Ask most people how they feel about violence initiation, and they will most likely agree that it’s not a good thing. Aggressing against people in a manner not aligned with self-defense or the defense of others is generally looked down upon. Taking something that doesn’t belong to you without permission from the owner is immoral. Trespassing on someone’s property is a bad idea. This is a concept that we teach our children as soon as they can comprehend language. It’s a struggle most parents understand. “Don’t hit your sibling”, “Don’t grab”, and putting up baby gates to teach physical boundaries. All of these are to teach our children the basic fundamentals of the non-aggression principle. To most people, this seems like common sense.
So why, then, does one special group of people known as government seem to be exempt from this fundamental concept of human decency and morality? Not only are they exempt from it, but the majority of people seem to advocate, and even defend it. They say “without this group of people who steal from us and threaten our freedom and our lives for non-compliance with their rules, we would have people running around stealing from us and killing those who resist! It would be utter chaos!”
Not only do most people defend the concept of government, but they will become very agitated, and sometimes even become violent, when these questions are posed to them. Challenging their belief structure causes a physical reaction.
This is a phenomenon called Cognitive Dissonance. It is the result of a person holding two opposing and incompatible belief structures congruently. Miriam Webster defines it as the “psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously”. Wikipedia calls cognitive dissonance “the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas, or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values”. It describes perfectly the idea that initiation of violence is both good and bad at the same time depending on who is doing it, with no legitimate validation to speak of.
Anyone who agrees with the basic premise of the Non-Aggression Principle, but also supports the existence of the State, will experience cognitive dissonance when confronted with this idea. The only way for them to overcome it, is to shift their paradigm so that either everybody has the right to initiate violence on anyone they want, or nobody does. The NAP either applies to everyone, or no one. Violence is OK, or the State is illegitimate. You cannot legitimately have it both ways.
Definitions
Miriam Webster: psychological conflict resulting from incongruous (incompatible) beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously.
Wikipedia: In psychology, CD is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas, or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.