Although the criticism is overblown, I think there is some legitimacy to the gripe that the Tea Party movement is not all that ideologically consistent, namely because there is some significant crossover between the social conservative movement and the Tea Partiers.

To the extent you would identify their thinking as libertarian, it makes little sense for them to have much common ground with the Jesus people who want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. (Them being the Tea Partiers, btw)

It was neatly summed up in a Daily Show piece a few months back that chronicled the split of a Tea Party group who couldn’t agree whether they wanted to open their meetings with prayer or not…

Keep up the good work!

The point I’m trying to make is that when two held opinions are mutually exclusive, then one or both must be wrong. If both opinions can never exist together and are incompatible, then it is a matter of discovering who is correct. That is why I suggest the IRS is immoral and coercive. My point is that their agents are not excused for their complicity with criminal activity simply because they would be hungry if it were put out of business.

This is not a matter of ‘philosophical strains’ having their turns. The point of politics is to find the truth about what system ensures liberty and justice. There is nothing just in giving sanction to violence in the name of quality of life. A life restricted by coercion is the lowest quality there is.

So there will always be people who need to work for the state to collect tax to fund this, or at least aid it in its coercive mission.

These wouldn’t be bastards because they would be helping the state in what it the legitimate (almost exclusively agreed too, not sure about Rothbard, but I hear he is nuts anyway) Libertarian functions of a state.

So we’ve got a continuum from legitimately working for the state – performing a role which ensures a just and stable society can exist to – to one where you are working for a state that has grown too large and uses its monopoly of violence in a way that makes working for them similar to working for the mafia, or a feudal lord.

But because the state has that monopoly of violence you will be faced with a choice between submitting to poverty or working for the state. Again, I don’t think expecting people to be heroes is anyway to create a philosophy that’s legitimate.

But yeah some people do just want to work for the IRS. I suppose you can hate them if you want. I’m a little more forgiving because I disagree with (almost) everyone politically so it’d be a recipe for isolation.

PS Wouldn’t it be nice if drugs were legal and safe and people were well educated about them? Sigh.

PSS And yes, although I’m sure not original, thinking of Adam Spliff made me very pleased with myself.

Of course not. But does my sympathy for them mean I have to surrender my views about the illegitimacy of taxation? Equally of course not.

I am quite ill to be fair. A sore throat followed by vomit and aching…

*snorfle* I’m really enjoying this.

Actually, we don’t differ that much on the conditions of capitalism and how unemployment forces people to take work. Believe me, I am right there with you in wishing that we could all have interesting, decently paid, morally acceptable jobs, and I’m totally aware how impossible that is. So there will be the odd random person whose only job prospect is enabling state theft. Poor bastard, glad I’m not him, hope to God he doesn’t suffer when the revolution comes. The people who choose to work for the IRS, though? They get no pity from me.

Now let’s see. If I remember rightly, Adam Spliff’s study shows that where there is a demand for a product, the best and most efficient producers should be the ones to supply it. In that respect the heroin producer is merely meeting customer demand. Heroin dealers, too, are in demand, as retail suppliers because they make it easier for the customer to acquire his fix. The fact that customers are essentially a captive market is simply an unfortunate result of the nature of heroin.

I suppose you could argue that there’s market demand for tax collectors, but I’d be extremely dubious if you did.

the state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” [emphasis original]

And if you look at people like Tilly and Mann, they argue convincingly that states were made both for war and by war, so yes he is taking a job from an organisation that is intricately entwined with coercion. Not only that but without this job the state couldn’t operate as it does.

But, this job exists, a demand for someone to do it exist.

You’ll no doubt know that this will distort whatever market for labour may exist outside of it. So a man – perhaps not this man, perhaps a woman – will be unemployed and poor, really poor if s/he does not take this job. Not everyone has lots of time to hang around waiting for that perennial job opening at McDonalds.

So the state has created a situation where someone will be unemployed. Are they meant to throw themselves onto the scrap heap of life in protest because one minority philosophical strain believes all state coercion to be wrong?

You can answer yes, but if you do I’d suggest that may be the reason that libertarianism is a mainly internet phenomena.

(I’ve tried to make this as unsocialist an argument as possible because it would gain no traction with you.)

Arguing is getting me nowhere, time to switch to polemic!

What about heroin dealers? They’re private sector, entrepreneurs, believers in personal freedom to choose, resourceful.

They provide a useful service it would be impossible for everyone who wanted heroin to get it if they had to grow poppies and refine it themselves. Just look to Adam Spliff’s study on the increase in production resulting from the division of Labour in diacetylmorphine production.

Who’s worse Heroin dealer or the IRS man?