Whenever a libertarian argues with a statist either reductio ad Somalium or reductio ad roads comes up. For those who don’t know reductio ad Somalium is akin to the Internets general Godwin’s Law. That is to say when an argument between a libertarian and a statist goes one long enough the likelihood the statist will bring up Somalia approaches one. Reductio ad roads is the same thing except you merely replace the word Somalia with roads.
In the statist’s delusional world Somalia is the unavoidable result of too small or a lack of a state. On top of that statists also believe that it’s impossible for roads to be built or maintained without a state. Following such logic Somalia should be entirely devoid of roads, right? Think about it, Somalia apparently has no government and roads can only be built and maintained by states. Taking a look at Somalia on Google Maps showed me something unexpected… roads. Thinking that Google Maps must be inaccurate I checked Bing Maps, which also displays roads in Somalia. Thinking there must be some kind of corporate conspiracy I decided to check an independent project that claims to be compiling data about roads in Somalia, and surprisingly found the data they obtained wasn’t entirely empty!
What gives? Something fishy is going on. Either Somalia has a state or roads can be built and maintained without a state. Perhaps I’ve found a logical fallacy in statist thinking? I will have to research this more in depth and get back to you guys with my findings.