Abused By Illusions

In his last post regarding John Lopez's comments on the "civil war" between the Mises and Cato institutes, my friend Mr. Abramson concludes by asking, "I just wonder if some sort of voluntary mutal aid agreement between invidualists might not be in order?"

For your consideration, I offer:

Mutual Defense by Andy Stedman

The various libertarian / anarchist plans to create a free state in space, on a boat, in a US State (The Free State Project), in Antarctica, or anywhere else are flawed in that they are still, to some extent, influenced by the statist concept of territoriality. The goal of freedom-lovers should not be the creation of a free state, but of free people.

There exist today private armies, which serve to rescue those at high risk of kidnapping from their kidnappers, should such an inopportune event befall them. Since anarchists consider wrongful jailing for victimless offenses as morally equivalent to kidnapping, I suggest this as a starting point. An existing company could be purchased or a new one formed, which could at first cater to well-heeled world travelers (as it would at first be somewhat expensive.) I suggest the name "Mutual Defense Company" and will use it though the rest of this article.

When a client is kidnapped (arrested) on drug, smuggling, prostitution, anti-trust, or other non-crime charges, Mutual Defense would issue a statement of intent to rescue said client to the local and national press. They would first attempt to negotiate terms of release, just as governments today might do (as when an American is arrested in Thailand and asks the embassy for help.) If negotiations failed, a rescue attempt might be made, which should have a good chance of success against what should be, in most cases, the local law enforcement of second- or third-world countries. This is exactly what Bush is intending to do in case of American GI's facing charges at the World Court. Of course, the chance of getting the client killed would have to be balanced against the punishment faced, and the client's wishes would have been discussed when the policy was signed.

I base Mutual Defense's high chance of success on the following analysis. I do not claim to be a military or law-enforcement expert of any kind, so a more thorough analysis would be welcomed. At any time, Mutual Defense would have multiple clients kidnapped by a particular state. Although the state would know of Mutual Defense's intent to rescue every one of those clients, they would never know which client would be rescued when. Therefore, if Mutual Defense possessed only a modest force on the order of 100-1000 soldiers, the state would have to have that many "protecting" each client at all times. Mutual Defense's soldiers would also be equipped and trained at a minimum to the level of US Special Forces, making them a very imposing force relative to the local law enforcement, or even third-world military they would be expected to face. Each operation would be carefully planned and only executed if the chance of success was acceptable according to the client's stated wishes. Other local clients could be paid to act as field operatives if they wanted to help out a fellow "citizen."

Read the rest at anti-state.com

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