Vitruvius wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:07 pm
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:40 pm
Oh, I see - you're an anarchist. That isn't the situation. The situation is one where the tax payer is being fleeced to keep monsters behind bars, and idealism aside, I thought you might have some sympathy with that argument.
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:37 pmI am not an arnarchist, I am a-political. I recognize anything a government does to others against their will is wrong, from fleecing them to support those it imprisons to killing thm breaking some law. I recognize all government is evil, but I have no interest in fighting or attempting to change them.
I'm talking in terms of political theory; not casting personal aspersions.
I didn't think you were, but you do misunderstand. I have no, "political theory," (which is what I mean by
a-political), and I have no ideology. (You can see, "
What I Don't Believe.")
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:07 pm
The ideas you've expressed are anarchist ideas; regardless of how you behave in your daily life. I think the anarchist position is false, because there are social goods, like garbage collection, street lights, national defence, education, health - that would not be produced by the free market. The criminal justice system is another social good - that can only be organised through government.
That's absurd. Not one of those things requires a government to supply them, with the exception of the absurd idea of, "national defense." (Do you really want politicians collecting your garbage, running power plants and the power grids, educating your children, or providing your medical care?) The government does not provide one thing of real value to anyone and all that it takes credit for is actually performed by non-government individuals paid by the government with money confiscated by force (taxes) from others who could otherwise pay for all those services and products they chose themselves if the government had not confiscated their wealth. Even if there were something that required an agency of force to supply, a society would be better off without it than be enslaved by a government in order to have it.
As for, "national defense," threats of aggression only come from government and are alway only against other governments. Individuals neither start or fight wars, only governments do. Governments have no interest in defending individuals, only in defending the government.
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:40 pm
I'm aware, that previously you said:
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:37 pmI am not an anarchist, I If you or your property or your loved ones are threatened by someone else, you are responsible for defending those things yourself, even if that means killing the one making the threat, if necessary.
But imagine how that would play out. It wouldn't be the death penalty for the most grievous and inhumane of crimes; it would be the death penalty because your dog shit on my lawn. Justice has to be taken out of the hands of individuals - and entrusted to an institution, because people are not capable of the kind of objectivity necessary to proportionality.
How would what play out? So long as there are governments no such scenario will happen, and there will always be government so long as most people want some agency of force to supply their security, and guarantees of the kind of life they think they want and believe they have a right to things just because they were born, and do not have to earn them. (I certainly would not trust them to defend anything.)
I happen to agree with one phrase you used, though you did hot intend it, "Justice has to be taken out of the hands of individuals," if there is to be real justice; but you forget, every politician and government agent
is an individual and it is into their hands people like you have placed the administration of what you call justice.
Vitruvius wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:40 pm
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:37 pmSo long as most people want government, because they believe a government will provide them safety, security, and make a nice society for them and pick up after them when they screw up their life and want someone one else, they call their, "leaders," to take the responsibility for their choices by telling them what to do and not do, believing they have some kind of virtue because they are patriotic, "law abiding citizens," there will always be government. Until people want to take responsibility for their own lives, do their own learning and thinking, willing to take the risk of surviving and prospering on their own merits and productive efforts, there will be governments, and those who have chosen them will suffer the conseqeunces--but its not my business to interfere in how others choose to live their lives.
You seem to speak to a much earlier time; perhaps a hunter gatherer time - when people lived in kinship tribes of between 40-120 individuals. Those days are gone. Tribes joined together to form multi-tribal social groups, and those societies - on whatever scale, needed laws, and the enforcement of laws by an objective authority. Government is inevitable; bad government is not. There's an fundamental question in politics about where one draws the frontiers of the state - about what is a legitimate responsibility of government, and what isn't - that relates to the size of the state, and the consequent burden of tax. To argue for small government is a legitimate position; anarchism is not.
Not at all. There have always been, "political systems, whether called tribal leaders, or kings, or gods. I advocate no social scheme ever tried before and certainly none of the horrible forms of oppression modern political sociologists are trying to foist on the world. Nevertheless, throughout all history and today there have been and are exceptional individuals who are never part of or support any political or social organization or system, are never members of any collective or movement, who live their lives as they chose, never a threat to anyone else, and always benevolent in all their relationships with others.
What about all the people who don't fit this profile?