An area that appears to require particular clarification, when speaking about the free society that is proposed/demanded by the Nations Of Sanity, is concerning children. 

People ask if you can sell heroine to a 6 year old in a voluntary (free) society and while the answer to that question is a definite and logically obvious NO, the fact that it is even asked demonstrates the need to explain precisely why you cannot sell heroine to a child. 

The reason why you cannot sell heroine to a child, is the same reason why you cannot have sex with a child, and the same reason why you cannot enter into a legal contract with a child. A child cannot consent. 


The reason a child cannot consent is because they are not responsible for themselves, they are dependant on their guardians (which would usually be their parents) who are responsible for their care. 

It is important to understand that the self ownership that allows an adult to both trade and use a potentially harmful drug does not apply to children, for a very simple and logically consistent reason.

Even today we recognise that children are not able to give informed consent, which prevents them from entering into legal contracts. This is also why sex with a child is rape and giving them dangerous drugs would be assault.
Their inability to give informed consent invalidates any claim that a child has consented to take a harmful drug, so while consenting adults trading and using drugs would not be a crime in a free society, involving children would be, just as it is today.

The full self ownership that allows any adult to consent to sex, drugs and contracts is also the same self ownership that makes people responsible for their actions. 
You are free to live a way of life you choose but are responsible for your actions and criminally liable for any crime you commit.
If someone is deemed mentally incompetent to the point of not being criminally responsible for their actions, be it because they are a child or a mentally handicapped adult, then someone else has to be responsible for them. In the case of children it would usually be their parents but any carer or guardian that takes this responsibility has a duty of care and a responsibility for criminal actions. This would also apply to animals. You are responsible if your dog bites someone. 
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As has been mentioned in other articles, establishing the Non Aggression Principle as law will not result in a total abandonment of laws that exist today.
All laws of today that criminalise people who cause harm or loss to others, or initiate force, or threaten/attempt to do so will remain and while mild tweaks in precise standards of enforcement may or may not occur, the basic core of law and everything consistent with the NAP will not change.

Another clarification that appears to be necessary is to clarify that while children are not in possession of the full self ownership that all competent adults have an equal right to, they are not property either and they are not in any way owned by their parents or guardians. 

They are still afforded the protections of the Non Aggression Principle, so causing them harm or loss (or threatening or attempting to) will be a crime in every sense of the word. 
The only reason they do not have the full self ownership that grants them the full freedom AND responsibility that ALL adults possess is because we deem them unable to meet such obligations and lack the understanding to give informed consent.
They are still protected by the NAP, they are just not fully emancipated by it. 

The Non Aggression Principle makes us free but it also makes us responsible for our actions. If we are unable to take that responsibility then we cannot claim that freedom.
It is literally that simple.

Children require a competent adult (at least one) to take that responsibility for them and be responsible for their care until they are capable of taking the freedom and responsibility of self ownership that all competent adults have an equal right to.

That is basically the long and the short of it and like everything else that makes up the free society proposed by the Nations Of Sanity, it is logically consistent with the Non Aggression Principle and the basic sanity which should be "common" sense.


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