Indeed, maybe more weight should be given to opposing such institutions. Though I'm still not convinced that the government should not be fixed first, and indeed I think that it is required to do so to be able to fundamentally affect those govt-like institutions.

I think your policy with stefbot is very healthy.

> ".. who has the monopoly on force, but that's not actually vital to your concerns."

> "...but it almost sounds like 90% of libertarian philosophy would be thrown out of the window if the government phrased its position like, "(1) we own all of this land, we just sublet it to the nominal owners for a rent that we call property tax, (2) you are only allowed to be on our land if you agree to our terms and conditions, which includes laws and income taxes, (3) you may at any time opt to be kicked out of our country permanently, rather than being imprisoned etc.""

This is a great observation, though I do not agree completely. I feel that this applies to ancap very much and the only argument I've heard that could be applied here has been "But it would result in better situation overall if the govt was successfully opposed, even if new ones arise", and that is not very convincing indeed if the resulting situation will fall back to suck (democracy by anarchy as I've heard it called). If someone here is ancap I'm very interested in their response to this.
The reason I do not agree is because there is no real way of you creating your own government/country to compete with the existing ones, for the land area is limited and the governments are asserting that monopoly on force you find non-vital on their respective areas (if they weren't asserting it, how would they exist, thus it is indeed vital by definition). I guess I'm saying that you don't have the right to claim ownership and assert it by force if it makes you immune to competition (also, I now realize, patents). This separates govt-like institutions from governments. Go ahead and pick it apart, please, I just pulled it out of my bag by following my own reasoning.

But indeed, because of discussions like this, my mind might be very different tomorrow.

> "... he seriously constructs a totalitarian government-like dystopia inside of a libertarian minarchy, ..."

Yeah this is something one has to be constantly aware of. And it's actually surprisingly easy to be aware if one has the luxury of having smart people care enough to listen to you, but very hard otherwise. The thing to be aware of is that many have their thoughts about the perfect government, but ultimately you would have to be a totalitarian dictator to actualize them. You forcing people to live in your ideal is fundamentally no better than others doing so. A realization I've seen linked to Voluntaryism, which I feel has similar emptiness you describe with ansoc, but I'm really not knowledgeable enough to say anything of actual value about it.

Following this forward, one ends up in the dilemma, if I oppose government power, how can I uphold belief that I have the right to decide for others? After all changing a government to minarchy would be forcing it's current inhabitants to live in it or move away, and some of them might be democrats who do not want that minarcy of yours. Can I really believe that I have the right to do this?

Either one has to appeal to reasonableness and practicality, and that is very very suspect, much like a big furry frightening monster offering candy, or one turns his/her thoughts on to ancap or ansoc or voluntaryism or something else, all of which have their own problems, some of which were very briefly touched in this discussion. And again we are back in thinking about our ideal world. Frak.

Also on the issue of land and asserting private ownership on it, though I assume that you are aware of this, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism