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Excellent article. I would like to suggest an extension to this idea though. At the risk of being accused of blaming the victim, I think part of this machinery of compliance is the citizen himself. Just as the bureaucrat files papers and sends mail to people, seemingly innocent actions, the recipient of that mail usually complies with no visible sign of resistance. You write, "...everyone who keeps that state well-oiled and in working order is able to maintain a safe and healthy distance from all of the violence that is taking place." What does that not describe, but the citizen himself? What if, rather than automatically complying with laws and regulations, citizens simply ignored them and waited for the threat that must follow, and then complied? If nothing else, it forces the bureaucrat to actually issue the threat and face up to the violence he is involved in. It would also slow down the machinery in general, and since so much of it is barely on the edge of functional, might push it over the edge. One favorite example is homeschooling. Homeschoolers are required to register as such, almost a pro-forma requirement, yet a significant fraction simply refuses. One might ask what areas of human behavior have become even more free over time, unlike what seems normal, becoming less free? Homeschooling is one of them. Noncompliance is arguably the reason. John Ross, in his book "Unintended Consequences", noted that the feeling of guilt often accompanies being the victim of a rape. Why would a victim feel guilt? He thinks because the victim did nothing at all, not only to stop her own rape, but that of others who would be sure to follow hers. Every time we find a chance at a law or regulation to ignore or break, we seriously ought to consider it.

Tony: The source of your anger, then, appears to be OTHER people who spout vitriol about the church. I did none of that in my comment, and I even indicated my sincere sadness that Augustine betrayed himself -- which is exactly what you just did in pointing out that he was a man of his time. You have ASS-U-ME-ED that I am one of the angry atheists, and as a result felt it necessary to sweep me up in your grand drama as you battle them fearlessly from your laptop. We all know what happens when we assume, don't we? But since you have not read Augustine, perhaps you should not imply that I have misrepresented him. I am dealing with facts, not opinions . Similarly, Peter Brown's books and essays on Augustine are among the most widely respected in the medieval field -- which I have studied for more than 35 years. I've read all of Augustine's major works -- and those of Jerome as well. Not to mention the correspondence between them. And their theological essays. I have great respect for much of what they have written -- which was easy to see in my initial comment. Perhaps you should reign in your anger at atheists and not project their qualities into the minds and hearts of others. If you took the time to read my other writings at STR and elsewhere, you would see that I have treated the church and its subject with a degree of respect: at STR see my essays on Jesus and taxation and on the environment, and see my essay on Pope John-Paul's death at lewrockwell.com (Autopsy of a Funeral).

That is so far past disgraceful that I am hard-pressed for appropriate words. Shameful behavior.

GOOD CITIZENS DON'T THINK Thinking leads to reasoning. Reasoning leads to right and wrong. Wrong leads to revolt. Revolt leads to bad citizens.

Evan and Samarami, See how "dissension" can be put forth without violating the NAP? Well, said, KenK!

thanks for that correction! i must have had a slight misunderstanding of how they worked... i hope the metaphor wasn't too much of a stretch...thanks for the feedback, i was just able to edit it!

Very eloquent Jim. Now let us revert to reality. What would you (not your ideological proclivity) suggest be done with a paranoid schizophrenic substance abuser that pees in the street, robs, steals, vandalizes, trespasses, aggressively begs, and threatens to assault passersby? What would you actually do? And please don't tell me what Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, Rand, or the rest of the pantheon write about it but provide a real world based solution or mitigation for the lumpen problem. One that does not assume rationality on the part of the malefactor. Not so easy is it? Now advance a humane solution that doesn't involve violence and involuntary confinement as well. Like with a hornet's nest there are really only two modes of adaptation behavior available that I can see. Leave it alone or utterly destroy it. No in between works AFAICS. You can choose to ignore the hornets but they may not choose to ignore you. NB: I am trying to use this commenting space to further a discussion of ideas. I'm am not trying to do a "White Indian" style trolling instigated flame war. Please don't think this is meant to be a personal attack on you or your writings and other work. I admire both.

A. The Catholic Church is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. This means it is exempt from corporate income and property taxes. However, the Catholic Church must pay taxes on unrelated business income from any non-religious activities. Individuals (e.g., priests, deacons) do pay regular income taxes.

I'm with you, Sam.

Correct, and sadly people continue to buy the prescribed cure, "government law"

Greetings, Suverans2. It is always a pleasure when you chime into the discussion. While many, perhaps even most, of the Occupy group does seem to be of that ilk, there is also a significant portion that do respect liberty. I think that there is ample opportunity to shape the intellectual/ideological base of that movement, shifting it towards liberty and principles of voluntary association. Collectives are fine, as long as they are voluntary in nature, not mandated. If a group, for example, of homeschoolers decide to come together in joint education efforts, great. But, don't force those that don't want to participate to do so by law. If a group wants to come together to handle waste management in their area, great -- as long as participation is voluntary. Etc. and so on... People can manage themselves, I've seen it happen quite successfuly in small, remote communities.

Tony: While I agree with your point -- namely that privately owned government is better than democracy in many ways -- most of your post does not even address the topic I raised. I simply criticized Augustine for his inconsistency. Further, the one point you make that purports to do address the issue I raised is dishonest -- and patently so. Why? You raise a question but cite no answer -- probably because you are resting on a very weak reed or do not wish to do the necesary research. You should have done some homework before replying. The Pelagians are guilty of nothing except claiming that man is not born with the chips stacked against him by Original Sin and thus condemned. They believed in free choice -- or "liberum arbitrium." The Pelagians were willing to let people prove who they are by their actions in addition to their belief in the power of Christ -- not something as limited as their belief alone (a Protestant doctrine derived from Augustine's work). So why do you imply otherwise? That's dishonest. Second, regarding the Donatists, Augustine never attacked the Donatists because they engaged in the behaviors that he himself was guilty of -- using the state to get their way. He was angry that they wanted to defrock the priests and bishops that had betrayed their fellow Christians by turning them over to the state authorities during the persecution of Diocletian. The anti-Donatists also recanted their Christian faith by "handing over their scriptures" as "traditores" (those who hand over) during the persecution -- while those who did not betray the faith were harmed. But when the persecutions were over, the "traditores" wanted to resume their high positions in the church. And Augustine supported them. Those who suffered and survived the Diocletian persecution did not think that the ones who betrayed the faith were fit to resume their high church positions. Further, the Donatist hereteics declared that the sacraments administered by the "traditores" were invalid. Regardless of which side you support on that doctrinal question, you only have to imagine the anger and feelings of betrayal among those who suffered to understand why they became Donatist -- and consequently heretics. That riots occasionally broke out and that the Donatists used state power in some instances to get their way is not something I am excusing. I merely pointed out that Augustine's previous insight about the nature of the state as a crime syndicate was undone by his later use of state power to use violence to get his way in a doctrinal dispute. And you have done nothing to show that mine is an unsupportable position -- not as a Christian, but as one who abhors the initiatory use of violence. What is the problem? Finally, your anger about drug laws -- about which I concur completely (these laws resulted in the death by beating of my grandmother) -- does not address my central argument. Why do you go on so instead of discussing Augustine? That was not the point. I agree that private government is better than democracy. Hans-Hermann Hoppe's collection of essays in "Democracy: The God That Failed" contains some great arguments about this point, and I am not afraid to cite my source for this belief. It would, however, have been helpful if you had cited it yourself. My post addressed only Augustine and his tragic inability to live up to the standards raised by his own insights in "The City of God." Do you feel better now that you have vented your spleen on me?

On the one hand I admire the OWS movement for doing something but in the end the movement just seems to me to want to displace the existing top down hierarchical system with one of it's own. This is a battle of statist verse statist so it comes down to picking which snake would be the least to be bitten by, rattlesnake or copperhead? I'd like to see OWS seriously begin to explore real alternative options and embrace counter-economics to by-pass the entire corp/state structure to begin with. Don't try to reform the current societal model, go in and take it's customer base of which it's discarded anyway and build anew. Journalist Robert Neuwrith in his book, "Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy" points out that the so-called black market now fully employs half the global workforce and by 2020' will makeup nearly 2/3rds of the global workforce. In some sense OWS are hinting local and so close to it, now if they would only begin to truly act local by embracing real freed markets with agorism or counter-economics and drive the other 1/3 and it's 1% by our own voluntary action from the table altogether!

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I have had those tantrums, however, she was talking at 18 months and not really comprehending much in the way of earn, spend etc., ;) I am a huge fan however, of the you earn your keep approach. I remember times as a child when I went to bed without dinner because I failed to do my chores...a far more beneficial approach than spanking was (at least in my mind) ;)

You, too? How cool. That was the same age I began with mine. I have never -- not one time -- had an "I want" tantrum in a store. We've always discussed how much things cost in terms of both time and money -- it costs this much and it takes this long to earn that much, do we as a family think that is a worthy investment of our time and money? We've always discussed the expenditure priority list. I agree with you wholeheartedly about the parental failure here. For me, it starts with having them in public school to start with, ha ha ha. And, you raise an excellent point about minors and contracts. Thank you for taking the time to comment and have a great day.

Amazing, I talk about finances with my three year old...I see this as a failure on the parents side and schools. Besides, while the state exists, use their laws. No child under 18 can sign a contract, tell em to shove it, your taxes already pay for that.

Was there anything else going on, Lawrence? Did the Donatists and Pelagians do more than preach heresy? If you do some research, you may find there was. For example, the Church is vilified for its crusade against the Albigensians in 13th century France. Rightly so: there can be no justification for wholesale civilian slaughter. (Unless, of course, you're a secular politician representing the democratic Coalition of the Good and you're firebombing and nuking civilians in Germany and Japan, in which case, well, you know, they started it, kind of, plus there's that whole Overriding Public Interest thing to uphold.) But the Albigensians did kill a bishop sent to preach Catholic orthodoxy to them. That was hardly the sporting thing to do. I am not interested in defending monarchy or democracy. I favor natural-order anarchy. But medieval Catholic monarchies were clearly superior to, i.e., more libertarian than, the Western democracies of today. (Read Hans Hermann-Hoppe for more on this.) Catholic monarchs didn't jail people for ingesting intoxicating plant products. They launched the Crusades only after centuries of Saracen attacks on Catholic Europe. Inquisition notwithstanding, people in Catholic Europe were free to express a wide range of opinion *as long as they didn't represent their views as Catholic when in conflict with the Deposit of Faith.* By contrast, upwards of 60 percent of inmates in U.S. prisons are there for non-violent drug law violations only. Founding Father John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Act. The U.S. has been in a perpetual state of war for at least a hundred years. People in Western Europe get tossed in the hoosegow for questioning aspects of the orthodox World War II account. This is progress? Oh, democracy! Where is thy blush?

Rumor has it that there are some who say that "police-concocted lies" ARE as handy as throw-down weapons; according to those 'kind' of people, the rule of thumb is, "If their lips are moving..."

By accident, this entry duplicated the one below.

newjerusalemtimes: It might not be such a great idea to accuse others of ignorance due to incomplete information. Textual critics such as Bart Ehrman, Metzger, and others (including Saint Jerome) have provided a long list of additions that were made to the gospels in an effort to combat the "enemy of the moment" -- from co-religionists within the Jewish faith to gnostics and heretics of various stripes. Let's temper our speech. This arguments contained in this article were all on target -- despite this minor lapse. Your suggestion is good and encouraged, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, ok? More and more, I try to temper my commentary. Here's a link to Ehrman's page; his books are terrific: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman

Does this really surprise anyone??? Give a heterosexual male some "x-ray glasses", then sit back and see who he chooses to look at. This? Or, this? Do we really need to vote on this? A blind man can see that the second group here are more likely to be terrorists. Sheeeesh!

Very good, J.G. Vibes!

"Without justice, what are kingdoms but great robber bands? What are robber bands but small kingdoms? The band is itself made up of men, is ruled by the command of a leader, and is held together by a social pact. Plunder is divided in accordance with an agreed upon law. If this evil increases by the inclusion of dissolute men to the extent that it takes over territory, establishes headquarters, occupies cities, and subdues peoples, it publicly assumes the title of kingdom! "A fitting and true response was once given to Alexander the Great by an apprehended pirate. When asked by the king what he thought he was doing by infesting the sea, he replied with noble insolence, 'What do you think you are doing by infesting the whole world? Because I do it with one puny boat, I am called a pirate; because you do it with a great fleet, you are called an emperor.'" St. Augustine of Hippo (354 A.D.-430 A.D), Doctor of the Church, from his magnum opus *City of God*. It would not appear that St. Augustine left that part out.