Anthony Gregory: The State, a reductio ad absurdum
Submitted by atrickpay on Sun, 11/01/2009 - 22:20
"A state is an agency that maintains a monopoly on the use of legal force in a given geographical area. The idea that such an institution can, on balance, protect individual rights, is fallacious. "
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How sweet...
the latest gift to us by an avowed antarchist..... should we once again start the chain about how anarchy doesn't work with people in a society?
Or would you like to get deeper when I point out that right now we live in an anarchist society... after all, the stronger live and do whatever they want to and the weaker live by thier rules.... anarchy at it's finest.
Keep pushing the ideal if you want to, but you are wanting to ~change~ into what we currenty live....
I'm voting for a Republic in this scenario, btw.
~Live life to its fullest, with an open heart, open arms and most important... an open mind~
This game will never end but
This game will never end but It doesn't really matter one way or the other. Anarchist can never achieve their goals because their own ideology stands in the way.
They can't force anyone to accept it and they are inept at persuasion, so it will never happen.
"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that." — Alan Greenspan
Devon, are you an archist?
I ask because a person is either an archist or an anti-archist (sometimes called "anarchist").
An archist is one who believes in the philosophy of archism. What is archism you might be asking? Archism: the philosophy that people should be ruled.
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"Unfortunately for libertarians, once the need for a minimal state is conceded, the first step down a very slippery slope has been taken." - Joseph Heath
Devon,
you gonna reply?
People will be ruled by laws
People will be ruled by laws either way, anarchist communities by common and contract law, and governments by constitutional and legislative law. Having a government is a subsidy on freedom of mobility, while anarchy leans more towards freedom from institutionalized coercion. I wish people would view the issue as "pluses" and "minuses" between proposals of the two systems like I do.
Ventura 2012
Agreed
Yup, I agree.
ok, so can we stop with the
ok, so can we stop with the "archist" stuff now?
Ventura 2012
Why is that?
I'm not clear what you're getting at there (ie. how that follows from what you had wrote above).
People will be ruled
Simply read your own posts:
"An archist is one who believes in the philosophy of archism. What is archism you might be asking? Archism: the philosophy that people should be ruled."
People will be ruled regardless, so you cant divided people into "archists" and "anarchists" unless you are talking about the libertine anarchists which not surprisingly are the vast majority of them. You will be ruled by a web of contract laws and common laws(majority rules) in anarchy, by legislative law(majority rules, minority rights), contract law, and some common law in a constitutional republic, and by decree of the king in a monarchy.
Ventura 2012
Devon, to say "right now we live in an
anarchist society" is to speak with no agreed-upon definition of words.
We cannot communicate if each person makes up his/her own definitions. We'll have no common referents and all will be gibberish.
Fine you believe in a Republic, perhaps Gregory is an anarchist. Those debates will go on forever, so long as we have the liberty of free speech.
But to say our coercive giant repressive federally controlled nation is "anarchy" is just not useful conversation. You only speak to yourself since only you accept that definition.
:)
You can agree or disagree all day long on a definition.
It really does not matter to the people who actually ~live~ in anarchy right now.. the people that can do whatever they want with impunity because thier rules are the ones that work.
Why? Because they can back them up with thier resources, so they can do whatever they want to. They are completely in control of thier lives and have the freedom to do whatever they want to.
Anarchy, by definition.
However, this does not help the 99.9% of the people that have to live within the rules these people posit and enforce. You know.. you and me.
It really truly helps the people who make the rules tho.. so keep posting!
I'm still not going to agree with you and want a representive Republic.
Sorry if this screws up your ideal of a perfect anarchist society... but this is what you get if you really want one.
The only difference being that in this case you still have a Constitution and a populace (that 99.9% thing) that might want to enforce said document.
:)
~Live life to its fullest, with an open heart, open arms and most important... an open mind~
I feel like we're shouting across a vast
chasm, so our words to each other get lost. I don't care to quibble about semantics, just trying to be on the same page so words actually communicate.
To say the people at the top have freedom backed up by their "resources" live in anarchy is just to leave all logic, as well as accepted definitions behind.
Those people back up their force by using the rest of us as their "resources." That's slavery, not anarchy.
And I'm not really trying to argue for anarchy as such. I do listen respectfully to those who argue for it, since almost all of the opposition argues for slavery, aggression, violence, etc.
Among those who argue for a constitutional republic, I haven't heard yet how those constitutional limits will be retained. And I do see the risks of no government, yet the risks of government are what most of history shows most dangerous by far. Again, I don't mean to slide into an argument; I just think standard word usage is advantageous in discussions.
And I think that before one dismisses anarchist arguments, an honest seeker for truth must sincerely consider the arguments of its theorists.