What do they think "stop or I'll shoot" means?

Perhaps you've heard the common libertarian refrain that taxation is theft. It's a pretty popular one, and this rundown at libertarianism.org covers the basis of it pretty effectively. What we're interested in here is:

Imagine that I hold you up at gunpoint and take $20 from you. I also leave one of my books behind in exchange. When you see me later without my gun, you call me a thief and demand your money back. “Oh no,” I say, “I am no thief, for I gave you something valuable in exchange. True, you never asked for the book, but it’s a good book, worth much more than $20.”

This reply on my part would be confused. It doesn’t matter that I gave you a good in exchange, and it doesn’t matter whether the book is really worth more than $20. What matters is that I took your money without your consent.

It also does not matter if you benefit greatly from the book.

Libertarians often bring up the "at gunpoint" angle and with good reason. There's another key principle of libertarianism: that the government uses violence to enforce its laws, including the taxation. Canada doesn't jail people for failure to pay taxes like the U.S. does, but you can see this matters not:

1. I don't pay my taxes
2. The government says I have to, and sends me a bill
3. I ignore the bill, but take all my money out of electronic means and keep it in my house
4. The government sends a bill collector to my house
5. I refuse to let the bill collector in
6. The bill collector comes with police officers with guns
7. I still refuse to let the bill collector in
8. The cops break down my door and if I try to stop them, they pull out their guns and shoot me

This is not particularly arguable: those who put more than 5 seconds of thought into this have to either themselves turn libertarian or justify the living hell out of it. So we agree that even on this matter, which is serious enough to cause you to be arrested and jailed in American but isn't even an imprisonable offence, the government decree is tantamount to force. As one Objectivist used to say, if you aren't willing to pistol whip a little old lady and then shoot her in the back of the neck for a government program, you can't justify it. Individual morality within libertarianism basically provides the spectrum where that axiom is believed to hold true. However if you break the law, as both a matter of fact and a matter of law than the government can and will use force up to and including shooting you in the head and killing you if you continue to break it and fail to comply with their actions to rectify the matter. You can make the moral case whether a specific law should or should not exist because of this fact, but suffice it to say if you agree that the law exists than you also agree this is what they get to do. This logic is absolute, unassailable, and completely airtight to any and all rational argument. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has publicly agreed with this sentiment. Therefore, in true Trump Derangement Syndrome fashion, everybody is now outraged that he would ever dare imply that such a concept exists.



Looting is illegal. People who loot are (in theory) confronted by the police who will arrest them. This involves pointing guns at them, and if they fail to comply, shooting them for the crime. So yes, as a factual and legal matter when the looting starts the shooting starts. Why is this news? And, as usual with Big Left Tech social media enforcers block the conservatives' "violent speech" while leaving the leftist speech on the same topic alone. FCC chairman Ajit Pai asked why the Iranian head of state is allowed to advocate for violence. Last year the Washinton Examiner noted that when violent leftists threatened Mitch McConnelll he was (deliberately) censored for posting proof of the threats against him.

As McConnell’s campaign manager later pointed out, Twitter had also just recently allowed the phrase #MassacreMitch to be displayed as “trending” — this phrase’s double-meaning is itself a violent threat — yet somehow it is against the rules to bring transparency to the violent threats that increasingly dangerous leftists bring to the door of an elected lawmaker.

Three years ago TownHall.com found plenty of tweets by leftists calling for the murder of numerous GOP officials. Joss Whedon, David Simon, and Everlast all promoted violence against Republicans without any censure from Big Left Tech. We've already seen that Trump causes leftists to lose what little rational thought they may have had. Just remember, TechDirt's Mike Masnick is still falsely claiming there's no bias on social media sites. I guess we can test it. Get somebody to show up at Masnick's house with a gun, beat the living shit out of him, and then hold him hostage and notify the police. Hold the gun directly in his mouth while the SWAT team shows up with snipers and all the rest. Get a leftist Twitter user to post "if this guy doesn't surrender the SWAT team should use lethal force" and then have somebody flag it for moderation. If the social media post is censured by Twitter, the hostage taker doesn't open fire and Masnick lives. If it isn't, then the SWAT team goes home and Masnick gets what the lying leftist deserves.