RE: This is why a Democracy is described as the political pig pen of political systems
Men must be governed, otherwise humans do not live in a society, but in tribes in constant warfare, eating each other for subsistence. Rulers must provide avenues of conflict resolution, ie judicial court system, lest society crumble in sporadic outbursts of private warfare so common during the pre-Christendom of barbarian fiefdoms, following the fall of Imperial Rome. That monopoly on legal violence be restricted to government is a necessity for civil society to exist and prosper. Whether such monopoly is achieved via disarming the populace, or enforcing legal restrictions upon an armed populace is of little difference. By stringent and vigilent enforcement regarding the use of violence, government can easily curtail private wars without the necessity of weapons confiscation.
Government establishes the concept of "property," through legal ledgerization of the creation, within which humans reside. By what legitimacy do humans claim ownership of the land (which they did not form), the minerals (which they did not seed), the animals (which they did not quicken), or even their very lives? The entire concept of property and ownership is legal fiction, maintained by government bureaucracy and enforcers, within which human society operates. The populace creates nothing, other than by leave of their masters, based upon the particular legal fiction that operate their sociocultural matrix.
All human social organization is oligarchy in fact, though various forms of government provide illusion of monarchy, democracy, or republic. The forms of the government is irrelevant, nor the existence of armed or disarmed populace, as long as the levers of power remain within the grasp of the ruling elite. What use are weapons, money, votes, and speech, when the institutes of education, propaganda, and judiciary are beholden to the ruling oligarchs? With manipulation of disseminated information, partial facts, cleverly deaigned innuendoes, the interests of our masters will be made to become interests of the populace, the enemies of our masters can be made to become the enemies of the public. Thus, the ruling elite can honestly claim to be acting in the interest of the people. In a representative government, through legal and juridical means, votes can be stacked in favor of the next designated puppet.
I agree with a lot of what you shared, but have to point out that this :
"That monopoly on legal violence be restricted to government is a necessity for civil society to exist and prosper."
Creates massive graves, and the death which civil society seeks to avoid becomes assured.
"The entire concept of property and ownership is legal fiction, maintained by government bureaucracy and enforcers, within which human society operates."
Such a belief means that you don't own yourself as property rights start with the idea that every beings owns itself. Ownership of things is a extension of that idea. Governments didn't come up with it. Such is imposed through the institution, ordination of government in the first place.
I do agree that men must be governed. Either by themselves or by someone. In truth they are governed one way or the other. The funny thing is that physically no one has the ability to move my hands, but I. Thus physically I have no choice, but to govern what my hands do. So if I am not in charge, than I am not responsible which means a lynching of the elite every ten years or so would be necessary for there to actually be law. If this is not the case for you, I have a question?
So who is your owner?
Without legal monopoly on violence by the government, society assents to private wars between rival tribes. Whether chaos of private wars, in the vein of Italian vendettas or blood feuds of the Appalachian mountain families, is preferable to state enforced violence may depend upon the perspective of the individual's sociocultural make-up. Which leads to then next objection.
Man is created by God. Man did not quicken himself or construct his being ex nihilo. Having absolutely no input into his creation, can such a being dare claim ownership to his being? Is not everything of a man's being but borrowed from his creator? Should not man give credit where it is due and dues when payment is demanded? Do the serfs working in vineyards have the right to beat the owner's representatives and murder his son to claim the produce of the land for themselves, usurping ownership of said property?
If your philosophical inclination do not tend towards the supernatural, then an argument within the sphere of natural realm also demonstrate the fallacy of man owning himself. If man is but program of self-replicating genes, driven by his appetites and instinct, then nothing of himself is himself, since he is nothing more than his genetic programming, his thoughts naught but random electrical impulses of neuronal misfire. Under such circumstances, concepts of ownership, theft, freedom, rights, good, evil are all meaningless drivel, since we are nothing more than meatbags of chemicals proceeding towards entropy. None of this discussion matters, and whether ten-thousand or ten billion are laid waste in mass graves for the glory of the state, remains as meaningless as the lifecycle of ants.
If for some inexplicable reason, your philosophical leanings cause you to believe that humans can somehow "transcend" their genetic programming (ie Dawkins lunacy), then what in man, other than the sociocultural matrix of indoctrination, ascends man beyond his base appetites and instinct? Who has educated such man since birth, other than the sociocultural matrix we call the state? Who has protected such a man from he depredations of the natural world, other than the state? Who has instilled the ethics of hard work and self-discipline, other than the state? Such a man has been allowed the privilege of participating in socioeconomic and sociopolitical sphere by the consent of the state. Without the state, such a man, who has ascended beyond genetic programming, does not exist. It is to the state, then, such a man owes his being, purpose, and identity.
Can man transcend the crass demands of his flesh and bone? Can he extend his consciousness outwards and beyond himself to embrace entities greater than himself? When man has shed the myopic perceptions of his individual, singular demands and identifies with the will of his creator, he has been granted enlightenment. If a man achieves identification with the "self" of his sociocultural matrix, the state, he has achieved purpose. To "own" oneself as an individual is to cripple oneself in selfishness and base desires.
Seeing as how God made man the only one who has control over what he does and considering the first part of the following :
"Man is created by God. Man did not quicken himself or construct his being ex nihilo. Having absolutely no input into his creation, can such a being dare claim ownership to his being?"
The real question is not dare he claim ownership, but dare he act as if he is not responsible for his actions? If God had wanted individuals to be subjects of others he would have made it so through natural law and not through academic rhetoric.
Seeing as you have chosen not to answer my question, I must assume your owner has not given you permission. So I will have to assume you have no owner, and thus disprove your stated theory in the most important way. No application to your own life means to me that your ideas are not wisdom, but a distractions from real value.
For what is man responsible, and to whom is he obligated, if he is "owns" himself? The humanist drivel of man being guided by his own "conscience" has produces innumerable misery upon God's creation. Man's delusion in arrogating ownership to that which he has no claim is the core of the rot that infects this universe. Under what principles or laws does a "free" man who "owns" himself stand, other than his fickle whims? When a man owns a property, he need not be responsible or obligated in its use or disbursement. You invoke God, and in the same sentence dismiss Him. That you sense some vestigial sense of obligation and responsibility for your actions hints at your dues owed to your master.
So who moves your hand? Is it you or your master?
I move my own hand by the allowance of my lord, the Second Person of the Trinity who owns all of humanity, Jesus the Christ. Who allows you to breath each day, is it by your will or the by the magnanimity of your creator and master? Just because renters and tenants are allowed usage of a property does not result in usage equating to ownership. At the end of the day, it is the owner, not the tenants, who has the final say in disbursement and use of the said property. Man is obligated to his owner and responsible for acting according to his purpose.
As far as I can tell. God doesn't want slaves, and is why you claim your hand as your own?
I am sure that those of your philosophical leaning perceive themselves as claygods, interacting with their supposed creator as equals, and approach life as a series of mercantile contracts negotiated between themselves and their supposed creator. We Christians, however, perceive our relationship with our God in proportion to our insignificance in comparison to the creator of the universe. Actually, such proportionate reverence towards the divine is shared among virtually all human religions past and present. Even atheist communism interacts with their god, the state, in the same relation.
When your contract called life on this planet terminates, is it a mutually agreed termination, or a unilateral one? By the particulars of a contract termination, a man ought to recognize the owner vs. the tenant in such relationship.