Shin-Tao: That's what I mean by essay questions. Yeah, we'd eliminate the military... as it exists today. No standing army, in other words. That doesn't mean that in a libertarian vision of the world we wouldn't be armed to the teeth. We'd bring back the militia system.
Part of the problem with this stuff, is that when you talk about it, people envision it happening abruptly, when what's being advocated is a goal to be arrived at over potentially a very long time. Took a long, long time for the government to get this big, and in the process it destroyed a lot of private institutions which provided the services it provides today. Those institutions have to be re-built, in some cases re-invented, as the government is pared back.
Some things the government does, like the war on drugs, or the war on guns, could simply be stopped, like that, with minimal disruption. Other things? The government sure as heck shouldn't be running a Ponzi scam, but there are a lot of people who could have provided for their retirements, and didn't, because the government took their money, and promised them Social "Security" in return. Can't just stop mailing those checks, so we have to work out a way of gracefully ending the system. Best proposal I've heard was to sell the federal government's land holdings, in excess of what's needed for enumerated functions like national defense, and buy annuities.
I guess what I'm saying is that even the 160 pointers like myself don't see the government as something that could be abolished over night. In fact, I'm not entirely sure it could be completely abolished, but that strikes me as a reasonable goal to strive for.
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Sic semper tyrannis!
Come on Dennis, take the quiz!