Solving the force monopoly problem with security contractors

I posted this in response to a message on PM:Pub this evening:

Does that ever muddy up the waters on the idea of "the gun in the room" of state power? In other words, in any violent action which starts as police action, when does the violence cease to be state action and instead become the officer's right to defend oneself? It seems like it makes either argument, defense vs. state action more difficult in terms of open armed conflict. Of course, the argument is not nearly as jumbled for executions where the citizen is not armed or threatening.

Well, the situation you described in your OP is a little different than what you're saying here: I'd say that when someone is acting as an arm of the state and does not initiate violence, violence in return is not warranted.

However, to take an extreme example, I would posit that if the state sends a SWAT team to your home to confiscate your property and arrest you for growing your own marijuana, you would have the natural right to defend your freedom and your property with lethal force, no matter how foolhardy such an attempt would be.

In general, you have the natural right to defend yourself equally against state tyranny as against individual thuggery. However nice an epitaph that might make, it is probably not a good idea unless you like dying. :)

This is why we need private security/defense contractors. I would pay money to hire a group that would agree to defend me against the force of the state. Once groups that can wield state-like force (at least force sufficient to rescue individuals from state detention and transport them to some safe place) appear, the state will no longer have a monopoly on force and we will start on the road to long-lasting liberty.

The increasingly niche-oriented nature of our society makes this an inevitability as groups with mutually incompatible needs and desires struggle to control the apparatus of state in order to force their views and behavioral standards on the other groups, and is the only way we will avoid widespread violence resulting from the oppression necessary to maintain a one-size-fits-all government.