Help from Libertarians/Anarchists
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Friday, January 18, 2008 14:04
VIEWED: 12974
PAGE 6 of 18
Quote:Thank you for noticing, HK, and saying something.
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
I think you're comin' down a little ton-of-bricksish on CTS who may simply have a RL > RWED situation going on.
Rue's just that way with me. The man can be civil to most folks--just not to me.
Anyway, recently, I swore off talking to Rue after some rather nasty attacks pissed me off. So that is why I ignore his posts.
(Except for the "eagles = penguins" post. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.)
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War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
--Bertrand Russell
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Quote:Yup. It's a hard life, living "free" from government protection.
Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
He's LUCKY to be scraping by from crime to crime, dealing with folks who diss him and cheat him. Somebody more honest, less brutal, and slightly less lucky would run out of oxygen to breathe and protein to eat, and would wind up either dead or stranded somewhere, unable to afford fuel to boost the ship.
Yet, that is what some of us want. Funny, I'd rather die "free" than live "protected." Something wrong with my noggin, I suppose. America used to be attractive to people with this affliction. And life here was just as hard, compared to "protected" Europe.
Don't worry. I have no wish to impose this hard life on others. If I ever die "free," it will be on my own land.
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A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
--Sir Winston Churchill
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Quote:Tell that to the guys in Africa, trying to survive between feuding warlords and crime bosses. How is a society in which you have to navigate a lawless terrain any more free then a society where a government enforces a rule of law? Wouldn’t you say that we are much freer with a government then they are in Sierra Leone or Somalia?
Originally posted by canttakesky:Quote:Yeah, but you missed the point. They won't have a monopoly on force, like govt has a monopoly. As I said, mobsters, corporations, and lunatics represent force in small denominations vs. the big denominations of govt.
Any mobster, corporation or lunatic that can get a few hired killers together could rule the roost.
Quote:A bunch of small “governments” running around competing for supremacy just means you have that many more “oppressors” to deal with, then just one large government.
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Look, govt has always been supported by the argument that you need them to protect yourself from punks, mobsters, corporations, lunatics, etc. IF you can trust the govt to do the protecting that is. What gives govt the magical ability to be exempt from punks, mobsters, corporations, and lunatics? I say, you have to fight punks, mobsters, corporations, and lunatics whether they are in govt or not. I'd rather have them separate than all united under magical umbrella of "authority."
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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HKC
For the interim it's probably best if I don't interact with CTS. And, for various medical reasons my temper has been shorter than usual lately.
I have no issue with anarchy per se. I'd like to see a form of it, personally.
What I don't think makes sense is to think that we can have anarchy and have the REST of society be EXACTLY the same as it is today. To have all the infrastructure, complex technologies etc. It takes a lot to - make a chip - for example. Ores from around the world, high-investment facilities like chip-manufacturing plants, complex measurements to make the lasers that make the chips. That investment (and I mean in terms of accumulated knowledge, consensus and work as well as money) is SO high it simply can't be made in a society that negates large concentrations of power.
And unlike CTS I see corporate power to be just as corrupting, evil and dangerous as government power. The idea that somehow corporations will be nice and not pollute, pay everyone fairly, and not have their own goon squads run the place - without some muscular social bounds placed on them - just isn't borne out by any slice of history.
So IF we ARE to have a technological society, we will need some form of organization, and the brakes in place to make sure - as a group - that it doesn't run out of control and try and bite us. Whether it is private, or public, or both.
My equations were a shorthand answer to CTS's equations, which were themselves fatally flawed. So here is the extended version of my response:
"Government = force in large denominations
Lib / Anar = force in small denominations
You also get this corollary:
Government = violence in large denominations
Lib / Anar = violence in small denominations"
First of all CTS doesn't seem to know that private entities - like multinational corporations - are quite capable of meting out LARGE scale - multinational - force and violence on their own. The second objection is that government MAY have the function of representing people at large, while private entities NEVER do. They represent their profits, nothing else. The third is that governments that are representing people may actually be performing large scale tasks people want done but can't do individually, and not actually have a violence/ force function.
These are awfully big things to innocently leave out.
Anyway, I'd like to chat some more but it's way past time when I need to be going. Perhaps when I get back this will still be a topic.
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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I side with Peter Kropotkin (See Also: Mutual Aid) in acknowledging one thing folks seem to be missing.
Human nature, is NOT that vile - our society, the social structures forced on us by the collective of Govt, the education-indoctrination system and mass media have made it so, and it has gotten progressively worse over time.
The fiction that human nature is oh so horrible and that's just the way it is and therefore any effort to change it is wasted... and in the face of some pretty solid evidence to the contrary, is just an excuse to maintain the status quo and not expend the effort.
Human beings are cooperative by nature, not sociopathic and exploitive, we're TAUGHT that, by a society that demands it in order for the one to progress and succeed at the expense of the many.
Many BS excuses have been used for that, from divine right of kings, to Ayn Rands ludicrous captains of industry, but in the end when you have a system that rewards a certain behavior, that behavior is what you'll get.
Most people want enough to live on in comfort, to do something that can take pride in, to collect the resources to keep their household in order, and to relax and spend time with their family, raise their childen - at the base, that is what they WANT, and Governments put obstacles in there as a form of training folk to jump through the hoops, conditioning that obedience over time to the point where it's automatic to even the most ludicrous, ridiculous demands.
A few, a VERY few, people want to take what others have, but without a structure and organisation, without the aiding and abetting of well trained doormats to lay down and take it without resistance, they are not so much of a threat, unless resources are scarce - which will provoke more of that conduct.
And I can blow up the fiction that such communities would implode with two mere words.
The Amish.
What's the difference ?
The Government and it's shills do not attack them, encourage and quietly support harrassment and vigilante action or outright storm the place as has happened to any, every, Anarchic community in history, cause the Amish aren't really any threat to them.
Having read through this discussion after having been out of town all day, it becomes clear to me that this is working as well as describing the color green to a person born with no eyes, the mental disconnect is just too great for mere discussion to bridge the gap - there would have to be something more to build that bridge, and overcome the terror of crossing it.
In fact, it seems almost like some form of Stockholm Syndrome, you ask me, in combination with a fear of the unknown I have trouble comprehending due to my own diminished emphatic capacity.. I don't understand em, somehow I can't understand em, at that level, it.. just... doesn't... click, anywhere.
And I think that's a problem in both directions maybe.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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The Amish have a very strict theocratic leadership, and you wouldn’t last a minute in an Amish community. For one thing, your whole conception of self defense would go out the window.
The US couldn’t exist if we were all Amish. No one’s doubted that independent agrarian communities exist. What is being questioned is that such a society could function in the modern world or on any kind large scale. If you try, what you will get, is dueling warlords or totalitarianism.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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I'm sorry CTS but I'm detecting a certain amount of bullshit here so I'm calling you on it. We have places without governments, they are called failed states, they are places where armed rape gangs take what they want. Yes I suppose in theory you and a stout group of patriots could fight them off but in the real world you'd get your wish of dying free if you tried that.
I understand the attraction -- who wouldn't want to live like Mal? But if you look at the background of the 'Verse you'll see that not only does he have things very easy compared to some others but he's also relatively unique. For every Mal there are countless hundreds of Mudders working for almost nothing. For every Inara there are girls like the one Badger was "inspecting" in the pilot, who are bought and sold. In the absence of someone to keep the lowlifes of the world in check they will fuck with you just because to be honest you or you and a few friends wont be enough to stop them.
So there it is, the fantasy, the TV show is you as steely eyed gun toting individual. Reality is you as the victim of the first individual or group better armed or just more ruthless than you are.
Enjoy.
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Well, I'm back briefly ... seems no one else is around. So I'll just talk to myself a bit ...
I don't believe most people are inherently 'evil' (though some are). But I do think in large societies - >1,000 - human technology has gotten ahead of human evolution, leading to unnatural situations - ending up like fruit piled in one place and chimps going crazy over it. With excess resources available, the people who really are evil will ultimately gain control of a little in excess, which they will leverage to gain even more, and more control ... and so on.
The problem with corporations as an organizing principle for society is that they are created around gain and run without social feedback. They are in effect sociopaths. (And also, I might add, run on an unnatural model of human behavior that requires a total lack of trust and empathy.)
Government OTOH CAN be an expression of the will of the people - representing their interests as a group and the commons that all people depend on. So if you have corporations you have to have government to countervail - but you also have to make sure that it is representing your interests and hasn't been hijacked by business.
BTW - one way for government to function without the 'big stick' of violence is just for it to withold its cooperation. To not recognize, enable or support a function or organization. You don't want that factory over there 'cause it'll pollute your water table ? ? You don't pipe it water - or build a sewer, or road, or a run the grid up to it. You don't protect its 'property' from theft, fire, vandalism. Nor do you recognize its right to an exclusive tenancy on the land. There are all sorts of ways to do that without a single instance of government 'force'.
I would like to see a form of anarchy. But it would be a world unlike the one we live in. Unless someone can tell me how massive investments can happen without coercive corporations - or coercive / organizational governments, that is. That's still the outstanding question for me, and the reason why I still say that a technological anarchy is invariably parasitical. It just can't produce the technology of a society with concentrated investment power.
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"Global warming - it's not just a fact, it's a choice."
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Quote:There, you have feuding warlords, crime bosses, AND government all competing for power. Just because the state is incompetent (failed to consolidate their monopoly) doesn't mean the state doesn't exist.
Tell that to the guys in Africa, trying to survive between feuding warlords and crime bosses.
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The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
--Bertrand Russell
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Quote:Haha. By all means.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
I'm sorry CTS but I'm detecting a certain amount of bullshit here so I'm calling you on it.
Quote:ONLY because the citizenry isn't armed. The existing government (failed or not) has prohibited gun ownership for eons. The people are sitting ducks, just as surely as the Jews of Nazi Germany. It is an entirely different story when people are armed.
We have places without governments, they are called failed states, they are places where armed rape gangs take what they want.
Quote:How do you know that? How is a band of armed citizens different from a band of armed robbers? How can you be SOOOOO sure that the citizens would lose?
Yes I suppose in theory you and a stout group of patriots could fight them off but in the real world you'd get your wish of dying free if you tried that.
Quote:Because they are not armed.
For every Mal there are countless hundreds of Mudders working for almost nothing.
Quote:Reality is that when you are armed and not a sitting duck, easy victim, the gangs move on to easier targets. To be sure, one has to have a certain amount of "ruthlessness" as you call it, a lack of hesitation to kill in self-defense to take on one's own security responsibilities. But it is not any more "ruthless" than whoever were to take on those security responsibilities for you (e.g. police or military).
Reality is you as the victim of the first individual or group better armed or just more ruthless than you are.
BTW, just because people want freedom doesn't mean they are individually isolated and can't "gang up" to defend their communities from marauders.
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I have only one superstition. I touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
--Babe Ruth (1895 - 1948)
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