There is more than one to solve social problems. Centralized, violent, compulsory action (government) is one way, but there are others. Opposing "the government solution" is not the same thing as denying the problem or refusing to fix it.
It's a standard libertarian meme. Resist the government long enough and eventually - eventually might take years - someone wearing a gun will come and arrest you. Since they're arresting you with superior arms to the point of perhaps pointing them at you, this means doing so is violent, hence everything the government ever does is 'backed by violence', hence everything they ever do to limit you in any way is 'violen', no matter how minor that limitation might be. It's one of the more tortuous aspects of libertarian rhetoric.
This is one of those ideas that became a meme because it is unquestionably true. Ideas which are true tend to spread quickly. And, regarding this specific example, it's ludicrous to claim that it might take years if you violate zoning regulations. It would be more like hours.
Nonsense. History is full of true ideas getting pounded flat. Sensationalist journalism is more effective than true journalism. So on and so forth. If "true ideas spread quickly", then religion would be dead in the water, all around the world.
And seriously, hours between doing some tanning and getting arrested for violation of zoning laws!? Zoning law violation rarely ends up in arrests in the first place - you get fined, then if you don't pay your fines, down the track they'll start the process.
> History is full of true ideas getting pounded flat.
That is not the logical complement of what I said. I only said that true ideas tend to spread quickly, which is obviously true. True ideas which were pounded flat are not counterexamples, because I'm talking about tendency.
It is a counterexample, because clearly untrue ideas also spread quickly, and history shows that untrue ideas stick far more easily - pursuing reason requires a lot of effort.
That's still not a logical complement of what I said. I didn't say that only true ideas tend to spread quickly, or that they tend to spread more quickly than untrue ideas.
Really? The whole point of saying the statement at all is that 'true' ideas have this feature than other ideas don't have as much of. Now you say that non-true ideas spread just as quickly, the statement is utterly pointless.
If the 'trueness' of the idea is irrelevant to how quickly it spreads, as you've just said here, then your statement becomes "Ideas tend to spread quickly, regardless of their truth", which is pointless given the context.
Read closely. All I said is that the particular idea in question spread quickly because it is true and because true ideas tend to spread quickly. It is completely irrelevant if non-true ideas also spread quickly. What I said still holds.
And yet, people frequently dismiss it as a "libertarian meme." One doesn't have to look far on the Internet to find someone that will deny that government enforcement of things like taxation or zoning regulations do not constitute violence.
What I meant by truism is that it may be a logically consistent position given the initial assumptions, but it brings no additional knowledge. If you accept the government=violence condition, then ANY law, rule or regulation is upheld by violence.
When you don't pay alimony: violence. When you jaywalk: violence. When you litter: violence. When you wear shorts instead of trunks at the swimming pool: violence...
OK, great, we've established that there is violence everywhere. But what has that brought us? Nothing.
I'm just using the definition that seems to be the first one listed in many English dictionaries.
"Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence?redirect=no
Your last two definitions don't fit unless you've a priori decided any government action is abuse - which is the wrong way to define things. Your first definition is so belaboured and tortuous that it sounds like libertarians have been at it.
And it's interesting to note that none of your definitions allow for natural phenomenon to be violent, yet we quite naturally talk about things like violent storms in English.
