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Joe Canimal's avatar

The two cases are meaningfully different, in that in the Government case, the apprehension that the guard is attempting lethal action is objectively correct, and (by hypothesis) the legal apparatus/system has functioned correctly, but there's been some terrible mistake (as must happen in any system of punishment), whereas in the first case, the objective intent of another's actions have been misjudged, leading to the use of force which would be lawful in response to the action-as-misjudged, but not the actual action.

In the latter case (attacking someone you'd imagined was trying to kill you), the force may or may not be criminal, depending on how objectively reasonable the misapprehension was. As you intimate, it's more or less an economic analysis of law issue -- we don't want people imagining "assassinations" and attacking rivals, etc. -- which likely comes down to the causal structure of society.

In the former, the action is undoubtedly criminal, since the cop had a justification for his battery, etc., in that it was the dictate of the state. A state expects people to submit to its authority, even if mistaken (as any system would be), and is jealous of that authority. A radical collective in ancapistan would do likewise (as the actual history of such collectives shows). If someone starts gunning down policemen since they were wrongfully convicted, they'd best have an army capable of defeating the sovereign, since they're really bidding to become a new state.

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Solus Factor's avatar

You were a victim of circumstances that would result in your death.

Instead you chose to replace yourself with another, innocent, person - the guard - who was simply doing his job and had no personal intention to kill you.

Imagine this situation differently: you slipped and fell on the rails and there is a train coming that will kill you. You grab a bystander and pull yourself off the rails, but push him in, and he gets killed.

Do you still think you're not guilty?

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