Re: Final Challenge to Socialists

Joe E. Dees (jdees0@students.uwf.edu)
Sat, 12 Dec 1998 16:59:02 -0600

Ok, you support the existence of government. But do you support the
existence of a coercive (violence, theft toward the individual) government? If so, how do you support those views in terms of Extropianism. If not, please explain how a non-coercive government could exist...

An entirely non-coercive government cannot exist; such an absolute is an abstract, unreifiable construct, resembling a "straw saint" (an
"if we can't have perfection, let's not have anything" kind of
argument). But since there are necessary, essential and indispensable services which only some form of government can provide, it is useful for us to keep total non-coercion before us as an asymptotically approachable goal, towards which we strive by working to make the government we must have as non-coercive as possible, while still able to perform its necessary, essential and indispensable functions for us. If this violates some obscure tenet of Extropian dogma, then there's something wrong with Extropianism at that point, for the very concept of dogma is itself a coercive, intellectual freedom-stealing one (even antigovernment dogma). Joe