The inability to have a rational discussion
I am amazed at the people who cannot rationally discuss anarchy on THIS site. I did not expect everyone (or anyone) to agree with me, but I am astounded at how nearly all of you are falling into knee-jerk reactions rather than give any serious consideration to this issue. It IS important to the liberty movement, and it deserves better than the insults and ridiculous "examples" people are dreaming up and pretending are vaild arguments for the Constitution. The lack of a GOOD, rational argument for why I am bound to the Constitution from anyone here speaks volumes.
Truly, I though you all were better at critically thinking through issues. Just because you have an opinion on something does not mean you are not allowed to reconsider your position.
Paul4won, perhaps you would care to answer a friend of mine?
He wrote back to me the following and is waiting for my reply:
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"My feeling is that the Government, flawed as it may be, is our best chance of preventing Corporate rule (this is one of the central premises of AOR,) Libertarianism is all for private property rights, which is good, but the fact is that there is alot of vital "property" which is essentially and rightfully public. By that I mean clean air, clean water, healthy ecosystems, healthy fisheries (a big issue here in Alaska) and other less concrete areas such as clean food, useful, well-tested drugs, etc. This would have been the Commons of earlier days. It often seems to me that Libertarians often feel that by Balkanizing us into our little tracts of private property, they leave the Commons open for control and plundering by huge powerful corporate entities, who work 24/7 on doing just that. It's the reason some of them exist.
Maybe I misapprehend the (widely varied) Libertarian stance, but if you've got an answer to that query, I'd appreciate hearing it." --Stuart
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Thanks,
In peace & Liberty,
Treg
Land ownership
I just read it again, and realized that might be the crux of his issue. My personal opinion is that we have to dig to TRUTH first, and the TRUTH is that land ownership is a fallacy. There is land stewardship. Maximum time in that job: 1 lifetime. If everyone felt equally as "owners" of the EARTH, I think it would bring out the best in people. The notion that I own this and you own that has brought us millenia of warring over who really owns it and where the line between them is, etc.
If I am actively using and working a piece of land, I am the steward and have the right to protect the fruits of my labors. If I stop caring for it, my fellow humans have the right and responsibility to care for it. If we had extended families still, it would likely be my kids and grandkids that assumed care of the land, and of me.
I have no illusions of utopia, but I have a serious belief that I am a Sovereign being. I would MUCH rather place my faith in my fellow average humans, than pretend that any power-seeking elected official (there is no other kind) is going to protect me from anything.
Truth exists, and it deserves to be cherished.
I'll start by agreeing with the person below.
We ARE in a corporatocracy, sho being afraid we will become one is a bit late...
Next, I want to point out there is no question mark anywhere in there, so I have to try to guess what the question really is. I think he is asking how we will defend ourselves from megalithic corporate bullying.
Self sufficiency. The notion that corporations are entitled to Constitutional protection is patently absurd, and yet tolerated with very little complaint. The Constitutional rights of individuals have been flatly denied by the Supreme Court. I won't try to find the ruling, I think most folks here know the story and can find it as easily as I can. If you need me to find it, I will try. The ONLY true freedom is what you "purchase" with your personal responsibility. If I am growing my food, I do not have to support Monsanto. If I am riding a bike, using my HHO / veggie fuel car, I am not supporting the oil barons. There is no way "WE" can protect other people without infringing their personal liberty. While I feel it is NOT appropriate for me to demand Exxon shut down, I feel it is VERY appropriate for me to do all I can to stop using fossil fuels.
It is a funny thing, I remember the days before the EPA . I had a friend who was raised in LA, and was a health nut and ran miles every day. Before he was 20, a doctor told him he had a spot on his lung, and told him he had to stop running in that polluted air. He did NOT try to fix the world for anyone but himself, and he moved to Oregon. If that doctor had gone door to door with Pierre's x-ray, I suspect a LOT of people would have moved to Oregon.
And there is a harsh reality to a libertarian life. Good men will have to shoot bad men. I believe there are more good men than bad men, they have just been convinced that if they shoot people to defend what is good it makes them bad men.
Lastly, I will say this: Since we are in the hand basket to hell, what is the harm in jumping out and seeing where we land?
Truth exists, and it deserves to be cherished.
"My feeling is that the
"My feeling is that the Government, flawed as it may be, is our best chance of preventing Corporate rule."
We already have corporate rule. Why did the banks and the auto-makers get bailed out? Why do you think the Fed was recently put in charge of overseeing the banks and S&Ls? Fascism is rampant in America.
As far as the government protecting the environment, please tell me where the government was as far as the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico are concerned... http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/ otherwise known as dead zones.
There are too many failures to list where the government was supposed to be the "protector". As such, they are an abject failure.
You couldn't have anarchy
You couldn't have anarchy because then there would be no government.
The truth is
you are not bound by the Constitution. The Constitution created a federal government and limited their powers and also limited the powers of the states. I can see why you are pissed off at the current system but it is a far cry from what the Founding Fathers were wanting to create. 1913 was the end of this country.
What I wonder is what kind of world do you want to live in? What kind of world do you want me to live in? Do I even get a right to own a home? If I build a home can anyone just come over and sleep there? Do I have a right to pick up a gun and kick them out? What if someone rapes and murders my 6 year old child? I am sure I can kill them, but what if I kill the wrong person?
Ok so you don't like the Constitution. What is your better idea? Its easy to attack, but you also have to define what you stand for.
The truth is...
Read the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8. Research exactly how it has been used since 1789 by the federal government to take what it wants from who it wants. Research what expenses the federal government are willing to incur to impose it's will by force. (the government never pays for anything, 'the people' do) Then ask yourself honestly if the constitution binds the people that the government claims dominion over or the government.
That's truth.
I'd like to live in a world where people didn't make excuses for people who rob & murder to support themselves and their pals. Why don't you?
How does "anarchy" solve this?
Are there going to be no attempts to coerce, steal, or aggress, under anarchy?
If so, why not?
And if people do not abide by YOUR made-up definitions which have no basis to be accepted by others, and have no method to be enforced, what are your expectations that ANYTHING similar to what your poor little mind envisions, would actually ensue in an "anarchy" condition?
So far, what we get from the intellectually bankrupt "anarchist proponents" is that they have made-up some fiction that "everybody" will somehow be "willing" do like they say, and that somehow there are "rules" which somehow are "not coercive", but require coercion to enforce.
And that "private armies and private courts", which nobody is required to obey, are going to solve everything thru their own versions of coercion, which have no inherent protections of minority positions from the dog-eating mobocracy that will immediately evolve after your 15 seconds of anarchy.
So, what you have is Bullsh!t. You make a bunch of sweeping accusations about the current system, in order to breed discontent, and yes, there are problems, so that's easy.
Then you make the inevitable "leap of faith" that your fictional utopia just falls into place and we all live happily ever after.
Except, even on the most cursory inspection of your "system", we don't "live happily ever after", we have all the problems we have now, and more so.
And secondly, your "system" relies on universal acceptance, and that is never ever going to happen.
So, wake up.
Where did I claim that sociopaths would simply go away?
I just want to eliminate their tool of choice.
How's that tool working so far at 'protecting' everyone's individual liberty?
All you're doing by creating
All you're doing by creating an anarchy is pressing the reset button. Its a temporary fix. The Anarchy bubble will collapse like it did at the beginning of history.
Personally, I don't think its worth the friction.
Ventura 2012
Well,
you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
There's 6000 years history showing what happens when anarchy occurs, for the very short time that it can survive.
It rapidly turns into something else, first a mob, then a number of mobs, and then feudalism, generally with very iron-handed rulers of military mentality who have the will and the equipment to exert coercion on their enemies, and also exert coercive payments from their serfs.
And that is what will follow anytime anarchy occurs.
To ignore that is simply folly.
So you see, your not "taking anything away" from "them".
You're gonna get it right back, in a way that history shows is MUCH less preferable.
Feudalism - your definition looks familiar
You said "..feudalism, generally with very iron-handed rulers of military mentality who have the will and the equipment to exert coercion on their enemies, and also exert coercive payments from their serfs."
And you don't see how you just decribed today's government? Wow... your ability to suspend disbelief is impressive.
Spend
about a day in a real feudal society, and get back to me about that.
In any case, your weak argument that the abuses occurring in the US today having anything to do with the actual system in the Constitution, just don't hold water. "Today's government" is not a Constitutional gov't as it was written orginally.
All you are doing is proving that corrupt people will act corruptly,and no system of "anarchy" is going to change that.
You'll have the same things, and worse, just under a different name.
"Taking away their favorite toy", results in them using a new toy to do the same things you don't like now, and even worse.
And this is because people are as they are.
Out of all the systems ever created on the face of this planet, the originally written Constitutional gov't of the united states of America was the most free, with the least intrusion, and the most protection from oppression.
You want to throw it away by blaming abuses of corrupt men on "the system", because you are looking for a "magic bullet" which does not exist. It's a fantasy of an "easy way out".
Even Rothbard admits it in his writings. No "system" can survive in a corrupt and immoral population.
You have a mental exercise, and that's all.
It doesn't pass muster as a system which can be implemented.
You're whole argument is flawed.
You can point out "problems" in the US until doomsday, and not one word of it is an argument supporting anarchy.
You just hope that people will see your underlying unsubstantiated inference that anarchy would be somehow better, with no supporting argument.
That's because there is no supporting argument.
Did you miss my post on the Whiskey Rebellion?
How could the federal government get any more 'constitutional' than it was in 1789? I guess taking only 13,000 military troops to go collect a tax from some poor farmers is truly a sign of how restrained the government was back then, huh?
No I didn't miss it.
It has nothing to do with the discussion.
What happened in the Whiskey Rebellion is immaterial to the subject of anarchy.
Totally and completely immaterial to the discussion.
I repeat:
Discussions of abuses in the current system, or the old system, or any other system for that matter, ARE NO ARGUMENT FOR ANARCHY.
An argument for anarchy would (attempt) to show why it could be superior.
If you had an argument, I presume that you'd have presented it.
Instead, you continually try to divert the topic into some illogical "assumption" that because other systems have what you perceive as "flaws", that "anarchy" is somehow the obvious solution, yet you can give no argument for such as assumption..
You are doing an excellent job of demonstrating your total lack of an argument, which you also exhibited on every other thread and post you've made on this topic.
Sorry, you have to leave. You are making sense. We don't.......
.....need no stinking logic around here, man!!!!!
Hope you know I am kidding. Thanks for the help, and welcome to the war against creeping idiocy.
Why Anarchy?
I want to be able to run an honest business and provide jobs without interference and a mountain of paperwork that stresses me out and kills creativity. I want to be able to plan to expand in the future, without worrying if it will just cost more. I don't like that the government has a hand in every business decision I make.
I want to have complete control over my health, at least as much as humanly possible. If my children were still children, I'd want it to be a family decision what treatments we would take, not dictated by the Government.
I want to be able to give freely to anyone I wish, and not have to report it to the Government. I especially want the freedom to give to those I choose, and not have the Government do it for me.
I want to grow whatever I choose in my garden. I want to put whatever I choose in my body, and not be forcefully exposed to things I don't want in my water, my air and my space.
I don't want to bail out GM, my ten year old Ford is doing just fine.
I want to be an citizen of what America was meant to be.
I want to live by Spiritual Guidance not Government Control.
Is that Anarchy?
Sounds like a Constitutional Republic to me.
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Really where is there any
Really where is there any mention of government and theft of the fruits of the labors of the people called taxes under threat of violence? Sounds like freedom and anarchy.
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Only dead fish go with the flow...
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End The Fat
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I never mentioned amendments.
I'm talking about the original documents.
No, it is not anarchy.
No one seems to understand what anarchy is, yet they seem to be willing to run headlong into it.
This is the lemming syndrome.
I understand enough
I'm not running headlong into anything. I try to live my life and do what is right to me. My idea of making the world a better place is doing it one by one.
So if you are responding to my post, your point is??
My point is you need to look up the word in the dictionary.
I don't disagree with your philosophy, but you claiming to be an anarchist is like Obama claiming to be a constitutional lawyer/professor. In other words, a rose by any other name.......
Freedom is not anarchy. They are different ideas, that is why we have different words to express the ideas.
You sound more like someone who wants to be left alone. But in anarchy, might makes right. So the first person stronger or smarter than you can take everything you have, including your life. Pretty much what we are seeing today in our society.
Please, I totally agree with almost everything you said in your original post, and in a fantasy Utopia it would be that way. I don't want to tell you how to think, act and live any more than I want you or somebody else telling me how to think, act and live. But just saying that is not going to make the bad people go away. If you are a true anarchist, then you need to open the doors of your business 24 hours a day, even when you are not there. In your fantasy world no one would steal anything.
Tell me what you do if you get robbed, or your house or business catches on fire. Do you say "Oh, the heck with it, I am an anarchist, so I don't believe in the police or fire department."
maybe i'm a simpleton
but to me
anarchy=democracy
"The two weakest arguments for any issue on the House floor are moral and constitutional"
Ron Paul
Anarchy: lawlessness; lack of government in a country; confusion
= : the same in number, size, merit, etc.; identical; fit or qualified; evenly balanced. One equal to another, be equal to.
Democracy: government by the people or their elected representatives; country so governed.
You just made an oxymoron.
Oxymoron: figure of speech in which two ideas of opposite meaning are combined to form an expressive phrase or epithet, such as "cruel kindness".
Anarchy is not lawlessness!
Anarchy is not lawlessness! It is voluntary association, mutual cooperation and respect of others.
-----
Get Prepared!
Only dead fish go with the flow...
-----
End The Fat
70 pounds lost and counting! Get in shape for the revolution!
Get Prepared!
I gave you the definition of the word from the dictionary.
Which again shows you people don't know what you are talking about. Look it up, it says "lawlessness".
Yeah your right I guess if
Yeah your right I guess if it says it in some arbitrary dictionary then it must be true... Sigh!
Can you people tie your shoes without appealing to some false authority for permission? Try studying the origins of the word and what society it was derived to describe.
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Get Prepared!
Only dead fish go with the flow...
-----
End The Fat
70 pounds lost and counting! Get in shape for the revolution!
Get Prepared!
"It is voluntary association, mutual cooperation
and respect of others."
That will never happen.
You will never get 100% of 300 million people to respect others. There will always be the opportunists, the stupid, the insane, and those who are just plain evil.
So what? Whats you point? No
So what? Whats you point?
No one ever said we would what's that got to do with anything? We would probably get about the same percentage we have now but we would have no government stifling freedom.
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Get Prepared!
Only dead fish go with the flow...
-----
End The Fat
70 pounds lost and counting! Get in shape for the revolution!
Get Prepared!