on security, only rich people would be able to have
security. Just like when the government
got out of other businesses. The only cars produced were
limousines, the only clothes produced were tuxedos, and the
only food produced was Foy gras. Thank you for listening to Keith
and I don't tread on anyone and the Libertarian Institute.