Sometimes you can see that agression will take place before it actually happens. Sometimes a little aggression against anticipated sources of aggression will prevent larger aggressions from taking place. An ounce of prevention and a pound of cure and whatnot. This should be done when this is the case.
While I agree, it comes down to proof.
It's easy to prove the rapist was attempting to do their deed without the rape actually having occurred. What did occur, however, was the attempt. He was NOT simply walking past on the sidewalk and smiling.
Similarly, person A drawing a gun and pointing it at someone's head is, to me, "proof" that the person so threatened (or a 3rd party who intervened) acted in "self defense" even if person A never actually pulled the trigger. What did occur, however, was a direct and specific action, not just someone checking to make sure their pistol was seated well in their holster.
So while it is arguable that both instances of violence are "pre-emptive" self-defense, the proof is the fact that both only happened due to actions on the part of the erstwhile rapist and murderer.
They acted to involve someone involuntarily, first.
I am not saying that those who do aggress in such a pre-emptive manner should not be held responsible for their actions. But if they decide that the costs of being responsible for their aggression now is less than what they stand to lose in future aggression (which doesn't even have to be deliberate, and can be accidental) then they should aggress and bear the costs.
Which really has nothing to do with "voluntary" or "involuntary", and everything to do with proof.
Prove that the person you just took out was in fact a direct threat to you.
The real beauty of non-statute law and adjudication (not "enforcement") is that each case really is treated as the unique coincidence of individuals and circumstances that it is.
Being an anarchist I obviously don't think there should be only one group of magical people that can do this aggression.
That would seem to me to be the definition of an-archy. Rules, without rulers.
However, moving the car off the tracks is the moral thing to do. To stand idly by and watch just because the owner of the car isn't around to grant permission to move their car (possibly looking for a gas station) is immoral itself.
This may be the crux of this whole "morality" thing. Looking back, I see how saying I abide the NAP, and interact with people on a voluntary basis, has been labeled "moral relativism" and "nihilism".
Yet your example of moving the car is not an
interpersonal interaction. It is an interaction with an object, with an express objective of saving lives and property.
If you want to get into "voluntary" interaction, put a person on the tracks who says, "Don't save me, I want to die."
If I were an agent of the railroad, I would intervene because I am protecting property I am responsible for from damage, even if that means acting against the will of the suicidal individual, because they're trespassing.
It is also not immoral to use aggression against threatening groups who you believe will attack you or your family. Note I didn't say "may", I said "will".
Proof. By your statements, that is exactly what you are saying also. Some one or some group has
already involved you involuntarily, so you're acting in self defense.
So I'm left to wonder what it is about voluntary interaction that puts you off so that you assert you are not a "voluntaryist".
Force still should be a last resort and never the first, but the option is open and this is something that Voluntaryism is not able to handle. If you adopt this facet of my view on things you cannot fairly call yourself a voluntaryist.
I hope I have pointed out how I can, and I do.
Just as a person can be both peaceful and prepared for self defense, a person who chooses to deal with others on a voluntary basis is not being hypocritical to respond "involuntarily" to someone who has initiated "involuntary" interaction.
It may be that you believe "voluntaryists" haven't thought of this. If you do believe that NAP abiding voluntarily interacting individuals are such fools, then all this "I'm not a voluntaryist" stuff finally makes sense.
I don't have to make up crap answers to tough questions and act all morally indignant and superior because I stick to principles which are being misapplied in counterproductive ways which totally misunderstand the actual reason for the principles to begin with in the way I see anarchocapitalists and especially those calling themselves voluntaryists do.
So what tough questions? Lifeboat scenarios? Trolley cars that can only be stopped by pushing a fat guy off a bridge into its way, thus saving a dozen lives by sacrificing one?
What I have seen, in contrast to what you have seen, is people so hung up on what they
think the funny words mean that they concoct twisted plots and outlandish schemes and then demand that everyone else see how impossible it would be to be decent human beings in such situations, and therefore simple decency just doesn't work in every day life.
Aside from that there's a whole realm of morality outside the scope of voluntaryism. Some understandings of voluntaryism take the form of "Whatever is voluntary is good, otherwise people would not choose it, and whatever is involuntary is bad, because people wouldn't freely choose it" in an attempt to fill in this gap to entitle the claimant to think they have the answer to everything in the vast complicated world of morality in 5 or fewer words.
Then you haven't understood it at all.
That perspective however is bullshit,
Of course that perspective is bullshit, because you just made it up.
Now get this: You now go on to say that,
I oppose stupidity whether it's harming other people or not, I will not suspend my judgement of non-aggressive behaviors due to their being non-aggressive, and truly malicious people don't need to be asked for consent before being dealt with.
By what leap of ignorance do you think I don't oppose stupidity? Or Jim over there, or Sue over there, or the vast majority of other people in the world?
Here's how that voluntary interaction thing works: You get to oppose all the stupidity you want. So do I. You might see stupidity I don't, and I may see something you don't, and so on and so on, with millions of people all working together by the simple fact of each opposing the stupidity that they themselves see.
Some may not see any. Some may go overboard and over-react. But the vast majority simply do what they always have done, because the psychopath is an extreme minority and always has been.
Besides, the word absolutely SUCKS. Using vowels together like that is really awkward. Who cares if "voluntarist" already has a meaning, nobody cares that capitalism already has a meaning, you might as well use the version of the word that doesn't have two incompatible suffixes (-y to indicate an adjective and -ism or -ist to indicate a noun) and just go straight for tacking the noun suffix onto the root like most reasonable english words do.
Ah! I was right, you really just don't like the word.
Neither do I, which is why I still use anarchist, or rational anarchist to hopefully distinguish myself from someone who throws bombs.