Interesting; I have to leave now, not much time.
What I do remember is that they taught me that
civil authority always, but always, takes precedence over military.

Have you ever considered taking a course in basic civics?

Ah.... gotta love the condescension.

I'm about a course or two shy of a BA in PoliSci, so thanks and all, but I think I've got that covered.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

And that's its failing. Because moral people don't need a constitution. And not everyone is religious (and even varying religions have wildly different views on morals).

"Which part of the "universal truths" mandates that I can't have a 30-round magazine?"

None that I am aware of. Men may arbitrarily assert such, but does such an edict coincide with how Reality views the matter? I sincerely doubt it.

"Men create laws, not the universe."

Men may create social constructs which we call laws that order our societies, but the ultimate Laws are defined by Reality - not man. And those laws instituted by men which do not conform to the Laws of Reality must inevitably fail because Reality wins out in the end.

"Some of them may, perchance, overlap with the universe's ideas, but rarely."

Agreed, but I believe the Constitution was one of those "rarely" situations. It isn't perfect, but that is because the people it applies to aren't either. As noted by John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The other fact is that the Constitution recognizes the abundance of other competing civilization models with which we are bound to conflict eventually. The Constitution also recognizes that there will inevitable be internal conflict over ideas as well and provides for a robust negotiation and resolution system.

The problem we find with any people or society is that as it grows, so does the population of those discontented with it. America is surprising in many ways, not the least of which is its internal tolerance to such differences. It is my opinion, however, that we have allowed these differences to overwhelm what once unified us. We no longer share the same values - values which allowed us to throw off British oppression, rebuke slavery, and combat the various evils of our time. All because we can not focus on an end goal and design and implement policies which further that goal. (One can also argue that that end goal has been intentionally subverted and perverted.)

Until we can unify again on the same principles - principles which coincide with the principles of Reality - we will rebel to our own destruction.

"It comes down to depending on people doing the right thing and limiting their own power."

Nailed it - if only it were that simple.

"It seems to me the system is not working and needs to be tweaked."

That's because the system requires the action of human beings to check the other human beings. That isn't happening at any level.

"The checks and balances were instituted to guide office-holders on where the lines were drawn, but it can do nothing if they are simply ignored by a majority of office-holders"
It comes down to depending on people doing the right thing and limiting their own power. It seems to me the system is not working and needs to be tweaked. I have no idea what the tweak should be. I don't want it to be radical.

The consensus view seems to be in the modern world we need a broader interpretation of the Constitution. We should define clearly, though, how broad before it's totally meaningless.

Which part of the "universal truths" mandates that I can't have a 30-round magazine?

Men create laws, not the universe. Some of them may, perchance, overlap with the universe's ideas, but rarely.

Ah. It is as I suspected.

I don't believe that men create law. Men did not create the universe, nor the laws which govern the motions of the stars and planets. And no more can they create moral law. Reality has already dictated them. We are left to explore reality and ascertain these laws, but they are immutable. The laws of economics dictate to us that the price of something is subject not only to its scarcity (supply), but to its need by others (demand) does it not? Did humans create that law? No, they did not. They merely identified what was already existing in Reality.

Thus is the case for morality in general: does our view of a thing conform to Reality's version of a thing? An "immoral" law asserts a contradiction to Reality - it is how we arrive at the conclusion that murder is unacceptable. Did man create this law however? Nonsense. If such were the case, it would have to be consciously passed down through tradition and heritage. Instead, we know it innately. Such as with many other actions in life.

When we as humans form a society with its accompanying government, it is left up to us to decide whether or not to adopt principles already existing in Reality or to attempt to adopt policies in contravention to such. If we adopt policies in conjunction with Reality, we enjoy the harmony of these actions: functioning markets, moral people, and freedom. If we attempt to adopt policies in contravention to Reality, however, Reality inevitably asserts herself at some point. Case in point: our national debt. Debt is a law man did not create. Interest is a law man discovered but did not create. Our current policies seek to play games with our debt, but Reality in the form of Default will eventually assert herself when we ultimately fail to pay for our excesses. If man created law, he could will away such and debt would be subject to the whims of man. That such has never happened and will never happen is a testimony to Reality and her origination of law.

Can man attempt to assert himself and his wishes on others through force? Absolutely. When he does so does he violate the laws of Reality? Absolutely. This is why the Founding Fathers rose up and declared Independence. It was not to force themselves on others, but to remove themselves from the force of the tyrant King George. And the Founders - men of study and learning - debated for months not only the practicality, but the Reality of the goals, laws, and government they sought to institute.

The problem with our current government is that they have strayed from the principles of Reality originally identified by the Founders. Not only that, but our people have as well. A representative democracy is representative of its people. We rebel against the laws of Reality and seek to promote our own versions, with our leaders exemplifying this behavior. And thus we reap the rewards - or more accurately - the self-inflicted punishments that come with attempting to rebel.

They are the product of men.

They are the tools of men to control other men.

I think I detect a root argument here that I would like to ask of you:
Do you think that laws exist or that they are the product of men?

"To argue against the morality of creating laws is to deny that there are standards of behavior which are common to all men - or at least a group of them."

If they are common to a group of men, you don't need the laws. The only logical purpose for the laws is to mandate that behavior in those for who do not believe in or comply with that standard.

In other words, using force or the threat of force to mandate the behavior of others against their will. You can try to paint little rose-colored ideals around it all you want, but ultimately either:

- Men share a common set of morals in which case you don't need the laws in the first place, OR
- You don't all share a common set of morals, in which case you're using the law as a stick to mandate that people act contrary to their own personal beliefs and morals.

"Thus it isn't the government itself, but the people who are acting against themselves by attempting to live according to two contradictory goals at the same time!"

Nonsense. I never had a "goal" of taxation, for example, and so it is not "living according to two contradictory goals" to rebel against such taxation. You're presuming that all of society has homogeneous beliefs, something we know to be false.

"Societies exist for one purpose and one purpose only - to provide a common framework for goal-setting."

Not true. Sometimes societies exist just as a loose collection of peers, nobody "more equal" than anyone else, and nobody able to force anyone else to bend to their will.

All of your later arguments still presuppose that individuals must succumb to the will of the masses and conform. I reject that premise wholly.

What gives "the majority" the authority to say "you non-conformers need to be incarcerated"? Is it nothing more than "might makes right, we outnumber you, so live with it"? Mob-rule, as it were? If so, the next time three of my friends and I meet you in an alley, I expect you to quietly acquiesce to the "vote" which strips you of your right to the money in your wallet. :-)

There's no small sense of irony, to my mind, in the fact that literally every argument you've made so far is addressed and refuted handily in the first half of the book you refuse to read.

"If you can't see that laws are the states way of forcing people..."

A law is a standard of acceptable behavior. Nothing more. Nothing less. Penalties - or "force" as you call it - are the result of behavior in contradiction to these standards. They are not causal, but effectual. To argue against the morality of creating laws is to deny that there are standards of behavior which are common to all men - or at least a group of them. Governments exist to identify and establish common goals and then to encourage the people to achieve those goals through codification. To deny government carte blanche is to deny the reality of shared goals.

"... people to do what they don't want to do." (emphasis mine)

Ah! What you are finally and correctly observing is that the real problems are the people themselves. That act of rebellion is simply an act against the accepted policy of society (as enacted in law). Thus it isn't the government itself, but the people who are acting against themselves by attempting to live according to two contradictory goals at the same time!

Societies exist for one purpose and one purpose only - to provide a common framework for goal-setting. The real problems, however, come when people have opposing goals. Without going into the morality of the goal itself, the first attempted resolution is to separate the groups (usually geographically). This is the basis for prisons - a separation of conformers and non-conformers but still the same society. The second piece of this is reconciliation - of having the two sides agree upon a single course of action to the abandonment of the other. One of the two (opposing) goals must of necessity be set aside by all parties. (For prisoners, this is the reformation process.) Once this is accomplished, society moves on.

The last piece exists when the parties themselves are unwilling or unable to adjust their stances. The only solutions are either a permanent geographical separation of the two parties, or the elimination of the one of the parties so that only one goal remains to be asserted - aka war.

So the two situations wherein "force" is initiated are where conflicts in goals arise and remain unresolved by choice.

Feel free to interrupt!

"Gov't has to have checks against human foibles."

What you are really saying is that people must be able to check other people. I agree. And the way to do this is through laws and the proper structure of government. In this, I believe the Constitution to be unparalleled.

"eventually those good people will be corrupted by the power."

Thus the crux and need for checks. I agree. But it begins with having moral people in the first place. I was trying to find the quote, but it is eluding me, but it was one of the Founding Fathers noting that the character of men who seek public office is generally the least in harmony with the character who ought to hold office. The checks and balances were instituted to guide office-holders on where the lines were drawn, but it can do nothing if they are simply ignored by a majority of office-holders - or their constituents. Thus this decision not to indict Hillary Clinton is to me an indication that we as a nation have essentially abandoned morality. I don't think it is far-fetched to suggest that the desolation depicted by Rand in the latter portion of Atlas Shrugged may indeed become a reality.

If you can't see that laws are the states way of forcing people to do that which they don't want to do, I'm not sure there's a productive conversation to be had.

If it was just "meeting collective goals that everyone agreed on" you wouldn't need a government. That you need a government to meet those goals, via enforcement of those laws, is the logical proof of my statement: it's purpose is forcing people to do what they don't want to do.

"Organizations can not be moral or immoral - only the policies and actions of their representatives may be."
You are having an interesting conversation that I don't want to interrupt/derail.

I just wanted to interject that it takes more than the correct "goals established by the people." Gov't has to have checks against human foibles. Otherwise people with good goals will elect good people to execute them, and eventually those good people will be corrupted by the power.

This is a very simple point compared to your conversation, but it stands out to me b/c as a less philosophically sophisticated citizen, I learned in school that gov't depends on checks and balances to keep it from getting out of control, but that's exactly what seems to be happening in slow motion over 100 years. It seems like the checks and balances are working.

"ultimately the raison d'etre of the state is to force others to do things they don't want to do."

And it is this presumption that I disagree with. That presumption colors everything and is the foundational disagreement I have with your outlook.

The foundational reason for government which I agree with is simply this: to establish and coordinate the policies and values of a group of people by establishing goals, creating laws to further those goals, and establishing punishments for abrogation of those laws (because their effect is to prevent either individuals within the group or the group as a whole from achieving those goals). Thus, it is not government itself, but the goals established by the people (as vested in government) which are the source of immorality. Organizations can not be moral or immoral - only the policies and actions of their representatives may be.

"The fallacy in your assertion is that by your own admission you do not know if you have an accurate picture of reality, yet you assert that if I do not look at it, that I am missing out on reality."

Not at all. Reality is really really big. The only way to have a "accurate picture of reality" is omniscience. The most any of us can hope to accomplish is to have a mental image of reality that is as close as possible to that reality. The best way to do that is to expose ourselves to many facets and perspectives on that reality, some which strengthen and reinforce our own views, and some which challenge our own views (either forcing us to re-examine flaws in our views, or to use our views/experience to refute the perspective in, say, the book we're reading)

"One doesn't generally associate anarchism with a strict moral compass."

I never said that "anarchism" had a moral compass, I said that I had a moral compass, one that has as a primary rule "nobody has the moral authority to force others to do something against their wishes", which (when taken to its logical conclusion) ends up with the position that "The State" is illegitimate because ultimately the raison d'etre of the state is to force others to do things they don't want to do.

My personal moral compass might differ from another anarchist's (although, in my experience, not too terribly much).

"So what I'm hearing your argument to be is ... "Ignorance is bliss."

You can choose to hear what you want, but that isn't what I said. The fallacy in your assertion is that by your own admission you do not know if you have an accurate picture of reality, yet you assert that if I do not look at it, that I am missing out on reality. It's an inherently-flawed argument which also happens to be based on a false interpretation of my own words. My assessment was that the potential value to be discovered didn't warrant the investment of time required. Nothing more, nothing less. If you want to put it in finance terms, the beta is too high for my risk tolerance.

"I sometimes wish I had what I would consider to be a "more loose moral compass""

That's a curious way to look at yourself. One doesn't generally associate anarchism with a strict moral compass. A compass by its very definition must point to a standard and anarchy seems to rail against standards...