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Old 09-09-2005, 10:38 AM
lehighguy lehighguy is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 590
Default Re: Can the North secede from the Union?

Government officials can be bribed, but they also benefit from mandatory tax collection that ensures thier posistion even if they make tough decisions.

In a system where courts, police, and military are all private market funded who protects the people that don't have the money to provide funding. Let's say you have some poor immigrant and some well funded gang (KKK) starts beating him up. Where does the immigrant go for help. The police are going to tell him that they don't represent him because he doesn't pay for thier services (not because he doesn't want to, but because he doesn't have any capital). The courts will rule against him because thier salaries are paid for by the people perpetrating the crime.

In a total market based system, those with no resources have no recourse against physical coersion by those that are more powerful. You end up with a system of slavery.

Even two well funded organizations may not be able to retain law and order between eachother. If someone has enough money, they can raise an army larger then the one that is suppose to impose the law on them. Or they can buy of the existing army.

It wouldn't be much different from feudal Europe. Nobles using might makes right to impose thier will on weaker nobles. Serfs being slaves with no rights.

Is our justice system perfect, of course not. However, I think it's alot better then one that would gurantee no protections for huge swaths of the population.

If you accept that we need some basic level of government provided law and order in order to protect from physical coersion, then you are going to need some mechanism by which to determine who will be in charge of that power. Hence, a political process.
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