A more detailed explanation
Having gotten into several debates over politics in the last few months, I wanted to take the time to detail the ideas behind my position, so that people can more easily understand why I say some of the things I say about government, ethics, and politics. I can't claim that any of these ideas are original - they've mostly been around for thousands of years. This is the very brief version, so I apologize if I left any logical jumps unexplained. I can fill in the gaps if anyone's curious. I'd also be happy to point anyone who's interested at some particularly good books on the subject. That said, here we go:
The central principle behind my arguments is what Murray Rothbard called the Non-Aggression Axiom: each person has the absolute right to be free from aggression against his person and property. In this context, aggression is taken to mean "any act that contravenes the wishes of the property owner." In other words, ownership means the right to decide who is allowed to perform a given action with respect to the owned object.
As you can probably see, this definition is just a more precise stating of the "common-sense" definition of ownership: if I own a car, I expect that other people will leave it alone unless they have my permission to do otherwise. If someone drives off in my car without my granting them permission to do so, they have obviously committed a crime - an act of aggression - against me, as the owner of the car. The fact that there is written down somewhere a law detailing that theft is punishable by such-and-such a penalty is not what makes stealing wrong - it would be just as wrong in the total absence of written law, or indeed of any formal societal structure, because it aggresses against the rights of the property owner.
The right to ownership of self cannot be granted or withheld by any individual or group. This right is inherent - the very concept of "self" implies such ownership: the self is that which cannot be owned by another. Similarly, each person owns their physical body, and the labor of that body. One's property, at the most basic level, consists of those things which have been taken from their natural state and transformed into something else by the labor of one's body. If a man takes stone and wood from their natural states and crafts an axe, that axe is his property, because it is the product of his labor. His property is then his to do with as he pleases, which includes the right to give or trade it to someone else. If he exchanges the axe for a neighbor's cart, the act of mutual exchange transfers the ownership right - he has given up his rights to the axe, and gained the right of ownership over the cart. The owner is, by definition, the only person with such a right of ownership - anyone who takes his property without his leave has committed theft.
Possibly the most important word in the above statement of the Non-Aggression Axiom is "absolute" - "the absolute right to be free from aggression". This right is not situational; there is no circumstance in which the violation of an innocent's person or property is right. Slavery, murder and theft are always crimes, regardless of the reason or the situation.
Government claims the opposite - they claim to have the right to enslave people to fight for them, and call it conscription; they claim to have the right to murder people, and call it war; they claim to have the right to steal from people and call it taxation. If any private person or group were to do these things, we would consider it a crime, no matter how noble or well-meaning their intentions in doing so. Some argue that government legitimately has these rights, because we have collectively granted them - but how is it possible to grant someone else the right to do something in my name that I did not have the right to do myself? Certainly, I could grant them the right to a portion of my own property, because I am the owner, and therefore have the right to re-assign ownership as I please. However, I cannot grant anyone the rights to my neighbor's property, because that right is not mine to give. If I signed a contract saying that I grant a particular group of my neighbors the right to take 20% of the earnings of everyone on my street, so that they could arm themselves to better protect the area, the other residents would certainly take me to court for extortion - and yet this is exactly what the government does under the name of "taxation."
The central principle behind my arguments is what Murray Rothbard called the Non-Aggression Axiom: each person has the absolute right to be free from aggression against his person and property. In this context, aggression is taken to mean "any act that contravenes the wishes of the property owner." In other words, ownership means the right to decide who is allowed to perform a given action with respect to the owned object.
As you can probably see, this definition is just a more precise stating of the "common-sense" definition of ownership: if I own a car, I expect that other people will leave it alone unless they have my permission to do otherwise. If someone drives off in my car without my granting them permission to do so, they have obviously committed a crime - an act of aggression - against me, as the owner of the car. The fact that there is written down somewhere a law detailing that theft is punishable by such-and-such a penalty is not what makes stealing wrong - it would be just as wrong in the total absence of written law, or indeed of any formal societal structure, because it aggresses against the rights of the property owner.
The right to ownership of self cannot be granted or withheld by any individual or group. This right is inherent - the very concept of "self" implies such ownership: the self is that which cannot be owned by another. Similarly, each person owns their physical body, and the labor of that body. One's property, at the most basic level, consists of those things which have been taken from their natural state and transformed into something else by the labor of one's body. If a man takes stone and wood from their natural states and crafts an axe, that axe is his property, because it is the product of his labor. His property is then his to do with as he pleases, which includes the right to give or trade it to someone else. If he exchanges the axe for a neighbor's cart, the act of mutual exchange transfers the ownership right - he has given up his rights to the axe, and gained the right of ownership over the cart. The owner is, by definition, the only person with such a right of ownership - anyone who takes his property without his leave has committed theft.
Possibly the most important word in the above statement of the Non-Aggression Axiom is "absolute" - "the absolute right to be free from aggression". This right is not situational; there is no circumstance in which the violation of an innocent's person or property is right. Slavery, murder and theft are always crimes, regardless of the reason or the situation.
Government claims the opposite - they claim to have the right to enslave people to fight for them, and call it conscription; they claim to have the right to murder people, and call it war; they claim to have the right to steal from people and call it taxation. If any private person or group were to do these things, we would consider it a crime, no matter how noble or well-meaning their intentions in doing so. Some argue that government legitimately has these rights, because we have collectively granted them - but how is it possible to grant someone else the right to do something in my name that I did not have the right to do myself? Certainly, I could grant them the right to a portion of my own property, because I am the owner, and therefore have the right to re-assign ownership as I please. However, I cannot grant anyone the rights to my neighbor's property, because that right is not mine to give. If I signed a contract saying that I grant a particular group of my neighbors the right to take 20% of the earnings of everyone on my street, so that they could arm themselves to better protect the area, the other residents would certainly take me to court for extortion - and yet this is exactly what the government does under the name of "taxation."