What’s the official anarchist position on the Zombie Apocalypse?

I suspect that all of my loyal readers will agree that this is an important question, and one worthy of a detailed response from Dr. Anarchy and other philosophers and legal scholars who have had things to say about zombies in the past.

The answer depends on the type of zombies we’re talking about. If the zombification is reversible, then we may have to consider them as moral actors under temporary undue influence. This would not mean you can’t chop their heads off if they’re threatening to eat you, in full consistency with any rational concept of self-defense, but it does introduce a dimension of complexity to the moral calculus.

Milla Jovovich demonstrates her approach to the zombie apocalypse through ACTION!

Now, there are some anarchists who are very much into animal rights as well as human rights, who would likely have a range of opinions beyond mine on this topic. To me, an irreversibly zombified human could not be considered a moral actor, and could therefore be treated like any dangerous animal in the event that it threatens humans.

A topic of particular interest to propertarian anarchists like myself is the question of property within the broader context of zombification, without even needing to go to the extreme of any prospective zombie apocalypse. If a person who owns property becomes zombified, what of their property? From my libertarian perspective, this question turns on whether or not they are still capable of being a moral actor.

For the irreversibly-zombified human, libertarian theory tells us that zombies — not being moral actors — cannot own property. This means that any property held by a person becoming irreversibly zombified becomes unowned, and is therefore subject to immediate homesteading by the first comer. So long as no other non-zombified legitimate claimants exist, unlimited expropriation of formerly-just, now-unowned property from zombies is morally defensible. The same is of course true of the material of the zombie’s body, leaving open the possibility of the assemblage of a zombie slave army by a sufficiently skilled and motivated propertarian anarchist.

However, what of the new zombie’s heirs? As irreversible zombification is not typically provided for in wills (i.e., it’s not really “death”), perhaps a variant of a living will could be used to ensure that the zombified’s property passes to their regular heirs in the case of such an eventuality. We might call this new legal instrument an “undead will”.

For the reversibly-zombified human, I’m really not quite certain. I suspect, though, that in a truly free market (which we don’t have today) it would be possible to purchase zombification insurance at competitive rates which would provide for a sort of trustee custody relationship over the property of the insured, should same become reversibly zombified. Insurers providing this type of coverage should be strongly motivated to find a cure for zombification so that the time and resources expended in the defense of zombie property is minimized, and profits thus maximized. Existing contracts referencing Acts of God or the Acts of the Apostles might need to be re-written in order to provide exclusions from force majeure provisions in the event of widespread zombification.

In any case, the potential of a zombie apocalypse provides agorists, anarchists of all adjectivial stripes as well as such degenerates as vulgar libertarians, minarchists and Republicans to build community and make common cause with such people as Milla Jovovich, whose demonstrated abilities in both combating and managing zombie crises should serve as inspiration to us all.

One might respond to [a certain discourse] by noting that we are all already, in fact, free.

That the state exists only in our minds and the minds of billions.

And that if defending one’s free life in a crisis against one of the state’s brainwashed minions might mean – gasp – violence, and violence is kinda “off the table” now because there’s “so much else to be done” or “education is the key” or one’s philosophy speaks (rightly) to “peace and trade” as desirable while downplaying (imho, wrongly) the role of self-defense in preserving and seizing one’s liberty, well, one’s not really acting like a free person.

And that if one is in that spot, dithering about whether or not it’s the right time to defend oneself, then one is not really free yet. That the state still exists in one’s mind, binding and constraining one, contrary to one’s true nature.

And may one’s chains rest lightly upon one, should one find oneself there.

Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

– Edward Abbey

No, your home isn’t your castle, and you’re not allowed to defend it, either. At least not in the UK in the year 2008.

The charges against Mr. Davis were later dropped.

In late February, Davis’s son, Jimmy, set fire to his own bedroom. Why?

His mother Pauline Davis, 43, said: ‘We keep speaking to him asking him why he did it and he said “because I want to move, mum”.

Jimmy is scared to go outside because of all the youths that hang around on the estate.

‘He burnt the bedroom down because he wants to move and he wants to move because those kids throw stones at the windows. It’s been a living nightmare for us and for Jimmy.’

Tragedy upon tragedy for this family.

Something that really caught my eye, though, in the Daily Mail article, was in the first photo caption:

He did it in the hope the family would be rehoused away from the yobs who have been tormenting the family

The use of the passive voice here just sends shivers down my spine…

From the Daily Mail:

Yobs threw rocks at his house for years. But the father who fought back is arrested

For more than two years, Sydney Davis’s house has been under siege from youths throwing stones.

After two hours of bombardment in the latest attack and no sign of the police, the 65-year-old retired builder decided enough was enough.

As a particularly large missile landed in his kitchen, he grabbed a plank of wood from the garden and ran towards the gang to scare them away.

The police arrived just in time – to arrest Mr Davis for possession of an offensive weapon.

He now faces up to six months in prison. Yesterday Mr Davis said he was bewildered by the decision to prosecute him.

[...]

‘What in the world is this country coming to that the police arrest people like me for protecting their own property?’ he said yesterday.

‘The police say they want to reduce crime, yet they let evil little toe-rags like this off. Then they prosecute hard-working, upstanding residents like me.

The law is, quite simply, a colossal ass.’

Indeed it is, Mr. Davis.

I am somewhat conflicted as to whether to split this off as a separate item completely divorced from the original conversation and my reaction to Mr. Warner, or to let it flow. Since the hour is late and the path of least resistance is often attractive, I will leave it as a personal response.

Dear Lee,

You wrote:

[A]s a matter of pragmatism, none of the other definitions [of murder] or standards can deprive me of property, liberty, and life. Their value is purely symbolic, as they are not based upon force or coercion.

Of course definitions have no power on their own. They gain power only as they are accepted and applied by people in their relations.

If I read you correctly, you don’t necessarily accept the definition of murder as defined by legislature, religion, or “analysis of the rightful place of self-defense,” but you aren’t making clear exactly what your philosophical standard, legal principle, and definition is. If it’s not too legalistic of me, could I ask you to explain what YOUR higher law is, and how it would apply to me, or any other non-participant in your belief system?

In the Muslim world, the law is what the Sheik, Caliph, or Imam says it is. It tends to vary, notwithstanding the Koran or Sharia Law. I wouldn’t want that for me, and I hope that isn’t what you are talking about.

I wouldn’t want Sharia or literal Biblical law for anyone, and even I can agree that, as an example, the organic law based in the English Common Law is a morally superior system. That doesn’t make it a good system, however.

The question is not too legalistic, this is a fundamental and critical issue, and one which I and hopefully most of the world use to examine and judge the question. My philosophy is something of “self-defense plus”. I believe mine to be an extension of the philosophy described by the “Philosophy of Liberty” video I posted previously.

To the narrow question of what is a criminal murder and what is a justified killing — be it in self-defense, in the service of delegation of the right to self-defense or as retaliation for tortious damage or infringement — I am not a philosopher, and I won’t be able to put together a comprehensive intellectual argument which will unassailably support my beliefs. What I can offer, though, is a set of principles (though some may be loose and slippery) which speak to the issue, and examples that support and illustrate their application. I will gleefully and recklessly make assertions here without proof, use terms without definition and attempt to exploit proof by intimidation. I don’t have time for much else.

First, we own ourselves. Our bodies are our rightful and natural property. When someone attempts to damage us or kill us, we are justified in using whatever force necessary to prevent or interrupt that. That force may even be disproportionate. If a kidnapper has me tied up and is preparing to saw off my leg, if I manage to get a free hand and deliver an ice pick to his brain, that also is justified. We may be justified in certain circumstances in conducting proportionate revenge upon those who injure us as well.

Next, we own our property (define it as you will, and this is a broad and deep and vague philosophical area in which I have mixed opinions and in which there are many views), and that property is an extension of ourselves. We are justified also in using force to protect and defend our property, and may be justified in extracting proportionate retributive compensation or a proportionate forced cure for damage to or infringement upon our property. Our bodies are our property as well, as are our lives.

Next, we own our liberty. Liberty is the space in which one may move and act and be without infringing upon the equally inviolate liberty of others. Our liberty is also our property.

We have the duty to respect the equal rights of others with respect to their own persons, property and liberty. No action that we or they take can abridge or abolish this duty. This duty arises as a practical consequence of our own desire and need for our persons, property and liberty to be respected.

We have the ability, and the moral justification, to delegate the defense of our persons, property and liberty to other persons, organizations or institutions, exclusively or non-exclusively. When we make such an intentional (and explicit) delegation, we are not creating any right, entitlement or duty that did not exist before, we are merely expanding it and inviting others to enforce our own rights. Such a delegation is almost always carried out for reasons of reciprocity: familial love, kinship, fraternal association, commercial transaction, etc. If we, say, delegate our defense to a neighborhood association which sets up an armed patrol to safeguard our homes and defend our lives, property and liberty, we are not empowering those who carry the weapons and go on patrol in our names with any new entitlement, we merely concentrate it in them and agree to support and defend their actions insofar as those actions are in accordance with those of our own rights which we have delegated.

Additionally, other people to whom we have not specifically delegated our powers of self-defense also are justified in acting to defend us or to exact retribution from those who aggress against us. The onlooker to an escalating argument who breaks my debating partner’s nose when he sees that my debating partner is about to stick a knife in my belly is entirely justified, whether I know him or not.

What I think I have given here is a rough outline of libertarian/anarchist theory at a fundamental level. Looks a bit like Mosaic law, doesn’t it? It’s also the basis for the justified functioning of a volunteer military (the scaled-up version of the neighborhood patrol) whose services are contracted for and supported by a group of people who wish it. I’ve also given the barest toe-hold to the “preemptive strike doctrine” under which the war in Iraq today is being waged, though I disagree entirely with its extension to cover that war and almost every other instance where it is used in the world today.

Thus: an unjustified killing, a murder, is one which violates these principles. This is how I see the issue.

You came along, though, telling us that you’d killed people, and that though it haunts your conscience, you believe those killings to be just. I will submit, respectfully, that it should be impossible for a sane man to simultaneously hold close the principles I have outlined above and the belief that those killings were just.

I would submit, though, that these thinkers celebrate too soon. The State’s ultimate penalty for real crime (initiations of force or fraud against people or their property) as well as all those non-crimes the State takes umbrage at is always death. This is the nature of the State; killing is the instrument by which it maintains itself.

To be sure, the State is mostly careful to not exercise the penalty too often. The system of compulsion and coercion, backed by the ultimate tool of death, is one which States have learned functions much better when the sword is cloaked in layers of misdirection and abstraction. The simple — and perhaps more honest — compulsion of the local tyrant demanding of his subjects, “Do it thus, or I shall kill you,” has been replaced with a long chain of escalation beginning with paper things like demands for compliance and citations, leading through more forceful papers such as summonses and warrants, but ultimately grounded upon the power of that barely-concealed blade.

If we accept the natural-rights view of self defense as given by libertarian theory, we can see that the penalty for every infraction is death.

Fail to pay your taxes? You will be killed.

Consume a proscribed substance? Death awaits you.

Neglect or ignore some trivial regulation? Murder is your fate.

“Oh come now,” they will cry, “the government doesn’t kill people for not paying their taxes!” In general this is true. In general people are compliant, whether out of worship or fear. But as situations escalate from non-compliance to the State’s demand for enforcement, be sure that the blade remains ready to plunge into the belly of the scofflaw.

I’m quite fond of hyperbolic examples. Let’s make one now.

Imagine that Bob is a fruit vendor. He sells apples, oranges and plums, and prices them by the piece. He advertises them at “12 for $3″ or “20 for $5″, or at whatever price he determines he can sell them profitably.

One day a policeman comes around to Bob’s stand and tells him about a new law. The State has adopted a new numbering system, duodecimal, which uses base-12 instead of base-10 decimal notation. The State has passed a law saying that all transactions, offers, sales, etc., must be denoted in duodecimal.

The policeman informs Bob that his signage is out of order. “12 for $3″ must be replaced by “10 for $3″, and “20 for $5″ must be replaced by “18 for $5″. Because Bob is in violation of the law, the policeman issues Bob a citation ordering him to comply and imposing a fine for breaking the law.

Bob naturally looks at this as ridiculous. Everyone he sells fruit to understands decimal notation, and to change it would only create confusion. Further, Bob knows that he’s committed no crime, no offense against the person or property of another. Bob refuses the citation and tells the policeman to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

A few days later, Bob receives a letter saying that the fine has been imposed on him by a judge, that he has 30 days to pay it, and that he must comply with the new duodecimal law. As before, Bob ignores this letter and this judge, harming and having harmed no person or thing.

Thirty days pass, sixty days, ninety. Bob keeps on selling his decimal-denominated fruit during the day and going home to enjoy time with his family in the evening. One day another letter arrives stating that the judge has issued an order which says that if Bob does not comply with the first letter within 5 days, he will be in criminal contempt of court and subject to arrest and a term of imprisonment. Bob is disturbed, of course, by this threat against his person, but ignores it as he might ignore the taunts of a bully on the street.

A week later, a group of armed men wearing clown suits appear at Bob’s door and say they are there to arrest Bob and take him before the judge. Bob tells them he won’t go, as he’s done nothing wrong, but the uniformed thugs are insistent. He closes the door in their faces. They break down the door and enter Bob’s home, guns drawn against Bob and his family.

Bob then, in fear of his life and the life of his family, perhaps draws a pistol and tells the clowns to go away. Perhaps he attempts to flee. The clowns shoot him dead.

In the aftermath, the killing is sanctified among the State’s organized criminals as justifiable, since Bob failed to comply with lawful demands, threatened police officers and resisted arrest. The State’s worshipers and pawns fall all over themselves to praise the brave uniformed thugs and denounce Bob as having “had it coming.”

The penalty is always death.