In response to a query

[luns101]

Not Mustard.

Captaincrazy.

No, that's Sultan.

Sultan and Mustard are socialists. Don't think it's them.

I don't know who it is actually, but it just reminded me of when Mustard came in here pretending to be Mr. Wainthrope. That guy is hilarious.

[thegreekdog]

Not Mustard.

Captaincrazy.

No, that's Sultan.

Sultan and Mustard are socialists. Don't think it's them.

I don't know who it is actually, but it just reminded me of when Mustard came in here pretending to be Mr. Wainthrope. That guy is hilarious.

Mustard was hilarious. SultanofSurreal is also hilarious in a different way.

[Neoteny]

I like our forum goers (and some ex-forum goers). We have a lot of personality, at least.

[Army of GOD]

Wait, is Sultan still with us? I enjoyed his taste in hilarity.

[AnarchoJesse]

I reject all government; government in the most basic sense is predicated on the elitist mentality that people aren't fit to rule themselves, so we must (paradoxically) place people into positions of special and unquestionable power to take care of people.

Government in the most basic sense is people banning together to improve their lives.

I would only agree with you if these "people" are on the upper echelons of a hierarchy, because no working class person would ever knowingly put themselves into a position of inferiority and lesser bargaining power.

I would further elaborate that it is because they are attempting to keep from being enslaved, or to ultimately just make their lives a whole lot better.

Yet enslavement has been a large part of government and State since only recently, and even now the line between slavery and liberty is blurred. To use the institution of the State as a vindication for the abolition of slavery completely ignores the broad history in which slavery was both accepted and even subsidized by the State.

Civilization has lead to the discovery and creation of everything.

First, I'm not opposed to civilization, I'm opposed to hierarchy and coercion. Secondly, there is no ambiguous collective called "Civilization"; all discoveries and creations are the result of individual effort working independently or in aggregate with other individuals.

Now that said, civilization is not compasses and GPS, it is not steam locomotives and airplanes, it is not abacuses and personal computers, it isn't arrows or atom bombs-- civilization is not killing each other, and when we look at the track record for murders by one institution, the answer is always the State.

Without it you would be in a hollow log somewhere yodeling to attract a mate before you died of some random disease at the age of 13.

Colorful, but really meaningless.

And forget the interwebs that you are enjoying now.

Actually, the internet was originally called the ARPANET (which is nothing like what we have today), and was a way of creating a decentralized means of communication in the event of a nuclear catastrophe for, but the current amalgamation of websites, hosting, and protocols have been the result of private individuals producing them-- not government.

That said, while I can only conjecture on the alternatives had their been a free market to allow such things arise, we have absolutely no reason to believe such a thing could not had not come about.

I believe that what you are actually describing is China?

I'm not sure I follow here.

[AnarchoJesse]

There is no reason to believe that particular institutions that provide services that the government monopolizes could not possibly arise in a free society.

Nor is there any reason to believe that a free society could ever exist. Except in films like the Road Warrior...

You're obfuscating my argument, but whatever. If you're going to compare works of fiction with reality, why don't we compare 1984?

[AnarchoJesse]

What services do you take, if you're not minding my asking? There is no reason to believe that particular institutions that provide services that the government monopolizes could not possibly arise in a free society.

Meh... I'll play.

(1) I have a job as a tax attorney because governments tax businesses and inviduals. Thus, taxes administered by the government allow me to have a job.

So you functionally exist as a leech. Moreover, your having a job in this particular place doesn't necessitate that you only have the skills to do this work. And if you didn't have skills to thrive in a free society, well, tough luck. Your love for your "job" doesn't mean you get to help strip people of their labor and wealth.

(2) I work in a large city with a lot of violent crime (apparently). The police officers of the great city of Philadelphia ostensibly protect me from these criminal elements.

You're assuming that only police officers are capable of providing for your defense-- you yourself provide your own protection (I do) or you could plausibly hire an agency of sorts that does protective services.

(3) I live in a suburb of said large city. To get to that suburb I have to cross a bridge. The bridge was built using taxes.

The implicit assumption here is that only governments can build bridges, which is fallacious. Anyone could conceivably build a bridge if that had access to the resources.

(4) I don't have people trying to take my property because of police officers (see #2). I also don't have people from other nation-states trying to take my property because of the United States military.

But they take your money to fund these things, by force no less. You talk of people taking your property, and yet you defend an institution that does just that.

And, let me put it to you like this, of all the people on this website, I'm the least (LEAST) likely to love the government. I'm a registered Libertarian, pretty much the closest one gets to anarchy. So, good luck with the rest of the mob my friend.

Hm.

[AnarchoJesse]

assuming he is an anarcho-capitalist, which there was one really good example once -he was pretty awesome, i dont think he would be sold yet, as he is supposing any one of the 4 can still occur without the state appartus as he would likely put it.

I don't follow.

[Nobunaga]

... I think it's Nobunaga.

... No, wait...

[muy_thaiguy]

But, anarchojesse, (and, yes, I am very familiar with your argument) aren't people stupid?

Any pessimistic assessment of humanity must equally apply to people under the State as well. So I suppose the person who should be asking whether or not people are stupid are the same people who advocate putting stupid people into positions of extreme power. If people are stupid, why on earth would you give them access to an institution that is routinely engaged in violence and plunder? Wouldn't this only exacerbate what problems we already have?

Yes, positions are often abused, and go to stupid people, they also go to people who do their job and are quite brilliant. Fact of the matter is, people, especially in large groups, are quite stupid, or at least have a very strong tendency to become so, over small things. aka, riots.

Aren't shepherds necessary?

"Shepherd" betrays a certain sheep-like mentality on YOUR part. That said, you're again having falling back on the problem of how these shepherds are any better than the sheep.

Wrong choice of word. A better word, would be "leaders," "organizers," "representatives." And these people have a tendency to come up out of the rank and file (if you will) to step up where leadership is required. It has always happened, and always will.

Is government INHERENTLY elitist? Or can leadership occur without despotism/greed?

Yes, government is inherently elitist. It presumes that a special group of people once placed into a special position of power will at once be enabled to do things ordinary individuals could not. This is, by definition no less, an elitist mentality. Frederic Bastiat put it the most succinctly:

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"

Now, asking if "leadership" can occur without despotism and greed means we need to actually evaluate "leadership", and see if there are any conclusive merits to the concept behind it. By the seat of my pants and without any context added on to fine tune, I would say that leadership (at least, unquestioned and arbitrary leadership) is not an intrinsically good thing, and can often (and I've seen little evidence to the contrary) create incentives for people to abuse their positions of authority.

It is in my strongest of opinions that that the purpose of a government isn't to tell its citizens that they are too weak to organize themselves, but rather to act as a centralized agency of change and collective voice.

Which is why Democracy has become the prevailent form of government throughout the world. So that the people can decide. Democracy is certainly not the best thing there is, but, as the quote goes, it is far better then anything else out there.

And yet here you are telling me that people could never organize without some master lording over them. Moreover, the inherent problems with centralized agencies (change is totally irrelevant here) and collectivization is that it assumes the legitimacy of these institutions and ideas without explaining why this is more efficient or even desirable.

A "master" has not, nor has never been required. As I said above, leaders and organizers have a tendency to pop up. Kind of like playing grade school tag, ecept imagine it with thousands of of participants. It may start out easy enough, (provided, it can be agreed on who is to be it), but before very long, no one knows who is it.

Real change will never occur in an anarchy. Your ideals are wonderful, but, alas, far from realistic.

Yet putting stupid people into extreme positions of authority and power without any real oversight is a realistic and desirable scenario, right? You talk of change and how such a thing is impossible in anarchy, but you completely remove "change" from the standard you hold the State too-- but of course, why wouldn't you? The only change that comes from the State is a changing of slave masters and a changing of the artillery we use to bomb the f*ck out of a constantly changing "enemy".

And yet having no authority at all will only cause things to stall up, or become a trainwreck. And the systems of government (granted, not all), are as not as black and white as you are claiming with the state either being non-existant for freedom of any sort, or if it does exist, we all live in chains and irons. There are far too many gray areas in there that anarchists tend to over look, or generalize in either A or B.

[got tonkaed]

assuming he is an anarcho-capitalist, which there was one really good example once -he was pretty awesome, i dont think he would be sold yet, as he is supposing any one of the 4 can still occur without the state appartus as he would likely put it.

I don't follow.

I was merely pointing out given what you had said so far, greeks responses were unlikely to be satisifying as a rebuttal to the points you had made before hand, which you pretty much showed with your post before this one.

[Skittles!]

You all would of loved Xenhu and vtmarik.

[thegreekdog]

I suspected your responses to my other, um, responses...

However, the whole "tax attorney job" thang... interesting take on it. I assist large, wealthy corporations amass even more wealth (which they use to subjugate the middle class) by helping the corporation take money away from the government. I would presume that my clients think the government is the leech in this scenario, and that I'm the guy taking the leeches away, but... well... meh.

[Snorri1234]

I fucking love anarchists.

[Juan_Bottom]

I fucking love anarchists.

I'm convinced he's/she's a troll.

Government in the most basic sense is people banning together to improve their lives.

I would only agree with you if these "people" are on the upper echelons of a hierarchy, because no working class person would ever knowingly put themselves into a position of inferiority and lesser bargaining power.

That doesn't even make sense.
Not only do people put themselves into it, they hold themselves into it. I just watched a guy retire yesterday. He had 20 years in as a Cheese Puller at the local cheese company. All he did for 20 years is pull carts of cheese down a single 20 yard corridor. In America.
I mean wow, that argument is wrong on infinity levels. You can't believe that.

You are aware that you would have less bargaining power without a strong central government right?

I would further elaborate that it is because they are attempting to keep from being enslaved, or to ultimately just make their lives a whole lot better.

Yet enslavement has been a large part of government and State since only recently, and even now the line between slavery and liberty is blurred. To use the institution of the State as a vindication for the abolition of slavery completely ignores the broad history in which slavery was both accepted and even subsidized by the State.

I don't know what you are talking about.
My argument is more along the lines of.... like the War of 1812. The British Navy was abducting American sailors off our ships and forcing them to work. The American government ended that. But not that exact argument.
There have been buttloads of countries, races, and people's who have banded together to repeal enslavers(one form or another). In fact... that's pretty much how all countries came into being. Except the Dutch. I will never forget that I learned on these forums that the Dutch are a nation of layabouts and lovers who let others fight their battles.

First, I'm not opposed to civilization, I'm opposed to hierarchy and coercion.

Either you're a troll, or someone who got picked on a lot.

all discoveries and creations are the result of individual effort working independently or in aggregate with other individuals.

Those discoveries would have been a lot harder to make in a cave in the mountains.
See (assuming you were raised and educated in the West) all discoveries and inventions are made with the help of those around you, whether we understand the big picture or not.

civilization is not killing each other, and when we look at the track record for murders by one institution, the answer is always the State.

Yes it is. The state is made up of people.
If we look at the track record for murders prevented by one institution... the answer is always the State.

Colorful, but really meaningless.

I disagree. The point is that by working together and inevitably forming government, we no longer live in mud huts or die from plauges that are believed to be caused by angry lightning monsters.

Actually, the internet was originally called the ARPANET (which is nothing like what we have today), and was a way of creating a decentralized means of communication in the event of a nuclear catastrophe for, but the current amalgamation of websites, hosting, and protocols have been the result of private individuals producing them-- not government.

There is no way that that joke escaped you. You have to be a troll . But thanks for the random history lesson.

That said, while I can only conjecture on the alternatives had their been a free market to allow such things arise, we have absolutely no reason to believe such a thing could not had not come about.

Yes we do. Because I would have become a barbarian. I would have kidnapped you as a child and sold you to the hill people.
huh, I am actually warming up to your ideas... being a barbarian would kick ass.

I reject all government; government in the most basic sense is predicated on the elitist mentality that people aren't fit to rule themselves, so we must (paradoxically) place people into positions of special and unquestionable power to take care of people.

I believe that what you are actually describing is China?

This should help.^

Isn't the flip side of this that you believe (your light side of the force to their dark) people will just get along without government? That even without it the services of both private enterprise and public works will continue somewhat unscathed. It's kind of a "pot calling the kettle black" situation.

Mustard was hilarious. SultanofSurreal is also hilarious in a different way.

This guy is witty enough to be either. His ideals don't make sense from a logical perspective though. That is more BES's way... but I'm not saying they are the same. Though DM has used the word "obfuscating" before.

You're obfuscating my argument, but whatever. If you're going to compare works of fiction with reality, why don't we compare 1984?

I'm not. It was a loosely realistic joke.
However, that is kinda how I envision your system ending.


Serious question. Is that you in the pic and are you wearing Dungarees?

[BigBallinStalin]

AnarchoJesse wrote

You're assuming that only police officers are capable of providing for your defense-- you yourself provide your own protection (I do) or you could plausibly hire an agency of sorts that does protective services.

The Mafia?

AnarchoJesse wrote

The implicit assumption here is that only governments can build bridges, which is fallacious. Anyone could conceivably build a bridge if that had access to the resources.

"Anarchists Building a Bridge." A new short film by BigBallinStalin.

That said, while I can only conjecture on the alternatives had their been a free market to allow such things arise, we have absolutely no reason to believe such a thing could not had not come about.

Juan_Bottom

Yes we do. Because I would have become a barbarian. I would have kidnapped you as a child and sold you to the hill people.
huh, I am actually warming up to your ideas... being a barbarian would kick ass.

My BigBallinBarbarian Horde will be accepting members very soon.



AnarchoJesse: your rhetoric is outstandingly great and very entertaining to read, but you have yet to provide us with your form of anti-government and how it would be successful...