Defending against state violence : Murray Rothbard, John Brown, Timothy McVeigh, and why the NAP is crap
Murray Rothbard, John Brown, and Timothy McVeigh walk into a bar — and other reasons why the non-aggression principle is an unfunny philosophical joke that libertarians should abandon.
Libertarians often argue about the NAP, or the nonaggression principle for you normies. I don’t personally ascribe to the philosophical construct for a number of reasons, but I’ll focus primarily focus on one: The NAP — or at least the version that libertarians routinely waste their time arguing about — does not adequately balance the relationship between state violence and the right to self-defense.
Before I dive into the main topic, my first objection is the NAP’s lack of definition.
How do libertarians define the NAP?
Despite its magnanimous treatment by libertarians, the NAP is ill-defined, leaving it subjective and open to wide birth of interpretations, which is why libertarians debate about it. Ask five libertarians to define it, and you’ll end up with 10 answers.
For the sake of argument, I’ll rely on one definition, provided by whom many libertarians (not me) consider to be the archetypical libertarian: Murray Rothbard. As you’ll see, I borrow heavily from his canon, too.
In his essay “War, Peace, and the State,” Rothbard offered what seems to be the most agreed-upon definition:
The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.
Based on this definition, the NAP has a reciprocity issue — namely, how it doesn’t properly balance offensive and defensive violence, especially when painting with broad brush strokes about violence like libertarians tend to. Violence and self-defense don’t share the simple tit-for-tat ratio that libertarians like Rothbard claim it to be.
Defining violence: ukuleles, guns, and taxation
The NAP cannot be equated to pacifism; violence is warranted in the libertarian worldview, as stated, “only defensively against the aggressive violence of others.” So what are those circumstances when libertarians accept violence?
Overt, unprovoked physical violence is a slam dunk. If I bludgeon you with a ukulele, and you didn’t provoke me, then I violated the NAP. You would be within your right to counterattack because my instrumentally violent actions (bad pun totally intended).
What if I only threaten you with a ukulele? Most libertarians would argue that, yes, this is still violence. Swapping out my ukulele for a gun, Rothbard wrote:
[S]uppose someone approaches you on the street, whips out a gun, and demands your wallet. He might not have molested you physically during this encounter, but he has extracted money from you on the basis of a direct, overt threat that he would shoot you if you disobeyed his commands. He has used the threat of invitation to obtain your obedience to his commands, and this is equivalent to the invasion itself.
According to Rothbard, implicit violence is the same as explicit violence.
So, how is this implied violence different from, say, taxation? There is no difference, libertarians argue. Sure, the police aren’t pointing a gun at you while you complete your 1040-EZ. But the threat of them knocking down your door in the middle of the night and pointing a gun or two at you is a plausible outcome if you insist on evading taxation.
The libertarian animosity toward taxation is palpable. Libertarians are known for their overly used slogan of “taxation is theft.” But it doesn’t stop with theft; libertarians employ quite the assortment of pejoratives when describing taxation — everything from rape to slavery. Equating taxation to violence is much of a mental stretch for libertarians.
So, if taxation is violence, what does the NAP permit as a countermeasure against it?
The “virtuous act” of defending against state violence
In The Libertarian Mind, David Boaz wrote (emphasis added):
Note that the nonaggression axiom does not forbid the retaliatory use of force, that is, to regain stolen property, to punish those who have violated the rights of others, to rectify an injury, or even to prevent imminent injury from another person.
The NAP, according to Boaz, does not forbid “retaliatory use of force … to regain stolen property.” So does the NAP permit taxpayers to violently retaliate against violent taxation in order to regain their stolen goods. Again, Rothbard said, “Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another.” That sounds like a “yes” to me.
Rothbard took this even further and argued that countermeasures against taxation, such as tax evasion, are morally justified. In The Ethics of Liberty, he wrote:
Lying to the State, then, also becomes a fortiori morally legitimate. Just as no one is morally required to answer a robber truthfully when he asks if there are any valuables in one’s house, so no one can be morally required to answer truthfully similar questions asked by the State, e.g., when filling out income tax returns.
Rothbard even upped the ante on countermeasures against state theft, further moralizing any act that “liberates” stolen property (emphasis added):
The libertarian sees the State as a giant gang of organized criminals, who live off the theft called “taxation” and use the proceeds to kill, enslave, and generally push people around. Therefore, any property in the hands of the State is in the hands of thieves, and should be liberated as quickly as possible. Any person or group who liberates such property, who confiscates or appropriates it from the State, is performing a virtuous act and a signal service to the cause of liberty.
I repeat: Stolen property must be “liberated as quickly as possible,” and those who liberate such property are “performing a virtuous act and a signal to the cause of liberty.” (I’ll come back to this.)
Rothbard uses the example of a public university as confiscated property in need of liberation. But his strategy is murky: something about “virtuous homesteading confiscation” by students and faculty who have been “mixing their labor.” For South Park fans, this sounds a lot like the underwear gnomes’ strategy.
But, by the same logic, aren’t the teachers’ salaries and the student’s financial aid package also in need of liberation? It is ok to rob these teachers and students? Philosopher Ben Burgis wrote,
Can taxpayers justifiably mug public school teachers, firemen, or others whose income is derived from taxation — at least as long as they don’t steal more than they paid in taxes in the first place? Is this like recovering stolen property? I teach at a public university. Should I keep my hand on my wallet when I go to debates with libertarians?”
The NAP — or at least the Rothbardian version — seems to suggest that such an act isn’t necessarily a NAP violation. According to Rothbard, teachers, who suffer from “the moral taint of living off State funds,” are “a part of the State apparatus.” (So, to your answer your question: Yes, you’d better watch your wallet, Professor Burgis. Just to be on the safe side.)
Most reasonable people, including a lot of libertarians, would agree that robbing a public school teacher isn’t a proportional response to the theft. However, such proportionality isn’t even a consideration in the original definition, which, at best, implies a zero-sum relationship between violence and self-defense.
Proportionality and restitution
Rothbard does discuss proportionality in other texts. For example, in his essay “The Right to Self-Defense,” he wrote about a boy stealing bubble gum from a shopkeeper. If the boy committed theft, can the shopkeeper kill the boy as punishment? “Of course not,” said Rothbard (paraphrased). He continued:
We conclude that the shopkeeper’s shooting of the erring lad went beyond this proportionate loss of rights, to wounding or killing the criminal; this going beyond is in itself an invasion of the property right in his own person of the bubblegum thief. In fact, the storekeeper has become a far greater criminal than the thief, for he has killed or wounded his victim — a far graver invasion of another’s rights than the original shoplifting.
Rothbard concluded with the old adage “let the punishment fit the crime.”
So, let’s return to the thieving teacher. Like shooting the gum-stealing child, mugging a teacher should be considered a disproportionate response (i.e., a NAP violation).
After all, the teacher didn’t technically steal from taxpayers; the state did, right? Is there a proportionate response to theft by the state?
Rothbard suggested restitution, wherein a thief literally pays for his theft, as a better punitive alternative to incarceration:
Suppose that, as in most cases, the thief has already spent the money. In that case, the first step of proper libertarian punishment is to force the thief to work, and to allocate the ensuing income to the victim until the victim has been repaid. The ideal situation, then, puts the criminal frankly into a state of enslavement to his victim, the criminal continuing in that condition of just slavery until he has redressed the grievance of the man he has wronged.
But how does the state “pay” for its theft? Libertarians will argue that the state cannot produce revenue by itself without resorting to more theft; it would need to steal more to pay off its “debt to society.” Besides taxation is violence, remember? Violence will only beget more violence. Such circularity inspires libertarians to reject the state as a contradiction in and of itself that shouldn’t exist.
So, my dear libertarians, the state has to go, right? Ok — how? Can we use violence to combat state violence? If everything the state does is violence (especially when it is funded by violence), then defensive violence is warranted, right? If so, what is the propionate level of defensive violence we can use to fight and end the state?
Let’s consider two case studies.
NAP Case Study #1: John Brown and Harpers Ferry
First, let’s discuss John Brown and his raid of Harpers Ferry.
Brown wasn’t fighting the feds because he opposed taxation; he opposed slavery — arguably the greatest NAP violation of them all (almost as bad as taxation is to bad-faith, tone-deaf libertarians). During his sentencing, Brown said:
If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments — I submit; let it be done.
In Brown’s eyes, nothing was more immoral than the institution of slavery, which brutalized and destroyed the lives of the enslaved. And this immorality was pervasive — so much so that, according to Brown, violence was the only appropriate response to effectively abolish the barbarous institution:
I am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood. I had, as I now think vainly, flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.
To escalate this impending war, Brown planned to raid Harpers Ferry, liberate weapons from the federal armory, give them to liberated slaves, and incite an armed rebellion to liberate more slaves. Brown and his abolitionist crew successfully occupied the armory for three days but then were forced to surrender on the third day of their occupation by an overwhelming response by the U.S. Marines, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee.
During the fight, Brown and his team killed one marine.
So, did Brown violate the NAP? I conducted an informal, open-ended poll on Twitter, and the results were, at best, a mixed bag. (Yes, I’ll concede that this wasn’t the most scientific effort on my part.) As a group, libertarians seem neutral about Brown’s violence.
Brown’s gravest NAP violation, according to some libertarians, took place before the raid: the death of Heyward Shepherd (a free Black man and railroad porter whom Brown’s crew shot in the back) and the five deaths associated with the Pottawatomie massacre (also referred to as “Bleeding Kansas” period).
Otherwise, libertarians like Rothbard seem sanguine about Brown. Brown’s raid, according to Rothbard, was “based on cogent theories of guerrilla warfare … particularly on a plan set forth … by the libertarian Lysander Spooner.” (Spooner, like Rothbard, has quite the posthumous cult of personality among libertarians.) Furthermore, Rothbard wrote that Brown wasn’t “sick” or “neurotic” — “just passionate and determined.”
Rothbard’s biggest criticism was Brown’s humorless religiosity, suggesting that he would have been a real bummer to invite to happy hour. People like John Brown, Rothbard wrote, would not “have made charming cocktail party companions.”
If Brown violated the NAP, Rothbard’s condemnation was certainly muted.
So, it seems safe to argue that Brown, according to many libertarians, did not violate the NAP when he raided Harpers Ferry.
NAP Case Study #2: Timothy McVeigh and the OKC bombing
Since libertarians (Rothbard in particular) justify — or at least omit their condemnation of — some defensive violence against the state, let’s turn to the second scenario, which involves another “passionate and determined” individual.
This person, also deeply opposed to taxation, wrote:
Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate “promises,” they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight … Is a civil war imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that! But it might.”
And who was this man writing such a standard-issue libertarian diatribe against taxation? Why, Timothy McVeigh, of course.
McVeigh wrote these words about three years before he and Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring more than 680 people.
Libertarians will scoff at the suggested link between anti-tax radicalism and domestic terrorism. McVeigh wasn’t influenced by Rothbard but rather by white supremacy, The Turner Diaries, and the federal raids in Ruby Ridge and Waco.
And to that, I say, “Fair enough.”
But much of what Rothbard previously wrote about how returning public property to private ownership — how it must be “liberated as quickly as possible” — could easily suffice as a moral justification for such heinous acts.
The bombing site is now maintained and operated by the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, a privately funded nonprofit organization. Its website states:
The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum does not receive any annual operating funds from the federal, state or local government. Museum admissions, store sales, the OKC Memorial Marathon, earnings from an endowment and private fundraising allow the Memorial and Museum to be self-sustaining.
Wasn’t this site once controlled by, in Rothbard’s words, “a giant gang of organized criminals”? As such, didn’t McVeigh and Nichols “liberate” this property from said violent cabal? Now that this site is financially self-sufficient and free from government spending, isn’t it no longer “a part of the State apparatus” — thus, freed from “the moral taint of living off State funds”? Did McVeigh and Nichols commit “a virtuous act and a signal service to the cause of liberty”?
Rothbard died four months before the bombing, so he never had the chance to write about the tragedy or answer such questions. All I really have is conjecture. (Also, interestingly, I couldn’t find any commentary by Rothbard about Ruby Ridge or Waco. If anybody has such info, I’d love to read it.)
However, almost all libertarians condemn McVeigh and Nichols’s violence and agree that they violated the NAP because of, to borrow Rothbard’s words, their “grotesque lack of proportion.”
(The only exception I could find is Justin O’Donnell, the neck-bearded dipshit edgelord pictured below. At least O’Donnell concedes that the daycare children who died did nothing to deserve such barbarism.)
The NAP: clear, simple, and wrong
Libertarians often boast about the NAP and how this principle can be used to answer most, if not all, questions. Many libertarians equate it to the “Golden Rule”: Treat others as you would wish to be treated.
But there appears to be quite a chasm of opinion among libertarians on what actually qualifies as a NAP violation. For example, when it comes to combating state violence with violence, libertarians draw an arbitrary line in the sand somewhere between John Brown and Timothy McVeigh (one death vs. 168). To say the NAP lacks precision would be an understatement.
And it isn’t just this question of self-defense against state violence; the NAP struggles to provide useful guidance on how to effectively contain infectious diseases, mitigate pollution, correct historical injustices, or even handle an unwanted pregnancy — all issues of interest in our modern political world.
The NAP’s lack of precision, nuance, and objectivity make it untenable not only as a philosophical principle but also as a moral compass and legal test for pretty much everything.
Though the NAP sounds clear and simple on paper, H.L. Mencken reminded us, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
