Tough questions. Most of the States refused to ratify the Constitution without the Bill of Rights as well. I wonder if she would have insisted on settling the issue of slavery? She was very rigid on certain principles.

If Ayn Rand had been one of America's founders, would she have been a federalist or an anti-federalist? Had she been voting on the Articles of Confederation, I think she would have voted for that. I am far less sure that she would have supported the Constitution + Bill of Rights. I am pretty sure she would not have supported the Constitution without the Bill of Rights.

Excellent point about different cultures.

While the non-aggression principle did not exist back in the late 1700's, America's founders did have a strong tendency toward non-interventionism a term that Ron Paul coined but had been practiced for centuries. There is some difference, but the difference is pretty minor.

Personally, I'm of the thought that Objectivist, in trying to define a government need must accept that everyone else are not objectivist, nor libertarian, particularly those that seek government or involvement in government. The anarcho-capitalist appears to be the most naive in accepting that basic fact. The takers/looters/moochers' existence has to be considered in anything more than pure philosophical discussion.

+1 to every post here. This remains a discussion to be had, as long as those who post their own views are willing to understand the facts presented from different perspectives.

I am not an anarchist. I understand "government" to be like "clothing" or "language" or "tools", an institution of any and every society and culture. The government could hold a monopoly on police powers and effect that by contracting it out to competing others who are all nonetheless bound by explicit laws. We have this today in that many police forces contract out specific services such as parking enforcement and central dispatch. In te wake of the current recession, cities squeezed by fiscal constraints have contracted out police patrols. The cities maintain the fundamental cultural recognition of primary authority, but the delivery is sold to multiple others. It seems to work well enough.

It does _NOT_ work so well in Somalia...

Culture runs deep and broad. The Enlightenment agenda of the West is not to be imposed from the top down, but must grow from the roots. We benefit from that. It will take a some time and effort to bring that to other peoples. In fact, it has yet to be completely and consistently recognized here...

The concept of the "initiation of force" that Rand defined is specific in its nature. It seems you might be equating the Exercise of force in any circumstance to the "initiation of force". Self defense is an exercise of force, as is the initiation of force; but they are not the same. So it would follow that Objectivism, by its nature, does not lead to Anarchism.

I've read an article on what a voluntary government would look like in an objectivist ideal world. It made a strong case for the possibility of a government that receives taxes voluntarily. However they would still have to initiate force to prevent another government from governing the same geographical area.

Basically I agree with you and I'd recommend searching through theobjectiviststandard.com to find the article on how a voluntary government would work, you may find it enlightening.

I'm not up on the philosophical side, but it seems to me that Objectivists say they won't be the first to initiate force but they have a very broad definition of what counts as force. For example, they think of copying someone's IP illegally and profiting from it as force. Receiving goods and not paying as contractually agreed, they see as force. If that's how we define "force", it seems reasonable to say we should never be the first to initiate it but can respond to it.

All governments indeed flounder on the dark side of human nature. However, noted political philosopher Michael Tyson once said: "Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face." How does a government that is constrained to protect individuals and their rights from the initiation of force abridge anyone's rights? Without any agency to protect its citizens from the initial of force, what do we do with those who smash us in the face without provocation? Say we have private police forces. Are they all entitled to apprehend and punish the face smasher? That in effect makes them mini-governments, and that was the crux, which this article never mentioned, of Rand's argument. Anarchy is not the absence of government, it is the substitution of a myriad of might-make-right gangs who function as essentially lawless governments for a government whose role is limited to enforcing objective laws to protect individual rights. The difficulty of achieving such a government is not an argument for multiple, lawless governments that would result if anarchy was the prevailing principle.

Agreed completely. As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out,
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
Well, that has unfortunately happened past the point of no return.

The Anarcho argument seems impractical to me. Rand argued for limited government which the US proved can work. We have probably strayed too far at this point.

Ayn Rand wanted a very limited government. The libertarians at the von Mises Institute want even less. After reading the above link in its entirety, the author is making a distinction without a significant difference. The author says that government, no matter how small, is incapable of staying small, and he is right about that. America's founders recognized that, too. America was founded properly and until about 1900 followed its original charter. Its deviation from its founding charter has resulted in its becoming Amepoble (poor as opposed to rich). America's founding was a correct compromise between objectivism and libertarianism, with respect to all regardless of religious belief or lack thereof.