No Treason

I don’t know how original this is, but I recently realized that in order to have the right to freedom, or the right to exercise free will, by definition removes the possibility of the right to coerce.

Sometimes statists or people unaware of a deeper philosophical argument will propose a strawman such as,

“But under anarchy, anyone could hurt anyone, and steal from anyone, and it would be chaos and we need a government to keep people from causing harm!”

Now on it’s face, involuntary government survives on ideology but acts through coercion. So the argument that government can stop coercion is false because it’s only tool is coercion.

But take two anarchists, in the absence of a government. If they maintain the right to sovereignty, that neither has an involuntary obligation to the other, then that principle or premise, removes any rational justification for coercion because they would be undermining the very premise they claim allows them to act in the first place.

Now certainly, some anarchist could be a hypocrite or only an anarchist because no one recognizes his authority, and he has given allegiance to no one. A statist without a state. And he could use coercion on another stateless person, but to do so, he would have to reject his right to his freedom.

Freedom is no endorsement of coercion anymore than coercion is an endorsement of freedom (lifeboat scenarios).  Life boat scenarios are frequently emotive appeals to do an end run around the non-aggression principle.

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