[ALawPoker]

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I don't know about the rest of them, but if you do a search of my posting history you are not going to find a lot of arguments for natural property rights or what have you.

And if you do a search I think you will come across some fine posts from Borodog and HMK who is able to articulate the benefits of AC over statism without focusing on morality.

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OK, maybe it's just my perception that those guys focus more on the morality than the practical benefits. Maybe they don't. But even still I'm talking about practicality in a different sense.

I know Boro and others have written some good stuff. But even in explaining practical benefits their stuff still assumes AC's values as the right way to think (it's practical *to them*) and does not recognize conflicting values as worthwhile ends in their own right. The conflicting values, in their minds, are simply values that people shouldn't hold.

If I'm a biggot who doesn't like gay people, it's easy for me to think I'd prefer a state. The state seems to give me some control over their behavior. But hey, wait a minute, in the absence of a state I'm free to discriminate against whoever I want as I see fit. Tough as it is to accept with my primitive mind, but maybe things would be better without the magic wand of government making all the decisions. Even though I hold a value that leads most people to conclude they need a state, you can argue that my interests are best protected without a state.

That's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the assumption that X is universally good, so everyone is free to conduct their business, oh look more X!

I'd like to hear how AC would be good for the people who happen to value intrusion into their neighbors' lives (I'm not concerned with why intrusion should be regarded as a bad thing). If your answer is that AC could not exist as long as people value intrusion and that you wish they'd realize that if they had different values things would be better, then fine, say it. But most any AC argument I've ever read on here will, either explicity or implicitly, say that a certain value is "right" and will never mean much to someone who unflinchingly holds a different one.

My impression is that ACers believe it is OK to hold any value whatsoever. Does that not extend to valuing nosiness and intrusion? So what happens when someone's value/moral/preference/whatever is to intrude in someone else's business? Is a state a good solution for those people? Or are there good arguments that show why people who want a hand in my life will still be better off without a state?

If the latter (which I suspect is your answer), why then do the vast, vast majority of self-proclaimed ACers seem to hold classically liberal values? If it should be so clear that everyone is better off with no state, then why do only the people who already agree intrusion is wrong seem to buy it?

If a gay bashing drug fearing god loving businessman told me he was an ACist, I guess I'd know he was *really* an ACist, and not just a pothead who's never thought much about the role of the state in our daily affairs. The fact that very few of these people seem to exist makes me wonder if the state is actually bad for the universal spectrum of our society's preferences, or if it's just bad for people who think a certain way to begin with.