Building a Just World, Part 4

[Parts 1, 2, and 3]

What do

• Theft
• Murder
• Sexual assault
• Taxation
• Government
• Oppression
• Exploitation
• Expropriation

all have in common?

They are all encroachments upon your person, property, and liberty to which you did not consent.

Just one crime

Most ‘respectable’ members of mainstream society are horrified to hear government and taxes equated with murder or sexual assault. This reaction, conditioned as it is by a lifetime of indoctrination and thousands of years of state rule, is entirely understandable.

And yet, on the facts, it is entirely unsupportable.

Taxation is an encroachment upon your person, property, and liberty to which you did not consent. In fact, the whole phenomenon of an “implied social contract” is such an encroachment. You did not agree to it, and it is imposed upon you by force or the threat of force. Just like theft, murder, sexual assault, and every other crime.

In a very real sense, there is only one crime: trespass upon the person, property, or liberty of another. It’s done all the time … and not just by criminals.

And it’s hard to have peace in such a world.

The necessary condition of peace

Many people pursue peace in different ways:

• Antiwar activists focus on military conflict.
• Law-and-order types focus on crime.
• Marriage counselors focus on restoring peace in a relationship.
• Classical liberals—especially libertarians and conservatives—focus on the size of government.
• Classical liberals of the anarcho-libertarian variety focus on the very existence of involuntary governance.

So what is peace? Is it a cessation of hostilities? A treaty? Flowers and white doves?

Peace is the absence of conflict, certainly. Yet when we think of peace, we also tend to think of tranquility and calm: Harmonious relationships. Quiet neighborhoods. Natural beauty.

Peace, in other words, is a huge word.

And yet, among all these meanings of peace, there is one that stands out as an absolutely necessary condition. Peace requires the absence of trespasses against the person, property, or liberty of others. Full stop.

Of course, husbands and wives may still argue, and unless their argument becomes physical, no such trespass has occurred. And there are gray areas: If I walk down the street at midnight singing “Jolene” by Dolly Parton at the top of my lungs, it’s not exactly a direct trespass, but it’s definitely disturbing the peace. The absence of trespass is thus a necessary condition for peace, though not always a sufficient one.

Yet there is one thing we know for sure: If there are trespasses against person, property, or liberty, there is definitely NOT peace.

Thus, if we want to build a just and peaceful world, we must address such trespasses.

Peace cannot be imposed

Ah, but here is where things get even trickier.

A condition of peace may need to be defended (by the judicious application of protective force) … but it can never be imposed.

If peace is being imposed, then we’re doing it wrong. If peace is being imposed, then it isn’t peace at all.

Some might consider “the judicious application of protective force” and the imposition of peace to be a distinction without a difference. Yet they are not the same.

Protective force is undertaken in response to trespasses. It may even include protective measures such as installing a security system, establishing a boundary, or learning self-defense techniques.

Imposing ‘peace,’ by contrast, is an initiation of force. It acts preemptively, lumping in peaceful people with trespassers and threatening them all with violence. If we were to do this, we would not be building a just world; we would simply be doubling down on the mistakes of the past.

Live and let live

So how do we create peace without imposing it? How can we convince people not to trespass upon others without ourselves trespassing upon those whom we’re trying to convince?

As we discussed in detail in parts 1, 2, and 3, the first step is to allow people the freedom to experiment with different modes of organization and governance. There will never be peace on this planet, or anywhere else in the galaxy, until we stop forcing people to live the way we think they should live.

Forcing people to live in ways they would not choose … cramming people together whether they like it or not … single-solution systems … all these do is produce resentment, rebellion, and the violence of the bullet or the ballot. A truly peaceful condition of consensual order requires that we respect people’s jurisdictional rights, which we might summarize as the right of association and disassociation.

In such a condition, there will no doubt be a motley assortment of polities and peoples: For-profit micronations. Free cities. Ethnostates. Intentional communities and Amish farms. Communes and kibbutzes. Company towns. Unaffiliated market anarchists. Even traditional governments. And much more.

Peace and justice require that we accept this diversity.

The Common Respect Protocol, Part 1

In such a multifarious world, could we somehow convince others to help maintain this condition of consensual order? Can we devise an agreement that would attract broad support? What would such an agreement look like?

The name

Let us call our proposed agreement the Common Respect Protocol (CRP) as a working title.

In a proper condition of consensual order, there is no controlling legal authority—no one is “in charge.” As such, the CRP will be an agreement among polities and people of equal standing. Signatories may agree to some sort of arbitration system, but there is no hierarchy. “Protocol” is the appropriate term in such a situation.

The purpose of such a protocol will be to nurture and maintain a condition of consensual order. It is not to judge the internal policies and systems of polities (signatory or otherwise) or to force signatories to comply with a complicated regime. It is just something simple to help keep the peace. “Respect” is what we’re after, not compliance or conformity.

The simplicity of this respect protocol is made possible by the fact that the principles that undergird it are themselves simple and easily understood. Indeed, the natural facts from which these principles emanate are universal. “Common” speaks to both this simplicity and this universality.

What the CRP must not do

Derived from the Greek prōtokollon (prōt-, “first” and kollan “to glue together”), protocol is indeed the perfect word. We are looking for something to glue us together by choice, not rule us by force.

As such, there are several things we definitely do not want the CRP to do.

The CRP must not attempt to serve as a constitution.

It is hard enough to write a constitution for a single polity. It is impossible to write one to govern the affairs of multiple polities. And we wouldn’t want to even if we could.

The CRP must not attempt to smuggle in a world government or any kind of controlling authority.

It is the height of folly to believe one entity would be able to govern the affairs of billions of people, and the height of hubris to believe that anyone ought to do so.

The CRP must not pass itself off as a moral doctrine.

Multifarious polities and people will have very different ideas about morality. Yes, some principles truly are universal, but try telling that to people with their own beliefs. The CRP should avoid any appearance of moralizing. It will be based on moral principles, of course, but we need to shoot for a bare-minimum, sine qua non approach if we expect widespread participation.

The CRP must not act as a rights charter.

To help foster a condition of consensual order, the CRP’s provisions will have to protect certain rights (especially the jurisdictional right of EXIT). But here too, the CRP must only cover the rights necessary to make the whole thing work … and no more. The rest will have to be determined by each signatory’s internal policies. We may not like that, but we must accept it. (Of course, we can [and will] also create a declaration of rights for our own purposes, and for anyone else who wants it. But that cannot be a part of the CRP.)

The CRP must not look anything like today’s snotty mainstream.

If you have been around—especially as a part of the freedom movement—for the last few decades, you probably know what I mean by this. However, I will clarify just so there is no doubt:

Mainstream culture, in America and throughout the West, has become oppressively imperious and monochromatic.

Only a narrow range of viewpoints is deemed acceptable. Expressing views outside of that window produces, at best, shocked gasps, as if no one respectable could possibly hold such views. At worst, it results in social cancellation, career damage, and even de-banking or other financial impediments.

The regime’s ‘experts’ all agree on issues large and small, and any expertise not approved by the regime is considered “fringe” or “dangerous.” Here too, expressing such views can result in ostracism, damage to career and finances, or worse.

Narratives are tightly controlled. KnownFacts™ are disseminated as truth, and actual truth becomes scandalous or seditious. Holding the ‘correct’ opinions makes you one of the BeautifulPeople™. Anything else makes you a pariah.

I could go on, but most of you know exactly what I am talking about.

The CRP must assiduously endeavor NOT to create a community of signatories that in any way resembles this. No “world opinion.” No dichotomy between goody-goody signatories and non-signatory “rogue” polities. No approved narratives. No disdain for or poor treatment of non-signatories.

Any community of signatories must treat non-signatories with equal respect.

The CRP must not try to do too much.

The more complicated, the fewer the signatories. What we need here is the smallest possible agreement that makes coexistence feasible without eroding consent. The CRP will need to be lean and persuasive—offering a pathway to peaceful coexistence without compulsion.

Threading that needle will not be easy. As with everything else in life, perfection is impossible. There will be tradeoffs. Yet with deliberation and commitment to the principles of consent and respect, we may just find a way.

And it’s definitely work worth doing.

So what should the CRP look like? That will be the subject of our next installment.

Through the power of swarm intelligence, we can make the CRP even better, so please do not hesitate to send your feedback and suggestions on this, or any installment, to chriscook@theadvocates.org.