Xero and Pragmatarianism Part 2

---In responce to my bringing up the paradox of tolerance, Xero said this,

I’m tolerating intolerance? Let’s consider what Kinsella wrote in that link you shared…

It simply means that the state-advocate does not mind the initiation of force against innocent victims — i.e., he shares the criminal/socialist mentality. The private criminal thinks his own need is all that matters; he is willing to commit violence to satisfy his needs; to hell with what is right and wrong. The advocate of the state thinks that his opinion that “we” “need” things justifies committing or condoning violence against innocent individuals.

You anarcho-capitalists are advocates for the victims. But who are the victims though? Taxpayers. In a pragmatarian system, if taxpayers felt like the IRS was initiating violence/force/aggression against them…then why would they allocate any of their taxes to the IRS? As Rothbard said…”In a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors.”
Regarding Mao, Hitler and Rothbard…who doesn’t have some sense of right vs wrong? The thing is… we are all touching different parts of an elephant. Therefore, no two people are going to always agree on right vs wrong. Therefore, the issue is 1. the willingness to make a decision for millions and millions of people and 2. our ability to truly understand the unintended consequences. As Milton Friedman strongly emphasized, “If we can’t persuade the public that it’s desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it.” The difference between Rothbard and Friedman is the same difference between Conceit and Humility.
Regarding the invisible hand…you really don’t see Hayek’s partial knowledge in Buddha’s parable of the blind men and the elephant? It seems like they were both saying that we all have some information but nobody has all the information.
Consider this passage by Adam Smith…

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder. – Adam Smith, Theory of Moral

Every single one of us has our own unique principle of motion. These principles of motion are determined by the part of the elephant that we are touching. Given that we are all touching different parts of an elephant…then isn’t it self-evident that we’re all going to have different principles of motion? Buddha didn’t need to say anything about an invisible hand because how could anything else follow from his parable? You’re certainly not going to get the visible hand from his parable. You’re certainly not going to get Rothbard or Hitler or Mao pushing a button to try and impose their ideal society onto everybody else.

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James Rick said 1 week ago:

We’re kind of talking in circles here. Being humble doesn’t mean you concede everyone the right to abuse you simply because you’re not enitrly sure that abuse is wrong.
Again its about the theft, not what it is allocated towards afterwards. If a theif came to my house, stole the money I was going to donate, and donated it himself anonymously, it would still be theft. If I had rather kept the money at home, well, then the theft is just more annoying.

And of course, if someone’s perfect system of governance is different than mine, I won’t attempt to stop them from practicing it themselves. When it involves unwilling participants is when it is a problem.
I’m certainly no chess master, nor do I ever want to be. I do, however, reserve the right to condemn the chessmaster who coerces his pawns into place. Its not a matter of pride, its a matter of decency.
How would Rothbard have been imposing his will on everyone else by pressing the mythical button? They would have been free to form a voluntary system of governance afterwards. By not pressing the button, he would have been, in effect, condoning the behaviour of the state.
And I have to say, this relateing Buddha to YOUR ideal system of government is nothing but pure sophism. Historically he has nothing to do with it. I understand the point you’re trying to make but you’re trying to connect a very broad idea to a very specific issue of justified aggression. It’s like me saying that because Jesus once said “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword” he must have been an anarcho-capitalist because he clearly opposed agression; in fact I may have more ground in my statement due to its specific nature whereas the elephant parable is open to much more interpretation. Both are, nonetheless, absurd.
This concept that no-one truly understands his own fallibility who doesn’t agree with pragmatarianism is itself one of the highest forms of arrogance.