Is becoming an 'Anarchist' a cop-out?

Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners. The state and the church are the greatest terrorists in modern society bar none.

(Edgar files in to watch and listen, a mere speck on the wall).

Dyslexia, if I take your statements as a given and a reality, what would a world run by 'anarchism' look like?

<Sharing a patch of wall.>

<lands on a bm>

Well, I'm not going to publish a book here so I will give an example of what I mean. Please take it as such, a philosophical example. When I was farming/ranching the one mile long dirt road in front of my place had a 20 foot right of way on each side of the road originally deeded for the irragation canal that ran to each farm-stead. This was ideal for us working ranchers as a place, in the summer months, to park our tractors, balers, mowing machines for easy access to get into our fields, but in the 80's, some of this old time acreages were bought up by people from the city who wanted' a rural-pastoral lifestyle. The thing was they didn't want us old ranchers parking our farm equipment on the roadside because it detracted from the "scenic quality" of their view. They had the one thing that politicans really adore, money. They went (all 3 households) to the county commissioners and asked for a zoning requirement to ban the parking of farm equipment beside county roads. It was passed. I consider this as an example of government infringement and blatant coersive use of unjustified authority to enhance the influencial few. Government be it local or national should never have this power.

dys, I understand the complaint.
I don't understand the 'vision' of anarchism.
Using the same example, what would have happened if a bunch of 'anarchists' were running the show?
And how can it be called 'anarchy' when it actually is a form of self-government?
That was my original q, really.
Anarchy is non-govt.....but put even two people together and they will find a way to regulate themselves and create leaders and followers.

Sorry, anarchism just sounds more and more like another branch of idealism.
They can tell me what they don't like, but not any frickin' ideas of how to make it happen in the real world.

input?

Oh, anarchy is definitely idealistic. It's an impossible dream in which there is no government and everybody lives exactly how the want to, but this is ridiculous due to the fact that the majority of Earth (thus far, anyway) is mentally incapable of having complete freedom, as they will invariably abuse their power and do something very stupid.

Libertarianism refers to a far more feasible goal of as little government as possible. In a society in which the majority of government, especially including consentual crimes and all social programs, have been cut out, all that remains is a bare minimum set of laws that prevent such problems of murder, rape, theft, and so on. This is usually what I mean when I talk about an anarchistic or libertarian society.

Government is a necessity. I don't like it, and therefore would like to see it cut down to as small as possible, since infringing on people's freedoms is, usually, wrong, and social programs just (don't get me started.)

I don't know if it's a cop out, but stop hanging out with these anti-christs. What would your mother say?

hehee...

I don't know if they're anti-christs, but I know my mother's reaction:
" Those friggin' hippies need a bathe and a job!"

Yeah, I can dig libertarians. Their idea of organization is at least feasible.

Hell, maybe i've just run across a bunch of spoiled students here. Yikes!

They're not anarchists, they're just very naughty boys (and girls).

Ok so I see some of the same old crap about anarchism. Some of you need to get a clue and open your minds just a bit. Philosophical anarchism s like the idea of the US Post Office. It provides a service. This service is provided equally to everyone but it is not a mandated service. Every single person living anywhere in the US of A can use the service or not, it is their choice and there are alternatives in the private sector. The role of government in an anarchy would be severely limited when it comes to mandates. An example would be like when Steve McQueen was dying with cancer and he believed that some apricot pit concoction would help his disease but it was illegal in the US of A so he went to mexico to buy it. Now and anrchist governemnt would provide the service of testing and information about the apricot pit concoction but would not have the authority to prevent Steve from buying/using it. This is much akin to the way tobacco products are sold today, there is a warning label right on the package but there is no law preventing any adult from using the product. Makes sense to me but then I am an anarchist. If anyone is actually interested in further discussion along these lines I would be delighted to participate but if it's just going to come down to inane babble count me out.

reading

flushd, first of all, anarchy as dys suggested, does not mean no laws at all. It is a philosophical idea that "he governs best who governs least". The following excerpt is a reminder of what happens when big brother refuses to allow citizens to hold such a philosophy:

ON AUGUST 23, 1927, 75 years ago last month, the state of Massachusetts executed Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for a crime they had not committed. For handing out flyers they were charged with a robbery and murder that had occured three weeks earlier. They were arrested in 1920 for advertising a protest meeting about the death of their friend, Andrea Salsedo, who was found crushed in a New York City street, outside the building in which the FBI had held him, incommunicado, for eight weeks.
In 1919, a bomb had exploded in front of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's home. The governemnt retaliated with the so-called "Palmer raids," secret detentions and deportations of foreign nationals.

And today, hundreds of people are still being held one year later, in the wake of September 11. People who had nothing to do with any crime or violent act are being terrorized by our government and imprisoned by our indifference.

From 1920 to 1927, the trial of Sacco and Venzetti was an international cause celèbre, Vanzetti's eloquent last words would echo for generations afterward:

"If it had not been for these things, I might live out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmourned, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we have to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident."

So Dys - Proudhon is the first port of call?

I'm drawn to the much-maligned Marx when he wrote:

"In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle int he evening, criticise after dinner, just as i have a a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic"

(The German Ideology).

I find anarchist literature a bit confused and no that's not mean to be a funny. There seems to be a counter-intuitive need to conform that sort of defeats the purpose of anarchism. I am happy to be educated.

But you know that little paragraph from The German Ideology resonates with me. Why should I go through my life being labelled by what I need to do to earn a living?

Any minute now someone will call me a Utopian. I think I'd like that.

Ok goodfielder try this on for size. Utopian idealism is a direction not at all unlike the north star, we can use it for guidence rather than demand it as a destination.

Brandon


With chauvinists like Brandon, Christians don't need other enemies.

BBB

Flushd
Flushd, Dyslexia is the real non-violent anarchist here, but I think the Golden Rule might be a good example of anarchist ideal behavior toward others.

Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it." Mohatma Gandhi.

The following Anarchist Punk Ethics is an interesting site:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:YLIizgkVvocJ:goatee.net/anarchists/punk-ethic.html+golden+rule+and+anarchists&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Of course anarchy is about self-government.

The Spanish anarchists of the civil war ousted all traditional government as well as the bosses - and replaced them by self-government. Eg, workers running their own factory, with meetings instead of orders. Became a bit of a mess, but yes - all about self-government.

More micro-scale, non-violent anarchists elsewhere retreated into communes, where they tried to be as free as possible from state and capital - and worked together and decided together. Self-government.


Of course anarchism = idealism. Its an idealistic vision about how everything in the world should be all different, fairer, better. Its as idealistic as socialism or, for that matter, libertarianism.