From: zeborah@gmail.com   
      
   David Friedman  wrote:   
      
   > In article <1im66be.1j31on9gjstsdN%zeborah@gmail.com>,   
   >  zeborah@gmail.com (Zeborah) wrote:   
   >   
   > > No.  You've forgotten the part where I pointed out the fundamental   
   > > difference between tax collectors and burglars:  the person in their   
   > > home can reasonably expect, based on law and past events, that a tax   
   > > collector will not shoot if the person simply puts their hands up, but   
   > > can't expect the same from a burglar.  Therefore, confronted with a tax   
   > > collector, the person in their house can trivially avoid violence, and   
   > > has no need to shoot in self-defense.   
   >   
   > "Violence" isn't limited to shooting. Confronted with the tax collector,   
   > the person in his house can reasonably expect to have his property   
   > seized, and to have force used against him, up to and including   
   > imprisonment, if he resists the seizure.   
   >   
   > Is it your view that the only threat against which the threat of lethal   
   > force is justified is to your life? A woman who pulls a gun on a   
   > would-be rapist is acting wrongly, and if he manages to shoot her first   
   > he was acting in self-defense? Does your answer depend on whether she   
   > believes he will follow rape with murder?   
      
   You know, you're incredibly obnoxious.  Either you honestly don't see   
   how imprisonment is not the same as rape, which is obnoxious; or you   
   think I won't be able to verbalise how they're not the same, which is   
   obnoxious.   
      
   A rapist, even more than a burglar, cannot be relied on not to kill   
   their victim.  Moreover, the rape itself might in numerous ways be a   
   threat to the victim's life.  The victim is therefore in my eyes   
   entitled to defend themself using any and all means.   
      
   Not all violence, however, if of such a degree as to require killing   
   someone in self-defence.  If you get into an argument with a friend who   
   hits you, you're not entitled to draw a gun to defend yourself.   
      
   Being abducted and imprisoned by a criminal is a case where self-defence   
   by any means is most likely justified, because such abductions   
   frequently end in worse violence.   
      
   Being imprisoned by the state is not, because the state follows rules   
   which means that the imprisonment will not (or, in America, will not   
   unless you're found guilty of doing something particularly heinous   
   beyond tax-evasion) end in worse violence.  Moreover the state gives you   
   ways to contest your imprisonment faced with a jury of your peers.   
      
   If you think that this is not enough -- if you believe that these laws   
   are so terribly unjust that it's worth killing those of your fellow   
   citizens tasked with upholding those laws in order to defend yourself   
   against those laws -- then, by making preparations to kill, you are   
   setting yourself up as an enemy to the society which upholds those laws,   
   and to the people in that society who rely on the laws of that society   
   for peace and justice; and they are entitled to defend themselves, their   
   society, their peace, and their justice against you.   
      
   If you don't like the laws, leave -- across a border, or into some   
   deserted rural area, I care not.  But you do not have the moral right to   
   cheat your fellow members of society by picking and choosing the laws   
   you will obey.  Society is not a buffet table.  We must take the   
   benefits and the disadvantages together, because if we take only the   
   benefits then it will rapidly fall apart and we will end up with only   
   disadvantages.   
      
   Zeborah   
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