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RE: Hey Steemit Libertarians, I debated the death penalty with a conservative...
Respectfully, I think you're confusing anarchists with libertarians... although 'libertarians' tend to be anarchists in my experience. An anarchist eschews the role of the state like you said, but a libertarian believes that the state, minimal though it may be, has a role to play in protecting its people.
Labels can be confusing. Many minarchist statists describe themselves as "libertarian", ya, but lots of people could describe themselves as that (any Republican who isn't afraid of gay people might identify as "libertarian"), and what does it even mean if you're not using it in a strict/principled way?
A strict use of the word is the same as anarchist.
So I was just using the word strictly, and not in the loosey goosey way that people sometimes use it inside of politics.
Not sure we are helping anything and protecting people by allowing government to kill them. Put it this way, what is lost if the state is prohibited from killing people? Not much, I would think. But I could be wrong.
What is lost is tax dollars that can be used to provide education, healthcare or lowering of taxes incarcerating someone for the rest of their natural days.