Anarchy is Dumb

[scottspfd82]

There is no knife to your throats. It's not hard to move to the mountains. You can support yourself by barter. You can support yourself in the gray market in most major cities to avoid taxes. You guys hide your own cowardice behind this false rape analogy, but really you guys are just too scared to put your money where your mouths are.

What were you in prison for?

And there is a knife to our throats. Waking people up is the first step to changing anything.

And I highly doubt anyone who "puts their money where their mouth is" is going to admit that openly on a public forum.

My mission in life is not to dissolve the state. It's to live well despite it. I'm not a martyr. But I'll try to open people's eyes anytime the conversation comes up.

 

[WickedJoe]

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

What were you in prison for?

Being an "Unarmed Gunman", according to the State. So when I speak about the inevitability of the State, rest assured it has nothing to do with my confidence in it, or respect for it.

Waking people up is the first step to changing anything.

No it's not. The first step is to starve the beast, but you guys keep feeding it with your tax dollars.

 

[guerilla]

WickedJoe, the secret of government, which Etienne de la Boetie wrote about in his classic essay, The Politics of Obedience, is that it is based on consent.

If people tolerate government, it persists. When they tire of it, like they did with the USSR or East Germany, it falls, usually with little violence.

Government uses force against the individual to create the perception of consent, and then the mass of people tend to go with whatever the dominant idea is.

How did we go from Kings to Democracy?

A change in the mass social consciousness.

How did we go from Blacks being sub-human slaves, to them being regarded as equal in their humanity?

A change in the mass social consciousness.

So the violent mega company thing wouldn't work for the same reason that overtly tyrannical governments don't last very long. People simply won't tolerate it. If you're oppressing people, you can't expect them to respect the boundaries of your firm.

 

[dreamache]

Actually Hitler/Nazi Germany came from quite the opposite of anarchy/voluntaryism concepts. It came from a century+ of conditioning its children to become and remain obedient to the state.

 

[absolute]

So the violent mega company thing wouldn't work for the same reason that overtly tyrannical governments don't last very long. People simply won't tolerate it. If you're oppressing people, you can't expect them to respect the boundaries of your firm.

 

[WickedJoe]

So the violent mega company thing wouldn't work for the same reason that overtly tyrannical governments don't last very long. People simply won't tolerate it. If you're oppressing people, you can't expect them to respect the boundaries of your firm.

If you fight the violent businesses to keep your anarchy then you're talking about gaining your anarchy through violent means. When above you were talking about how the American gov was formed through violent means as if that was a bad thing.

Anyway I've been mostly trying to stay out of the Anarchy conversations cause I admit I'm not well read on the subject like some of you guys especially Guerrilla.. and I can see how arguing with someone not well read on it could be irritating. The above pic was just a little jab.

 

[WickedJoe]

Actually Hitler/Nazi Germany came from quite the opposite of anarchy/voluntaryism concepts.

I'm well aware of that.. but you should be aware that there are many paths to oppressive regimes.

 

[guerilla]

Actually Hitler/Nazi Germany came from quite the opposite of anarchy/voluntaryism concepts. It came from a century+ of conditioning its children to become and remain obedient to the state.

This is exactly (and indeed the entire discussion) what Orwell wrote about.

People believe that peace, freedom, respect for one another's boundaries, must inevitably lead us to fascism.

When fascism arose in totally different circumstances.

War is peace, slavery is freedom.

 

[guerilla]

If you fight the violent businesses to keep your anarchy then you're talking about gaining your anarchy through violent means.

No, it's self defense. Anarchism != Pacifism.

When above you were talking about how the American gov was formed through violent means as if that was a bad thing.

When one government takes over another, it's usually violent. It's a power struggle between two rival gangs. The stakes are high.

If the American revolution tried to preserve the Confederation, or devolved the US even further into small units, that would have been a plus. But it was always a statist power grab by the local gang. That's why the Constitution was written in secret. It's why they had to lie to get it ratified by the states.

People like to kneel at the feet of Jefferson and Washington but Patrick Henry had it right all along.

and I can see how arguing with someone not well read on it could be irritating. The above pic was just a little jab.

God bless you. And I knew that. But I am a greedy bastard, I can't resist the urge to make a point.

 

[Moxie]

It's more viable and efficient to form groups with a common goal, and then you need someone to lead the group. So it has been and so it will pretty much always be.

Anarchy gives people more freedom to form and join groups, not less.

Dave Thomas used to work for KFC. If fast food chains were like governments, his only other options would have been to go to places like McDonalds or Burger King.

Instead, he was able to form his own group that had a leadership structure, but the key element is that nobody was forced to work or eat there.

Anarchy means an absence of leaders right?

What is Jon? Terrible example.

There is violence, the threat of being banned is like the threat of being thrown in jail. That's as violent as it gets in a digital realm. It's the only way to keep troublemakers in check. Moderators delete things, alter things... it's not free at all. I accept that and know I'm free to leave if I want, just as you're free to leave your country if you desire.

Imagine if there were only 200 websites and six billion people were forced to be users and pay membership fees. Imagine indigenous groups, the Amish, a gay webmaster group with 1 million members, or whoever else politely asking to be allowed to have their own websites. Now imagine Jon and friends not only telling them "no", but also insisting that those groups continue to pay.

There is no knife to your throats. It's not hard to move to the mountains. You can support yourself by barter. You can support yourself in the gray market in most major cities to avoid taxes. You guys hide your own cowardice behind this false rape analogy, but really you guys are just too scared to put your money where your mouths are.

Girls on college campuses understand they are more likely to be raped there than at home. According to your logic here, any girl who speaks out about rape should just go isolate themselves from society. Technically that would lower rape rates, but in another way it would be giving the rapists more power than they already have.

 

[guerilla]

Technically that would lower rape rates, but in another way it would be giving the rapists more power than they already have.

The taxation argument is silly anyway.

Government prints money. It is how America was financed in the 19th century.

Taxes are simply a mechanism for social control, not paying them doesn't starve the government in the least. That's why we haven't had any tax protests in the post-FED (fiat money) era. They would accomplish nothing.

It's also why we don't have real bank runs anymore. Deposit insurance runs out of money? Ben tops it up.

Hiding from the problems in reality doesn't solve anything. If no one will stand up, identify and reject evil, nothing will ever improve.

 

[negro2k]

maybe some of this state military violence needs to be carried out against OP for creating gay thread

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

According to your logic here, any girl who speaks out about rape should just go isolate themselves from society.

Flawed analogy is flawed. I don't even know where to start. Let's see - rape affects a small minority of women on college campuses, whereas taxation affects almost everybody. Second, there is no material gain for those being raped, whereas with taxation you receive roads, bridges, schools, defense, water treatment plants, etc. Finally, if a woman decides to lock herself in her closet to avoid ever being raped, she has done nothing to empower rapists or to make their goal of raping more women easier. If you pay taxes your money is used to commit more violence on your fellow man through the drug war, and other bullshit inventions of the State.

Comparing yourself to a rape victim is fucking joke. You guys are just too scared to live a real life of Anarchy, so you play the role of victims. But what you're doing is far worse than any statist. A statist believes his taxes are for the greater good (even if he is wrong), whereas you know the taxes are used for evil and yet you willingly pay.

You're not rape victims, you're the ones giving them money to buy the knife when you know what it's going to be used for.

 

[mituozo]

What is anarchy? Can someone please explain? I've not heard about it on this forum before.

 

[REIMktg]

Back to the moral argument,

if you support government, you support using violence against me.
And if you support using violence against me, someone who has done nothing to harm you,
what does that say about who you are?

I've been absent from this and the last thread because unlike the rest of you I am not wealthy enough to spend the time and focus my thoughts/research enough to argue on the Anarchists terms. (not that anyone cares, but I wanted to avoid the accusation of not answering elsewhere)

We also need to understand that Guerilla is not arguing for Anarchy. He is arguing for an AnCap system as far as I know, something the Anarchists themselves mock.

I know some people ITT thread argue about Cities and the concentration of people, but I think Cities are already on their way out of existence. There is no reason for them any longer and within AnCap I would imagine they would be abandoned.

As for the quote above. Who does it make me? It makes me a person that realizes the frailty of man and that there must be a system in place that not only keeps a lid on behavior, but also allows the smallest minority, a single Person, a voice of redress. Govt in its current state is not ideal, but it does allow for a redress of grievances. Something in AnCap that would not exist - for every single person.

 

[scottspfd82]

You're not rape victims, you're the ones giving them money to buy the knife when you know what it's going to be used for.

Did you like prison?

Do you feel that you deserved to be there? Was the "Unarmed Gunman" charge for a violent offense? Were there victims?

One person avoiding taxes doesn't do shit. We've already got over 2 million people locked up. It'll probably around 20 million in 10 years.

Until their are more people willing to acknowledge the illegitimacy of the state than there are prison cells to contain them, tax avoidance just makes you a target for violence.

Who do you think has woken more people up in the last year to what the state actually stands for, people spreading ideas in forums like this one or your buddies sitting in prison?

They can't do shit from a prison cell. I in effect they've really just further legitimized the states power to exert control through force.

Hell, if they were in for tax evasion they're serving as a wake up call to anyone who knows them not to cook their books or avoid taxes.

You preach the "inevitability" of the State, which in the here and now I'd agree with. Yet you also seem to know exactly what they stand for.

Do you pay taxes?

Do you believe that your tax money finances violence?

Do you personally believe that Government serves the greater good?

Do you feel, personally, that your prison sentence was justified?

 

[guerilla]

I see UG still trying to promote the fallacy that taxes have anything to do with anything.

THEY PRINT THE MONEY.

They don't need the taxes as revenue. The purpose of taxes is to justify regulating what we can and cannot do. If you pay taxes, that's just proof that they coerce you violently, it doesn't mean a damn thing relative to how much money they "spend".

"The power to tax is the power to destroy". - Daniel Webster

 

[guerilla]

We also need to understand that Guerilla is not arguing for Anarchy. He is arguing for an AnCap system as far as I know, something the Anarchists themselves mock.

Technically, I am arguing for Voluntarism, not Ancap.

"The Anarchists" you cite are probably not anarchists at all. They certainly aren't an authority on anything. I spent a few weeks on RevLeft a couple years ago. Angry kids who think that smashing store windows is a form of liberty.

I know some people ITT thread argue about Cities and the concentration of people, but I think Cities are already on their way out of existence. There is no reason for them any longer and within AnCap I would imagine they would be abandoned.

We only populate 12.5% of the earth's landmass, and virtually none of her oceans.

As for the quote above. Who does it make me? It makes me a person that realizes the frailty of man and that there must be a system in place that not only keeps a lid on behavior, but also allows the smallest minority, a single Person, a voice of redress.

No one is arguing we don't need a system. We simply don't need a system of violence.

Govt in its current state is not ideal, but it does allow for a redress of grievances.

Name one grievance against the Federal Government which has been redressed by any one of the 350 million citizens of the US in the last 50 years.

Better yet, tell us about how the US looks after the Native American Indians. You know, the smallest minority...

Something in AnCap that would not exist - for every single person.

Why wouldn't it? What grievance could anyone have if no one was using aggression against them?

I hope you can take time away from making money to reply.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

You preach the "inevitability" of the State, which in the here and now I'd agree with. Yet you also seem to know exactly what they stand for.

That is correct.