Moglen on Freedom Box and making a free net

Actually, in this case "the country" refers to the government, not the people living under its thumb. The people can stay; *they* aren't the ones acting aggressively. If the government stops violating others' natural rights, i.e. effectively stops being a government at all, it is welcome to stay as well.

> So the choice becomes you moving or everybody else (who have just as many rights as you) moving.

False dichotomy. No one needs to move. All that is required is that everyone respect their neighbors' natural rights.

> Theft implies you get nothing in return, which is clearly not the case.

False. Theft is when someone deprives you of your property without your permission. It makes no difference whether they leave something in return--something, moreover, which you clearly value less than what was taken, since they resorted to theft rather than a mutually-voluntary exchange.

> That, however, is a particularly American problem. That the US government is fairly broken is well known.

The problems listed are common to all governments, not just the USA. Aggression and corruption are in their nature. Without aggression they wouldn't *be* governments, and the power to get away with "legitimate" aggression invites corruption on a grand scale. Some are certainly less corrupt or intrusive than others, but that isn't much to boast about.

> There are plenty of governments that function better. There are none (AFAIK) that function like you appear to want it too, which indicates to me it's not practical in some way.

It's more than impractical; it would be a contradiction. An organization which respected others' natural rights and did not practice aggression could not reasonably be called a government at all. It is the institution itself which is flawed, not any particular implementation.

No, they do not have any rights over any land they don't own. Any claim that they do is illegitimate. A country is an abstract thing, it can move anytime the people controlling it want it to. And it does, it's usually called invasion or annexing. But, of course, it could move the other way too, but I forgive you for overlooking that since there is very little precedent in history for it. At any point, it could agree to stop exerting force over any place that it currently does. I am not asking anyone else to move (that is your suggestion), I am asking the country to move, to stop exerting force over any land which is owned by someone else.

>>> Infrastructure simply doesn't get built out of the goodness of people hearts.

>> Ironic that you should feel that way on a site for free software. :)

> The total value of all free software is peanuts compared to other infrastructure. For example: Total estimated value of software in Debian: $1.8B.

$1.8B? The linux kernel itself is likely worth close to that.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/linux_kernel_rand...

> I'll think we'll have to disagree on that. Theft implies you get nothing in return, which is clearly not the case.

From websters, theft:

"a: the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property"

Do you think that someone should be able to break into your house and take what they want? Do you think that if they decided to leave something behind as compensation, without agreeing with you what it is, that it would suddenly make it not theft?

> If you were sent an individual bill for every service the government provided, you'd spend your entire day paying them (or not) rather than doing any work.

I never was suggesting sending a bill for services that people did not request, you are. Being asked to pay for services you didn't request is called extortion, it is what the mafia does.

>> ...list of evil government undertakings...
> That, however, is a particularly American problem. That the US government is fairly broken is well known.

Say what? Everything that I mention is/was done by almost every nation's government in the world. Of course, it is broken, but it by no means is an American problem. Every organization which rules people by force is "broken".

> That 30% was agreed upon by your elected representatives.

Who the hell cares, I didn't agree to it. If the mafia bosses agree to extort you, does it make it OK? Under what weird (but obviously common logic) does an act become ethical simply because others agreed to it?

> The other 70% of your income is being spent on other stuff. Paying tax is just money, which you barely miss.

Believe me, I miss it. Your condoning of theft is abhorrent.

Not to mention that the simple 30% number was the real obvious IRS tax, but that every other bit of that 70% is likely taxed 10-100 times before I get any products out of it.

> Other than that, you barely interact with the government on a day-to-day basis.

Again, just because the mafia has such a tight control over the neighborhood, that people don't have to deal with them much (only when they pickup their extortion checks, or when they tell people to stay out of certain businesses) doesn't mean they aren't screwing people constantly. Just because most people learn to live with the problem and ignore it (they are sane, they realize it is not going away soon) doesn't mean it isn't there.

I suspect that people tend to get most angry at the problems they know that they could have avoided if they really cared. The bad deals you talk about below, that they could have been smarter about and simply not taken. On the other hand, the bad deals which they have lived under since birth, they are harder to acknowledge. Doing so is painful, and would likely lead to the realization that they might have to deal with them forever, and yet they did nothing to choose them.

> Businesses can screw you on a day to day basis. Overpriced crappy broadband. Providing loans to people they know they cannot pay.

No, sorry those are simply bad deals. People can choose to avoid them. Those are not criminal activities. The ones which are, of course, are the ones which are mandated by government, the ones people cannot avoid.

But, if you do the math and pretend that 30% is all I ever pay in taxes. For all the rest of the lot who get my 70%, to screw me over more than the government, they would have to screw me of more than %30 of my income, that would mean 30 out of 70, that's 42%. I can guarantee you that I do not pay more 42% than I am willing to on everything that I pay for, I am simply too cheap. Oh, believe me, there are plenty of people willing to take my money if I am not thrifty. It's just that I am not in a habit of entering voluntarily into horrible deals, but the government takes it, involuntarily, even when I am thrifty.

> While a government in theory could screw you over, they're far to busy doing other things. There are more important things in the world than money.

Of course, there are more important things than money. I listed plenty of very important evil, non monetary crimes, and governments have a pretty good monopoly on those violent/extortive things in most parts of the world. The list of things that corporations can do to screw me over, is almost purely financial. To go beyond the financial, they usually have to enlist the help (and protection) of a government.

Of course, most land has been stolen form someone at some point. But, what is your point? That it is therefore OK to steal land at any point?

The relevant question, is, did the organization called a government legally purchase the land they are ruling over, with funds that they legally owned? Please find such land! Very little government ruled land was purchased legally, and the little that was, was likely purchased with stolen funds. That makes most land rightfully someone else's, certainly not rightfully owned by the government.

I purchased my land, and when I did, a land title search was done. At least some effort was made to say that the person I purchased it from legally owned it when I purchased it. As far back as is traceable, no one else has a claim to the land. This is normal, most people have to do this. Why can a government land on a continent and proclaim that they own all the land that they see (and can't see), while all the while it is obviously inhabited? Why, when land is purchased and sold on a daily basis from individual to individual, does some external agency still claim rights to this land? This is absurd logic, does the queen of England still own everyone in England?