The ideal is a free society in which its members exercise self-government guided by the Zero Aggression Principle:

"No human being has the right -- under any circumstances -- to initiate force against another human being, nor to advocate or delegate its initiation."

Since its very existence is predicated on the initiation of force, government -- as a concept -- in inherently immoral and therefore has no moral province whatsoever.

Attempts by government to enforce peaceful interaction between individuals are disasterous. Worse, such attempts uniformly lead to tyranny.

The free market ensures peaceful interaction by its very nature. Further, it does so far less expensively than government and without the hideous side-effect of encouraging tyrants.

Further, since government programs must initiate force against the governed in order to be implemented, they are not only negative, they are immoral. Specifically:

In order for government to spend a penny, it must initiate force. It must force the governed -- at the point of a gun, if necessary -- to pay for any and all spending. This is in direct violation of the Zero Aggression Principle and is therefore immoral.

There is no reason for government to become involved in any aspect of your life.

What most people think of as "rights" is any activity in which I might choose to engage that does not violate the Zero Aggression Principle.

These are same "rights" I have under any society.

The Zero Aggression Principle is derived from a number of traits of the human species. Specifically, the major traits are sapience, territoriality, and a desire for self-determination.

Just as hamsters are rodents and fish use gills to obtain oxygen so as to breathe underwater, sapience, terrritoriality, and desire for self-determination are innate to homo sapiens.

What you might call my "rights" are simply the actions of homo sapiens acting in accordance with their nature -- but as self-goverened by the Non-Aggression Principle.

Religious individuals might choose to interpret the human species' posession of these traits as indicative that they are bestowed by a supreme being.

Fish have gills and hamsters are rodents. Any government edict to hold your hamster underwater until he sprouts gills will result in a dead hamster. Any government edict that requires humans to behave in a manner inconsistent with their characteristics as a species will result in ... well, exactly what we have now.

Typically, the individuals from whome I am protecting myself are government functionaries or their sycophants.

This is as true of fish and hamsters as human beings.

It's unnecessary to account for variations such as these. They simply exist. Attempting to achieve equality of individual characteristics is an exercise in futility.

Were government to immediately cease meddling in the free market, the resultant sudden economic prosperity would make the boom of the last decade look like Mount Everest beside a small hill in the South Dakota prarie.

The activities are identical. In both instances, individuals are forced to forfeit money or other valuable property. The only nominal difference between "taxation" and "theft" is that "taxation" is government-sanctioned.

Theft is no more moral when sanctioned by government than it is when sanctioned by the Mafia.

Purely on a financial level, taxation by government at all levels currently confiscates something in excess of 50% of every individual's gross income -- regardless of income or marginal tax rate. Even individuals who income is not directly confiscated are still required to pay sales taxes, property taxes, etc.

Further, because government taxes goods and services at every possible point of production, the consumer cost of every item you may ever purchase is increased by something in excess of 800%.

In a society self-governed by the Zero Aggression Principle, individuals would effectively have double their current income with only one-eighth their current expenses.

Clearly, this would be far more beneficial for any individuals in such a society as compared to the present time.

On another level, support of taxation has the side-effect of lending credence to government authority in virtually any area of life. Lack of taxation would not only be economically in our best in interests, it would also be in our philosophical best interest. Once government had no way to fund itself, it would become crystal clear in extremely short order that it was only causing harm.

I may morally observe anything about an individual that does not require the initiation of force to do so.

Observing my neighbors having a heated argument on their front porch does not violate the Zero Aggression Principle. Installing surveillance devices in their homes without their authorization does.

Individuals have no moral need to be aware of other individuals' activities as long as those activities do not initiate force.

"Democracy" is simply "mob rule." The tyranny of 50%+1 of a voting populace is no more moral than the tyranny of an autocrat.

Regardless of what type of tyranny happens to be in dominance, any individual can practice self-government.

For example, I ignore government edict approximately 95% of the time. Government laws are uniformly irrelevant to my daily existence. I pay attention only when failure to do so will cost me my life.

However, there will come a day when enough individuals are self-governing guided by the Zero Aggression Principle that my life will no longer be in peril. At that point, I will entirely cease to kowtow to government edict.

I am firmly convinced that the American Federal government will ultimately meet its doom in one of two ways:

Either it will collapse due to its own inherent instability or it will simply cease to be relevant.

The latter notion seems to be most likely at this time, considering the size and scope of the black and grey markets in the United States.

As it is based on the inherent characteristics of the human species, self-government guided by the Zero Aggression Principle makes no distinction between humans who are members of one group or another.

An individual human being -- regardless of group affilliation -- simply has no right to initiate force against another human being.

In a free society self-governed by the Zero Aggression Principle, there will be transgressions. There will be individuals who -- by accident or design -- initiate force against other human beings.

Such individuals are morally bound to make restitution to the victim.

Think of it this way:

In a free society in which individuals self-govern guided by the Non-Aggression Principle, there would be no laws, courts, legal precedent, or other associated government baggage.

There would simply be individuals who had initiated force and their victims.

Freed of such "crimes" that do not initiate force (such as the sale or use of guns and drugs, prostitution, failure to pay taxes), the number of instances in which force is initiated becomes very, very small.

A huge percentage of force initiations would no doubt be accidental. For example, an individual might accidentally initiate force by losing control of their car and colliding with another individual's car. In such circumstances, the force initiator is morally bound to provide restitution for damages -- and would do so peacefully, either directly or via insurance.

However, there might be a small number of individuals who initiate force by design, so let's examine your garden-variety mugger, rapist, or murderer.

In a free society, individuals are not limited by the type of weapon that they may choose for personal defense. Therefore, there is a high statistical liklihood that any given individual will be armed with deadly weapons, either worn openly or concealed.

(As a side note, I imagine that openly-worn weapons would be an extremely effective deterrant against the initiation of force. Why attack an individual you know is armed?)

Since the Zero Aggression Principle only requires that an individual not initiate force, a victim is within their moral right to respond to such an initiaion in any way they see fit.

In a free society, the majority of would-be muggers, rapists, and murderers will not survive their first attempt. They will be killed or injured at the hands of their would-be victim.

Also, as noted in John Lott seminal work on the subject, More Guns, Less Crime, there is a significant decrease in the level of violent crime when individuals are not disallowed the use of weapons for personal protection. The reason for this is simple:

The average mugger, rapist, and murderer depends on a population without the ability to defend itself. Where there becomes a high statistical liklihood of death or injury, the mugger, rapist, or murderer chooses not to even attempt their crime.

(It is, as a side-issue, the same reason the Federal Government is partly accountable for the events of Bloody Tuesday [September 11]. Had it not created airplanes filled with disarmed potential victims, would-be terrorists probably wouldn't have tried to take those aircraft. Or if they had, they would not have been successful due to all the armed passengers.)

So, in a free society, very few muggers, rapists, and murderers will even exist because the potential cost is too high.

However, of that small percentage that does try, a many of them will not live to try again.

Of the tiny number that successfully initiates force, what will be required of them is restitution for damage. Even murderers will be morally bound to pay restitution rather than incarceration.

Since there would be no government courts or police, the onus falls to the individual to handle their own affairs. This being the case, an individual might contract with a private security firm to locate and detain a force initiator.

Such action would be taken with the knowledge that any individual detained who was not the force initiator would have force initiated against them -- and so would therefore be due restitution from the firm that detained him. This applies equally to any individual a security firm might question in the course of locating a force initiator.

For example, suppose such a firm questioned the force initiator's best friend as to his whereabouts. Any questioning that initiates force -- such as strong-arm tactics, beatings, or detaining the individual until he "talks" -- would require significant restitution from the security firm.

Once located and detained, the force initiator and victim would contract with a private judge or adjudicator. This individual would be contractually responsible for determining if a force initiation had, in fact, taken place; whether the detention of the force initiator was necessary and appropriate given circumstances; and what restitution was necessary by the force initiator.

The restitution phase would likely entail some kind of negotiation, for which both the victim and initiator would probably retain representatives.

Failure by the initiator to either contract with a judge or provide the negotiated restitution would carry its own punishment.

Consider: in a free society, no individual is required to do business with any other -- and this includes individuals who sell food, water, electricity, or housing.

Also consider that in a free society, there is no crime -- only force initiation. Without government-established crimes that do not involve initiation of force, the number of individuals we might think of as "criminals" is very small.

And remember, we know from current statistics that an armed populace is a deterrant against such individuals.

Therefore, in a free society, unrepentant force initiators will be an extreme minority.

Since they are such a minority, it is possible to practice the free market version of "excommunication."

Back to our example, imagine that a force initiator fails to provide the negotiated restitution. The victim is free to take pictures of such an individual and release them to news media, the Internet, or anywhere else they may see fit.

In a society with such low instances of force initiation, even a check-bouncer will recieve an enormous amount of publicity.

Once this individual's identity has achieved the notoriety of, say, Jean-Benet Ramsey, he will shortly find that most individuals will refuse to do business with him. It is, after all, clearly not in my interest to support an individual who would initiate force against you. Who knows if he might not initiate force against me, some day?

An unrepentant force initiator will shortly find himself unable to trade for basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter.

He will, in short order, begin to provide restitution. If he does not, he will either die or lead a miserable existence -- thus providing further incentive to would-be force initiators to restrain their impulses.

There will also be instances in a free society when an individual cannot make appropriate restitution (such as a murderer), and the victim is unwilling to allow the force initiator to be left to the market. In such circumstances -- bereft of government regulation to interfere with the natural process -- the victim might choose to call the force initiator to a duel.

In fact, these "classes" are the Productive Class and the Unproductive Class. The Unproductive Class includes government and its functionaries. The Productive Class is virtually everyone else.

In this context, I was born into -- and have always been a member of -- the Productive Class.

What you probably intended to ask was my parents' income.

My parents' income varied. At my birth, my parents were struggling students. By the time I left home, they were comfortably middle class.

My mother's parents would have been considered middle class during the period I knew them, though I know this had not always been the case. My father's parents (still living) are subsistence-level poor and always have been.

One -- Thomas Stone -- was a signator to the Declaration of Independance. Another -- Edwin McMasters Stanton -- served as Lincoln's Secretary of War.