The anarchists act as if the non-aggression principle is an axiom
Yes, that's why it's called a "principle". I consider living by principles to be a good thing.
Politics is "pragmatic", not "principled". The Art of the Possible, as JFK named it, has nothing to do with right and wrong. Only what can be gotten away with.
But it's not an axiom, in that you can't prove that you should respect the rights of others.
It's easily proven: In order to ensure my own rights, I must assure the rights of others.
If other people's rights are not respected, it is merely a matter or politics as to if, or rather when, my rights will not be respected.
Very much "If you shit upon others, then don't act surprised when you are shat upon ."
The reason we should respect the rights of others is so that we can all enjoy liberty, which lets each of us be the best that we can be. It's the only way to maximize freedom in society.
Which is just another way to say the same thing. How can you restate the non-aggression axiom, then say the non-aggression axiom is somehow not an axiom?
However, the non-aggression principle is a very powerful tool. It's so easy to push for a small government which takes some privilege from it's power. But once you allow a government, even a minimal government, to be the exception to the rule, then more and more exceptions will be made for it, which will cause it to grow back to the tyrannical dinosaur it is today.
Interesting. So you're just as much a principled anarchist as I am, yet you object to treating the non-aggression axiom as a simple fact?
Very confusing. I hope I merely read you wrong.
So when popular momentum changes, and the idea of liberty starts whittling down the size of the state, we must then ensure that the state becomes completely declawed. We must truly make it a voluntary organization, else some future generation will have to fight the battle all over again.
So let us begin by stating the non-aggression axiom as a fact, a principle to live by, a simple measure by which to judge what may be right by what is clearly wrong.