"The social contract is not a buffet—if you opt out because you want absolute freedom, you have to accept that no one will come to save your ass when trouble starts."
Reminds me a bit of the cryptocurrency market. :-)
>> You have to accept that no one will come to save your ass when trouble starts.
That isn't a thing. I work for an organization (military) that sometimes gets involved in search and rescue. Our society doesn't let people die in agony alone in the woods. If you are attacked by a bear, or your boat sinks, a helicopter will be sent to pick you up. You cannot opt out of that. Even if you say no, we will send the machine. Eventually you will fall unconscious and then we will treat you. That's modern society. "Just let them die" isn't real. It is pure fantasy to pretend that anyone can opt out of humanity.
Canada is constantly dealing with this problem. People want to live in the middle of nowhere but they still get government services, even the ones they might not want. You cannot choose to live outside of basic health care any more than you can opt to live outside the legal system. Given that reality, why should the larger society cover the costs of people who want to live a wilderness fantasy? Why should we allow people to live in places where they will inevitably need very costly rescue services, where their kids will be needed to be flown to and from they basic schooling they deserve?
I think along the same lines when in California I see people building huge mansions in fire areas or people refusing to get health insurance. They wang to have their freedom but rely on being bailed out when things go bad.
Lots of people simply can't afford healthcare. They need coverage anyway. Yes, there is the occasional jerk who can completely afford it and won't buy it. But they're not the common case, in my experience.
I am with you about building in fire areas. There should be regulations requiring you to carry sufficient insurance that also defrays the cost of dealing with you when the fire shows up--not just rebuilding you after the fact.
Or "deregulation". The fire hazard thing is due to consistent efforts to "develop" land into rural mcmansions for rich retired people. Why should taxes go to defend retirement mansions knowingly built in fire zones? Or on a beach? (rising water levels etc). Fire insurance covers damage, not the cost of firefighters, and we cannot ask firefighters to just let everything burn. That isn't safe (idiots don't evacuate) humane (pets) or even healthy (pollution).
Yup. Zoning areas as non-residential, forbidding construction of residences, is a tool that is regularly used. Another is to saddle zoning permission with infrastructure costs, such as "you cannot further develop this town until a road is run to it". Health codes also work (must have proper water/sewage disposal etc). The government cannot stop people from walking on their own land, but it can certainly stop them from building anything on that land.
Much of the live-off-the-land lifestyle is already illegal. Contrary to the TV shows, one cannot just hunt anything they want when they get hungry. They need tags. Animals can only be hunted during specific seasons. And there are weapons limitations. These are normal regulations that make living a wild lifestyle, a legal one, very very difficult.
Proper water and sewage disposal I can get behind; the environment is a shared resource.
Just saying that people can't live there because you might feel the need to go out there and save them from themselves is deeply problematic in my view.
But we do that all the time. Parks close due to avalanche risk. We close roads if we think heavy rain will wash them out. Airspace around active volcanoes is closed. We don't let people build certain buildings in earthquake zones. Entire towns have even been closed due to pollution risks. Governments do these things both to protect people from becoming victims, and to protect rescuers from having to risk their own lives pulling people out.
You could just as easily argue it the other way and that the problem in this story is that society wants to retroactively enforce the "social contract" after he solved his problems on his terms. Yeah, you shouldn't murder people but if someone credibly threatens your life multiple times and "society" is no help "society" doesn't get to complain that they were facing the wrong way when you shot them.
Edit: Since apparently I'm so wrong does anyone care to explain why?
You are not, those people choose to be up there and with it there comes an element of extreme anti-social personality types.
Society tends to look at these groups as well at least we don't have to deal with them and as long as they stay up there, then let them sort it out among themselves. The sad reality is that had he buried the body and been "hardened" like the rest of them, it would have not caused an issue for the local sheriff and the sheriff would have most likely just ignored it unless someone came around making an issue over it.
I have been in these kinds of environments in FL, when I was a child the everglades and the glades-men where frontier territory and they are a hardened lot, they will kill you, especially if they have an issue and get themselves worked up while drunk. One of the most dangerous occupations, back then, was being a Florida game warden, due to these types. We had them go missing all the time back in the early 70's and 80's.
Everyone up there, in this story said, he was going to kill him had Taylor not acted and at the point that a person brought a 55 gallon barrel and a buddy to tell me I was going in it, I personally would have been plotting how I was going to kill him in self defense before he killed me. I honestly do not believe I would have let either of those men leave my property that day standing on their feet. I don't say that to sound "Internet Tough" but rather to highlight, given my experience in frontier areas, the mentality I would have been in and the mentality I would assume a guy like Taylor would be in. The reality is that the law was not coming to save him, and given the repeated incursions and threats on his property it was only a matter of time.
That being said, I do believe the other gentleman would have eventually killed him but he sensed weakness in Taylor after the second exchange where Taylor was bending over backwards to "make it right". So the plot to run him off his land and buy it up seems plausible. The problem is Taylor was not in on that plot, being the target and he was being threatened in a lawless territory. His only rational had to be, I am on my own and do I want to live?
This is exactly the white people version of the hood and gangs. It's the only reality they have and it present few good choices. It's raw survival.
Did you read the article, the guy threatening him took one of his batteries from one truck (as a peace offering, this showed weakness on his part) and the other was dead, he was trying to get his boy to wire him money so he could get out. Other than stealing a battery and driving as far as he could on an almost empty tank, then hoofing it, he had no choice but to stay and wait for the money.
If you don't have people who are pissed off at you and making your life difficult and/or trying to kill you barely scraping by in BFE sucks a hell of a lot less than barely scraping by in the city.
"The social contract is not a buffet—if you opt out because you want absolute freedom, you have to accept that no one will come to save your ass when trouble starts."
Reminds me a bit of the cryptocurrency market. :-)