Damn you guerilla, damn you
- Thread starter SUP3RNOVA
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Anarchy describes a society that exists and functions without rulers.
It's not about people needing to be managed, it's about people who want certain things to be managed for them. This is why most people desire a government to live under.
Um, no. Somalia. Without rulers means without rulers.
You can't really have any society without aggression, people don't work that way. I'll assume you're referring to innocent people, in which case you can have a government without that. Yours is an example of one. You are free to leave it.
Typically through some act of force, but again that's because of how people operate. It would be great if everyone could agree to what land is theirs and only theirs, but that's an insanely complex topic that I'll admit I'm not ready to debate about.
You're living the proof right now. You pay taxes to your government because despite hating it's evil philosophy, you enjoy the life you have under it. You are entirely free to give all that up and live without aggressors stealing from you, but the consequence of giving up government is isolation. Society prefers government and government does function and create prosperous societies.
By this rationale, extortion is not theft. Is that what you're saying.
Why do I have to leave?
Read the anti-federalist papers. And the Constitution is not a contract, nor does it do anything to restrain or control government. Read Lysander Spooner.
Less mythology Paul. You're supposedly an atheist, I expect better than this stuff from you. Don't appeal to the wisdom of the ancients.
The state is a body politic.
Because according to the courts there is no body politic.
He didn't say you have to, he said you can. You have the choice. You already know the masses do not want anarchy, you can either stay and live under an immoral system or leave and pursue a more moral existence elsewhere. It's a choice we all have to make.
Actually, anarchy is the idea of no rulers. When it exists, you have a society. Social (reciprocal) relationships. Life under a state is not reciprocal.
Do you feel we need rulers?
What if people don't want things to be managed?
I fully support you paying for government. I fully support you deciding to have your own government. But why do you feel it is ok to impose your government on me? By contrast, can't I impose anarchy on you if it is ok to impose things on others?
Somalia has rulers and aggression.
Sure we can. We have societies with rights for women and minorities. Why can't we have a society where the prevailing morality is that aggression is wrong?
We all know it is wrong to hurt, to steal, to murder. But we make exceptions when government does it. What you and I cannot do (tax, murder, kidnap) is ok for the government to do, only because we choose to believe so.
You have been repeating this lie for some time. There are governments everywhere. Even if I could leave, there is nowhere to go.
Also, implicit in this statement, is that you feel governments have more legitimacy than individuals. That's a delusion (or if I am being kind, an abstraction), since government is just a label we give to a bunch of individuals.
If you believe this, then you can't believe individuals can have any rights vis a vis government. Government can never do wrong because it is always supreme vs individuals.
This sort of nonsense is what happens when people try to defend statism. It's not the first time I have seen these arguments. They are never any good. There is no good argument for a collective delusion.
So you're saying government is only legitimate because it acquires power through aggression?
Since you're arguing for government, does that mean you believe that aggression is ok?
If so, what is the difference between you and a psychopath?
You have tried many times to personalize the argument, because I suspect, you can't defend the idea.
You have no idea if I pay taxes, or how or why I enjoy my life.
I suggest you stick to arguing things you can prove. My argument would stand if I lived anywhere, in any condition. It would stand if I was dead.
You can either defend your position with facts, or you can't.
Why is that a consequence? Again, are you saying that the government is supreme over individuals?
More assertion without proof. I think what you mean is, "God created everything, and that's why we're prosperous, amirite?"
Sure, the same choice you have when you're being mugged. Pay or be killed.
It's not much of a choice, is it?
But that's irrelevant. People didn't want to give women the vote, people didn't want to free the slaves. The slavery abolitionists in the states put up with much more ostracism than I do, but because they agitated, they saved a lot of lives and improved things for millions of people.
Look, you have a choice. You can choose to fight differently or not at all. I won't judge you. But you always have the choice to fight. It comes down to what you value more. If I was a family man like you, my choices might be very different, but God has blessed me with a disobedient attitude, and so I will use that asset and the conditions it creates to agitate for a better world for your kids.
The only way to fix this "problem" is to change the prevailing morality. The only way to do that is to educate and relentlessly point out evil.
Resistance is victory.
You anarchists are still unable to provide any evidence it works to provide essential services, for example roads, private security or defense, to an entire country. It's nothing but theory.
All I ask is for a some large-scale evidence to turn your utopian fantasy theories into fact. Have you done any maths on it? would you be paying more for essential services to all these private firms compared to paying taxes? Would you be happier paying 60% of your income to private corporations to have the same level of services you get paying 20% of your income to the state?
"but it's not about that, it's about the state STEALING MY MONEY!"
yeah yeah we get it, stop using it as a cop-out to avoid answering the hard practical questions. It's almost like a religion with you people, and you have cop-out answers just like religions do too.
"How do you explain 60 million year old dinosaur bones"
*It's the Lord testing our faith!*
When slavery was ended, no one knew how cotton would be picked, and yet amazingly, it was. In fact, it is now picked by machines no one could have predicted at the time of slavery.
You guys are setting the standard for anarchism at "can predict the future, promise end to all problems" but that's not what anarchism is about. Not to mention, the standard you guys set is prescience, which is an attribute normally associated with God. It's nonsense. You may as well demand that anarchism make everyone 20 feet tall, or put wings on babies.
Anarchism is very simple.
If you think it is always wrong for one person to use aggression (initiate force) against another, then you're an anarchist.
If you don't, then the burden of proof is on you to prove the exceptions.
Something for you to remember John. The state doesn't do anything we can't do without the state EXCEPT violate morality. That's the only exception we give the state we don't allow ourselves.
We can feed each other, build schools, roads etc without a government. Indeed, almost all of our food and clothing is delivered with very little government intervention, specifically our clothing. There is no bureau of proper underwear or ministry of running shoes. All new roads in North America were private until the mid 19th century.
Even if the state could perform some miracle we couldn't privately, do the ends justify the means? Are state built roads, or student loans, or collectivized healthcare worth hurting people for?
But anyway, you guys to a man, have avoided the moral question. And I think that's because you guys know you can't square the circle of statism.
We're arguing right and wrong, and you guys want to argue who will build the roads. Who is being superficial?
Money doesn't actually exist. It's created by the Government who print more on demand such as when it's needed to "pay" for
Look at the national debt. It's growing every day. It's all an illusion and democracy / government could be said to be simply one way to enforce and maintain said illusion. (If one were so inclined to take such a stance).
The whole issue is surely not as clear cut as Government or anarchy.
With the abolishment of Government, how would "money" work?
Since I'm in support of government, my answer to that should be obvious.
Does every individual need a ruler watching over what they do? No. But as a collective society of hundreds of millions of people, rulers are necessary to keep order.
I'm not imposing anything on you, you can leave my government if you don't want to be a part of it. You have to deal with the fact that governments exist, they are functional, and the collective human race wants them. It sucks for anarchists because your only options to pursue that are to live off in the mountains secluded, but you deal with reality either way.
What do you think laws are made for? Why is murdering illegal? Why is stealing someone's car illegal?
Murder and kidnap of course is wrong for anybody to do. Saying taxes are theft is entirely subjective. Taxes are theft to an anarchist who doesn't think governments help societies. To everybody else, they are taxes on living in a government-run society. People are fine with this. The government isn't stealing from me, I am choosing to pay taxes for all of the services the government provides.
There are millions and millions of acres of land where you can escape government. Northern Canada. Most of Africa. There has to be a ton of isolated places in India/Asian islands.
(Democratic) governments are (meant to be) elected by individuals. Individuals vote to grant elected officials the power to write the laws and regulations they live by, this is what government is. Government has power over individuals because we give them the power by participating in elections and abiding by the laws.
No, I'm saying I'm not well read enough into property rights to make any substantial argument about them. It seems like a tricky subject.
Because people want government.
By the agreement of the individuals themselves, yes. Hundreds of millions of people vote because they want to choose who will decide the way their country is run.
What fucking proof can I provide aside from telling you that there are governments that exist today that function well and create prosperous societies. The US has been tanking downhill but is a good example overall. Australia seems like a cool place that's not raped with debt and has happy citizens. Canada is doing okay.
Can you prove that these societies would function better without government? Or are you just asserting that?
Are roads, schools, and security essentials?
They sound more like things you'd like to have.
I'm fairly certain that if other people want these things, they'll pay for them, and if they don't than they won't pay for them, and everything will be fine either way.
They sound more like things you'd like to have.
I'm fairly certain that if other people want these things, they'll pay for them, and if they don't than they won't pay for them, and everything will be fine either way.
To clarify, money has always been a medium of exchange. It always will be when exchange is necessary or desired (outside barter), whether folks use rocks, fish, cigarettes, or pieces of gold. The green-colored tickets printed by the state are basically IOUs. They're worth about as much as the JakeBucks that come out of my Hewlett-Packard. Less actually.
Incidentally, the fact that the state prints a bunch of tickets wouldn't be so bad were it not for legal tender laws. Without such laws, people would likely veer toward a harder currency. There's more certainty in its value since arbitrary inflation is less likely.
Probably go back to a metal standard or ten, with more barter.
Money comes from the market, the government co-opts it and makes it fiat, and then inflates until it is destroyed (historically).
The joke of it is, people are already paying for it. The government has no money, it only has what it takes from the private sector. When the government takes money from businesses, that money comes from customers in the form of higher prices.
We're already paying, but along with that, we're paying for government waste, warfare and welfare. We're paying subsidies to big businesses, and supporting corporate losers.
People don't realize how incredibly wealthy we would all be if we stopped throwing away money on the state, suffering its corruptions, inefficiencies and monopolies.
You know I agree with all of this.
There is no service that is provided by the government that cannot be provided in a more cost-effective and efficient way by the free market.
Is this the part of the night that devolves into a Murray Rothbard memorial circle-jerk?
I'm totally OK with it if it is.
I'm totally OK with it if it is.
I am certainly for limiting the power of the government and what we actually spend tax dollars on. Government can be efficient, and that's the libertarian argument.
Some things are better controlled by 1 entity, and it's kind of hard to do that without a monopoly on it. It's a better way of dealing with hundreds of millions of people interacting with each other closely.