There are always people who would use force-and that small group can do alot of damage while everyone
else is standing around allowing it. There must be remedy.

Yes, very interesting site. I initially scored a 97. And then did Segment 1. I came across an interesting precept embedded in Question 6.

#6 So, you have the right to do anything you like with your own life. Are there any limits at all on that power?

One of the multiple choice answers to that question is:

Only that I am forbidden to harm someone else.

If you choose that answer it comes up with:

No! Who said anything about being forbidden? - Forbidden by whom? And by what right? Restudy Segment 1 please, then try again.

Interesting. What if you considered it a rational conclusion that it is wrong to harm someone else and recognize that "axiom" (by their usage of that term) as a limit on your "power"? The forbidding we are contemplating here comes from yourself as a logical step in framing a rational morality. And that is wrong?

Who are these guys?

It's like the cold turkey pain an addict suffers when a highly addictive drug is suddenly taken away. Why blame the drug when pushers can show the pain a person suffers and blame the lack of the drug.

Not one of these is an example of Anarchy gone awry. They are all, every single one, examples of the chaos that ensues when a failed state collapses on its own corruption.

the non-aggression principle is an attempted short-cut philosophically. Like all short cuts, one is ignoring important concepts. For instance, you cannot even have this discussion without a firm definition of property rights. If someone picks an apple from what I consider to be my orchard and I try to stop them, but they are nomadic/hunter gatherer, who would be the aggressor? The nomad would clearly think the orchard owner was the aggressor. Ownership of oneself inherently leads to ownership of one's creations. In NAP, You can have two rational individuals argue over a property line, what is the remedy and who initiates the force? You can't say no one because there is a disagreement. There are likely costs.

Germany after WWI, the fall of Rome, Russia in 1917, China WWII...
note the date on this article posted on moonbattery.com:

"August 24, 2007

Venezuela Under Chavez: Totalitarianism Meets Anarchy

An irony of moonbattery is the close relationship between totalitarianism (ubiqitous government) and anarchy (absence of government), polar opposites that bleed into each other. For example, the sort of unwashed hooligans who stage riots at WTO meetings often refer to themselves as anarchists — yet to the extent they have any coherent ideology, it most closely resembles Stalinism. Another example is the authoritarian regime of Hugo Chavez. The more he tightens his grip on power, the more Venezuela dissolves into anarchy.

The streets of Venezuela are out of control — and according to the Financial Times, the economy may soon be as well:

President Hugo Chávez's tightening grip over Venezuela's economy is generating distortions that economists fear could, paradoxically, eventually lead to a loss of control.
Price controls, currency controls and negative real interest rates are just some of the elements that have contributed to one of the highest rates of inflation in the world and a substantially overvalued exchange rate.
The economy is ever more dependent on the high price of oil. If that falls, so will Venezuela — into economic chaos.

If things get bad enough, they could always try freedom. It works for America,"

Your evidence is?

I couldn't agree more! Early in my life, I was shown the benefits of never taking anything on authority, to question everything and come to my own conclusions by applying logical reasoning to the available facts. I am not here to attack or defend any viewpoint or person. When presented with a proposition I simply seek to follow it to it's logical conclusion. Now in my late 60's I first read (no, devoured) pretty well all of Ayn Rand's writing (fiction & non fiction) some 50 years ago and have been on a path of logical inquiry ever since. While this long journey has lead me to conclude (for now) that non aggression is the only morally sound principle, I am always ready to examine any proposition which is new to me (unlikely after 5 decades, but?) and revise my conclusion if reason leads me there.

false alternative. collectivist statism is not the system of capitalism
Anarchy ALWAYS ends in totalitarianism. Why would you promote that?

Capitalism is based on property rights. What is your alternative to capitalism?

I do not mean to be unfriendly, but years back when Leonard Peikoff was feuding with David Kelly about taking Objectivism into new areas, Leonard said something to the effect of - Ayn Rand said everything there was to say about Objrectivism and there is no new ground to cover - I apologize for not having his exact words at hand for a quote.

Also I signed up for one of the tape courses and when I commented on a painting in the office, the organizer of the course said that Rand like this artist and so the painting was good.

That is the kind of misuse of Rand's name I am referring to and is what I am seeing in some of the comments. I am not in any way defending anarchism and I apologize if that is what you thought I meant.

I simply want to see people make their own logical arguments.

I have no desire to "defend" anything, only to follow certain lines of reasoning to their logical conclusion and make every effort to avoid logical fallacies in the process.

In the process I have come to conclude that initiating aggression against others is wrong on principle - no exceptions. Coercing others by proxy under color of "government" is worse - it is the cowardice of bullies and the predation of sociopaths.

What is flawed here is your understanding of the NAP which you appear to confuse with some utopian idea of angelic non violence. The NAP does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others.

Anyone who thinks the entire human race will ever reach a single unanimous consensus on any issue through the mechanism of "democracy", "government" or other violent statist means is truly fooling themselves.

I took the test and initially scored 77.
Then I went back and answered as I supposed an anarchist would and scored 99. No comment.

If you were more careful about their equivocations and took them into account you might have scored less than the 77 in the first round. But reading better interpretations into something that combines stealing Ayn Rand's ideas with, and on behalf of, promoting their opposite by giving it the benefit of the doubt is only part of it. We don't have to infer or guess, the site explicitly advocates "doing away with government altogether".

No one has said that if Ayn Rand said something then it is so as any kind of argument for anything. Going on from that falsehood to the rationalistic extravaganza about bible thumping and the rest of it is a crude strawman. That smear against those who defend Ayn Rand's ideas against anarchism and the simplistic sophistry and floating abstractions of "anarcho capitalism" is no defense of anarchism. Those who don't fully understand the matter are unlikely to do much better from reading this page at all. Suffice it to say that promoting anarchism has nothing to do with Atlas Shrugged or the movie, and anyone can read Ayn Rand's actual views on the nature of government in her own work.

Government is not fiction, legal or otherwise. No one here advocates giving a monopoly on force to sociopaths. Statism and its anarchist twin are a false alternative.

Without the need for aggression for what purpose? People do it all the time in pursuit of immoral and irrational purposes, and they do it without "self limiting". Utopian anarchistic fantasies don't stop it, they help to let it loose on us.

The growth of statism is the opposite of what Ayn Rand advocated. It does not "demolish" her ideas, it confirms them. Claiming to be "independent" and "questioning" is no defense of anarchism.

Wow! The logical fallacies in the writing in this thread surprise me. Appealing to Ayn Rand to settle your argument is just a variation of the appeal to authority. As I have heard said, "If Rand said it, it is so" or any variation thereof is a totally bogus way to try to settle the argument. That is what bible thumpers do - appeal to gods word as if that settled anything.

If you have a point to make it, make it and let it stand on its own merits. Telling me that Rand agrees tells me you are fearful that your argument lacks substance and so you say she agrees with you. Easy to say when she has been dead for many years.

The group was started by me. I have been a TOLFA mentor since 2006.

looking at it. give me more background. who is behind it?