- What is the role of a justice system in a society, and what should the State have to do with it?
In my view, what really holds a society together isn’t the laws enacted by legislatures or dictators, but peer pressure, social opprobrium, and moral approbation. Generally, society is fairly self-regulating. It’s why people pay their bills at restaurants even though there’s not a cop at the door. Criminals are the exception, not the rule—although, it must be said, they naturally gravitate towards the government.
When somebody commits a crime, there’s a trial to determine what harm has been done, who should be compensated, and so forth. Courts determine these things. But I would argue that the state is not a necessary part of any of this. Society, like markets, tends to be self-ordering.
With a minimal “night watchman” sort of state like that described by Ayn Rand, the proper role of government is simply to defend you from force and fraud. This implies an army to defend you from force external to your society, a police force to defend you from force within your society, and a court system to allow the adjudication of disputes without resorting to force.
I could live in a society like that—it would be a vast improvement over what we have now. A proper court system, with either arbitrators or judges and juries system, would be part of it. But I’d go on to argue that juries and courts should be privatized.
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The basis of the fight that for decades the people subjected by 21st Century Socialism have fought is to separate crime from politics so that organized crime stops protecting itself in the sovereignty, representation, and immunities that are bestowed to Heads of State and democratic representatives. As a milestone for freedom, the United States has just identified Venezuela as a “country kidnapped by a criminal band” increasing the bounty for the capture of Nicolas Maduro to 50 million Dollars.
La guerra era una realidad permanente, normal, en el mundo del Oriente Medio. Para Israel, hasta el tiempo de la monarquía y aún más allá, la guerra era siempre una guerra santa: eran las guerras de Yavé, el Señor (Éxodo 17: 16; Números 21: 14; 1 Samuel 25: 28. La presencia simbólica del Arca de la Alianza, en la opinión de algunos, comunicaba a los israelitas en pie de guerra que el Señor peleaba a su lado (1 Samuel 11:11).
El tiempo de los remiendos en Cuba se agotó. El tiempo de los experimentos se acabó. No se puede seguir jugando con el tiempo de la única vida que tenemos sobre esta tierra.