[ALawPoker]

Nice hand, Nielsio. I'm honestly not really sure how to respond to you.

I mean, I tend to think there is a difference between intellectually removing bias (my posts lately), and then truly being comfortable with the change of environment. It is a good point that you shouldn't underestimate the way people will solve problems. So, the belief that my bias is such that the new environment would be uncomfortable is probably a biased assumption in its own right.

I mean, when I wrote the OP, that was as "comfortable" with my world view as I'd ever been. It was the reconciliation I was looking for. You make a convincing presentation though.

I think the biggest difference between "me" and "you" is that I know I could never act like an ACer, so I don't call myself that. And I guess maybe that's why I look for reasons to disagree. I want to find the intellectual justification to my actions. If there was theoretically a chance to vote for something that mattered to me, I'd vote. I mean I've never voted before but it's mostly out of laziness and disinterest. I can't honestly say I wouldn't if it was to my best interest. Treat others how you want to be treated. Oh? You're gonna go vote? OK, I will too. So I don't feel comfortable calling myself an "ACist" because it implies a degree of principle that I don't have. I don't care about the objectivity of what's best as much as I care about being comfortable right now. I'm a statist who agrees we are all [censored] each other over. I guess in a way, the state is a function of time preference.

But, intellectually I don't really disagree with anything you guys say. It's never made sense to me that government can make things better. And it wasn't like a political/moral thing, it was just a strictly logical thing. It's a barrier. How can that be better? How can your decision now to stereotype behavior and restrict decisions actually be better than another human being's decision based on his first hand analysis and unique judgment at a particular time? So if you asked me what was best, I'd always say less, less, less government.

I just, being so accepting of the reality where governments exist, never really considered the option of them not existing as a plausibility until I started reading this board. (I mean, I still don't consider it plausible in the sense that it might actually happen any time soon, but I never realized people actually stood for that and were pushing its cause.) And for a little while (I didn't include this in the OP but) I basically was an ACer. I didn't know all the fancy mumbo jumbo that you guys know, but it all basically hit me like a ton of bricks, and I started to see government's functions with moral disdain. Like I'd look at cops and growl, I even started looking at postmen and growled.

But then that just started to feel silly to me for no explicable reason. I guess like you say, it's part of my identity. And being emo is pretty lame. So I don't know. I guess I don't *want* to see the majority of the world around me as something I disagree with. It's just hard to disagree with everything. But at the same time... I do disagree!

So then where does that leave me. What I expressed in the OP is, I think, basically a reconciliation. It's one I'm comfortable with. It basically says to me, lack of government is objectively good, but removing the bias that would allow for it is not easy, and I do not fault myself or someone else for "playing along." A state police officer is also part hero. The things that drove him to be a cop in this society would often mean he'd be a full fledged hero in a free society. I do fault people (intellectually at least) if they don't admit that they're being dicks.

The way I see it, government's legs are a function of people who won't admit they're dicks, and not so much people like me who play along anyways. Cause I'm laying it on the table that "I'll stop if you do."