[nietzreznor]

[ QUOTE ]
You are arguing from the position of an anarchist, though. You are saying that "it is ethical for me and my friends to defend myself from the state with force, so that makes it non-coercive" but what I am saying is that you need to consider that the moral code of the minority may disagree that the state is an evil entity. In that case, you are really just living your moral code through force as opposed to the statists living their moral code through force.

Imposing your morality on someone counts as coercion, too. If they don't agree with your morality and you say "tough, I've got the most guns" that's coercion even if you think it's morally justified.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, of course you would be using force--but the important thing is whether it is legitimate of illegitimate force (after all, self-defense is often forceful). But ij order to know if A's use of force constitutes self-defense or aggression, we must know what rights we actually have and whether there is in the situation a real violation of rights.

So anarchists using force to defend themselves from statism only constitutes aggression if we are wrong about what rights we really have. (Just like how we view A 'stealing' B's watch depends on objective facts, eg if B had previously stolen the watch from A then A is in no way 'aggressing' by taking the watch back.)

Clearly everyone has a right to believe in whatever morals, rights, etc that they want to (and to say what they want about them, etc)--but everyone is still answerable to the rights we all really have.