In my naivety, I commented that according to natural law, all private men have a God-given, absolute right to bear arms, and that as per nemo potest dare quod non habet ("no man can grant that which he does not own himself", i.e. the government has only those powers granted to it by those citizens who themselves possess those powers), it is the people who grant the government the right to bear arms, not vice versa. Therefore, I said, the concept of the government having a monopoly on the use of violence, and granting to citizens the right to use violence, made no sense.
Therefore, I said, the notion that a state is "failed" for failing to secure a monopoly on violence per se, made no sense to me. To me, the state had a functional purpose, viz. to protect life, liberty, and property, but it did not have a monopoly on this function. The state was an organization formed by voluntary contract and consent, and citizens could, at any time, at will, revoke their consent to be governed. The state might "fail", in my mind, if it failed to suppress immoral or unjust violence, i.e. if it failed to fulfill its functional purpose, but not if it merely failed to suppress all violence per se outside the state's monopoly, which monopoly I did not recognize.
So we see that I was an anarchist a long time ago, but I just didn't realize it. I honestly thought I was a minarchist. To me, to say that the state ought to exist as a voluntary organization composed of those who consented to membership and who hadn't submitted a request to be disenrolled, was a perfectly cogent thing to believe without being an anarchist. In defense of my naivety, I quote Albert Jay Nock's "Anarchist's Progress":
It will easily be seen, I think, that the only unusual thing about all this was that my mind was perfectly unprepossessed and blank throughout. My experiences were surely not uncommon, and my reasonings and inferences were no more than any child, who was more than halfwitted, could have made without trouble. But my mind had never been perverted or sophisticated; it was left to itself. I never went to school, so I was never indoctrinated with pseudo-patriotic fustian of any kind, and the plain, natural truth of such matters as I have been describing, therefore, found its way to my mind without encountering any artificial obstacle.
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That's exactly the claim of Hisbollah and Hamas!
Okay, but I'm sure that Hizbollah and Hamas also claim that eating food is necessary for life. So not everything they say is wrong.
In this case, their error is not the assertion that violence outside the bounds of the state is legitimate. Their error is the assertion that immoral and unjust violence outside the bounds of the state is legitimate. If two men both commit violence outside the bounds of the state, one to shoot an intruder in his home, and the other to shoot an innocent civilian, surely you would admit there is no comparison between the two, even though both are vigilantes.
And furthermore, it is possible to have an evil, tyrannical, despotic government, with the revolutionaries against that government being the just and moral ones.
So my point is, being within or without the boundaries of the state's authority, tells you nothing about whether a group is just and moral or not. What is problematic about Hizbollah and Hamas is not that they operate outside the bounds of government, but rather, the problem is that what they do - whether within or without the government - is immoral and unjust.
And by the way, Hamas is the government of Gaza.
Hamas is the government, because the took it by force, i.e. with their weapons, like Hisbollah is doing now more or less directly in Levanon.
And BTW, Hisbollah and Hamas claim to shoot intruder in their "home".
Every government uses force to establish its power. When 51% vote for one party and 49% for the other, what ensures that the government has power over the 49% who did not vote for it? Force. Max Weber even defines government as the territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of force. So Hamas is no different than any other government on earth (including the Israeli government).
Hamas and Hizbollah are correct to shoot intruders in their home. Their error is that they mis-define what their home is. If I assert the right to defend my home, then I am correct, but if I assert that your home is my home, then that and only that is my error.
Good to know that it is only your error. Then I don't have to worry, when you shoold me.
shoold was supposed to mean shoot.
However,somebody who doesn't agree with the government about a monopol on weapons might also not agree on the definition of property, i.e. what's "my home".
"However,somebody who doesn't agree with the government about a monopol on weapons might also not agree on the definition of property, i.e. what's 'my home'."
True, but it cuts both ways. Maybe the government will say that all weapons of self-defense are illegal and that your home is owned by the government, and that you have no humans rights to boot. An evil person might disagree with a good government, but a good person might disagree with an evil government.
"An evil person might disagree with a good government, but a good person might disagree with an evil government."
An evil government uses tanks and planes against its population. Private owned guns are not really helpful in countries like Syria or Lybia.
"Private owned guns are not really helpful in countries like"
Just because your pistols, rifles, and shotguns are not effective against tanks and planes, does not mean you lose your human right to own them nevertheless. If a bully picks on someone smaller than him, it might be prudent for the victim to flee instead of fight, but that doesn't mean he lacks the right to stay and fight if he wants to. Prudence or imprudence of self-defense, does not affect the inherent, absolute right of self-defense.
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