@funky:
I agree that it is really coercion rather than physical violence the vast majority of the time. I refer to physical violence for the sake of clarity. Coercion can take so many subtle forms that it can be easy to be drawn into protracted debate about at what point one has actually been coerced into behaving in a particular way. Once the State has dropped the PR 'common good' front, those who are able to see through it are still left with a very real problem - the physical violence that is it's true face and the threat of which that enables the coercion in all it's forms.
But now we're back to 'the perpetrators of that imposition and exploitation are almost always adherents to the religion of value-exchange' (the ubiquitous use of currency - the denial of which is, according to ba and myself, 'ridiculous'). I know it's the 'religion' you dislike rather than the tool that's used to express it, but then, to me, you can just as easily express a different 'religion' (gifting, charity etc.) if you so choose via the same tool. There would still be a value exchange, it's just that the values behind that exchange are different. It's the freedom to choose that's key and I believe value-exchange (and the currency associated with it) improves the choice and options.
"private security is just police/military sans state sanctioning". "Just" ... "sans state sanctioning". Like it's a small, inconsequential, difference. As an anarchist you're opposed to the State, but it's sanctioning of the entire physical violence (and coercion) apparatus is 'just' a detail? I suppose it's sanctioning of trillion dollar wars around the world and a security apparatus that makes Orwell seem like an optimist is 'just' a detail as well? I have not yet heard of a private company that physically forces me to buy it's products/services (unless indirectly via the State). Similarly with insurance. The problem isn't insurance (it makes sense to spread risk). It's the State forcing you to take their (state sanctioned) insurance (e.g. Obamacare).
My preferred way is for me, and everyone else, to have a choice without being violently (ultimately) coerced by others deluded into believing they know what's best for me and by their ideas about the 'common good'. That may seem bizarre to you.
Necessary facets of life can either be mediated through a free system of value exchange, currency, policing, insurance, industrialism in which I choose those products/services that I consider to be of value or I have them imposed on me according to someone else's conception of 'evil' and their 'preferred way'.
Let's say I choose a life insurance policy that has relatively low premiums because I have no children and no dependents. Someone else chooses a more expensive one because they have greater responsibilities. Is that so hard to envision? Am I imposing on others by making such a choice?
Not necessarily among those here, but among Statists generally they are absolutely "talking about preventing [me] from living the life [I] want". If I don't contribute to their security, insurance etc. they will send men to collect. This is not just one-to-one experience, it's reality for most people on the planet.
If we can agree that I should be free to choose my own security, insurance etc. and not have it imposed upon me by the State we actually share more common ground than I do with the vast majority of people I meet in 'ordinary' life (who often passionately believe in 'democracy', taxation , the "common good" etc.), even if we differ in many other respects.
