What is a legitimate government?
Legitimate governments do NOT commit crimes.
Two traits distinguish a legitimate government from a counterfeit one.
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Legitimate governments don’t initiate force — doing so is criminal and negates the purpose of government
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Legitimate governments only use force defensively
This means we do not currently have a legitimate government. Our current so-called government initiates force in nearly everything it does, and is therefore illegitimate. To promote empathy, Zero Aggression, and legitimate government, take the following actions…
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(4 Comments)
By Ted August 13, 2015 - 8:39 am
First, I love the work you folks are doing! Making these concepts available in bite size chunks is a great idea.
I was wondering where taxation comes into the picture to pay for the legitimate government you describe. Clearly the imposition of taxes is taking money by force. So how would this government be funded? My apologies If you’ve covered this topic elsewhere.
Ted
By Perry Willis August 13, 2015 - 2:26 pm
Hi Ted. Thanks for the kind words. We cover your question in a general way in our Mental Levers collection Elements of a Voluntary Society. We plan to add a collection in the near future called “The Machinery of a Voluntary Society.” It will go into program-by-program detail about the mechanisms and virtues of voluntary funding.
Perhaps the most important Lever in the “Elements” collection is this one — “Is taxation practical?”
Thanks for your interest in our work.
By JJgrey November 14, 2019 - 1:51 pm
Look at an agricultural areas fuel pumps – Diesel comes in two ‘flavors’ of cost – on highway use (highly taxed to fund the public roads that the fuel going to be used on) and ‘non-high way use ONLY’ for equipment that is NOT going to use the public roads.
THIS is how a legitimate government would be funded, yes “taxes” but taxes that only apply to those using, or going to be using the service(s) provided by the government. If you don’t want a say in what the government does (and it is forbidden to directly interfere in your affairs) then you wouldn’t have to pay the poll/voting tax. If you don’t ever want to use the courts (just immediately surrender if you are sued?!?) then you wont have to pay the ‘police’ tax.
There are today fire departments that will refuse to put out a fire because the property owner refused to pay the fire association dues even being told that it meant the fire department wouldn’t put out any fires they have.
The real problem is things like national borders and defense that people can take advantage of without paying any sort of tax, it is really hard to say to invaders after all ‘ sure you can attack Joe, but not his neighbor Bob, Bob paid his National Security tax, Joe didn’t.
By Will March 3, 2020 - 9:50 am
With this definition of a “legitimate government” one could argue that there is literally NO legitimate government to be found anywhere on the planet.
How then, is this article helpful? How does it help create change that benefits the liberty of anyone?
If it’s all a mental exercise, and not something pragmatic, then I fail to see the value added here.