Topic: Anarchists unite!
MindfreakMandy's photo
Tue 10/09/12 09:45 AM
I HATE THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!

smokeybette's photo
Tue 10/09/12 09:50 AM

stand in line,
i love my country, but fear my government,,,,

msharmony's photo
Tue 10/09/12 09:51 AM
hate is not healthy

I hate noone and nothing

I do not like some of the things our government does but I do like others


they are , to me, representative of americans ...imperfect

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 10/09/12 09:55 AM

I HATE THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!
you ought to love it!
It is your Friend!laugh bigsmile

http://mises.org/daily/5787/How-I-Learned-to-Love-the-State

While we were students of the state education apparatus, how many of us had to write research papers where we were asked to "change the world"?

I'm sure we can all remember a writing prompt similar to this: "If I could change one thing about the world, it would be …" or "How I can make the world a better place."

Often, these writing prompts were given to us when we were not even old enough to think about abstract concepts like war and politics.

Were these assignments teaching us to think critically? In some cases, this is possible. For the most part, however, these paper topics taught us to do one thing: become central planners. It taught us that complex social problems could conceivably be solved by one person (or a few bureaucrats) in a room developing public policy for the entire nation.

If we just give $1,000 to every poor person, we won't have any more poverty, we thought. The teacher never asked, "From where would this money come?" It did not matter because at least we were thinking about other people. We were thinking about the needy. We were thinking about "solutions" and being "proactive."

I think we could save the environment if we could get everyone to plant one tree, we concluded. The teacher never asked, "How would you get everyone to do this? Would it be through force or persuasion?" It did not matter. We were beginning to realize the importance that policy makers play in shaping our world.

We were not asked to look at the many unintended consequences that would arise from these novel ideas. Where would we get $1,000 for every poor person? By what standard do we judge poor? How do we ensure that $1,000 would be spent to bring the person out of poverty?

Of course, it was never asked whether it was moral to steal money from some to give to others. It did not matter. We were just pretending to be the state; there's no harm in that.

No idea was a bad idea. These teachers were taught to respect the diversity of ideas. Their creed dictates that all ideas have different values and none are necessarily better than the others.

But how can we expect children to experience proper cognitive development when we cannot tell them the difference between right and wrong for fear of offending their sensibilities?

What if a child were to propose a society (loosely) based on the principle of nonaggression. What if a child were to ask the teacher, "Why do we have a government in the first place?"

This would certainly go against the teacher's love of central planning. The answer to this child's question would be simplified into one word: chaos. For most teachers, an anarchic society is and can be nothing but chaos and destruction. After this, the child would not think about it again for years, if ever.

Why would the teacher not be open to this idea? Why would the teacher argue against this child's proposal? The idea would be rejected for the same reason that a news channel owned by a light bulb company would likely never have a special report about its defective light bulbs. Most government school teachers will certainly not entertain the idea that the government is immoral.

Government schools are essentially propaganda machines for the government, but there is no propaganda minister or a top-down curriculum from the Department of Education that promotes this propaganda.


Public schools, by their very nature, are designed to promote government. They teach children to accept that government is exempt from the ethical code that prevents someone from stealing their neighbor's belongings; without government theft, the schools would not exist.

They teach children that the biggest problems of the day can only be solved by central planners. Through these exercises, children learn that humans are so simplistic that one policy can solve a major problem with thousands of variables.

It teaches kids that everything happens in a vacuum. The idea that every man is a unique, free-thinking individual who faces unique choices is replaced with the view that all men are part of a herd, which can be easily manipulated and coerced.

When they ask children to think about what they would change in the world, they are really asking, What would you coerce others to do?

Sojourning_Soul's photo
Tue 10/09/12 10:00 AM
Edited by Sojourning_Soul on Tue 10/09/12 10:05 AM

hate is not healthy

I hate noone and nothing

I do not like some of the things our government does but I do like others


they are , to me, representative of americans ...imperfect


The perfect socialistic attitude. "I disagree, but if you say so....ok."

Hate is a strong word, but so is murder, rape and many others....it exists because it is.... not unhealthy except in translation and exercize of it

Chazster's photo
Tue 10/09/12 10:52 AM
I don't trust the government but anarchy is much worse.

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 10/09/12 11:11 AM

I don't trust the government but anarchy is much worse.

http://mises.org/daily/6145/Anarchy-in-the-Aachen

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 10/09/12 11:14 AM
Depoliticize Everything

Mises Daily: Thursday, October 27, 2011 by Stephen Mauzy



What strain of person derives profit — monetary or psychic — from elected office? Mostly the strain of person I strive to avoid: the nosy neighbor too quick to comment on your daughter's comings and goings; the junior-college erudite miffed by the world's reluctance to embrace his brilliance; the sentimental Luddite who believes yesterday is always better than today; the impassioned community organizer whose sentences are too peppered with "we" and "must."

I am sure those running for office think otherwise, particularly those running for minor offices — the office where profit is mostly psychic. Perhaps these fledgling public servants think of themselves as ambitious. After all, these middling bureaucracies can be a first step on a journey toward more vainglorious, more remunerative public callings: the US House, the US Senate — and if one is exquisitely masterful at speaking in euphemisms, the presidency. These higher offices confer remarkable wealth to even the dullest dullard. And if one lacks the gumption to progress to the national level, an excessively remunerative sinecure awaits in many lesser state and local offices.

Much money and attention is given to politics; so much that even standing on the sidelines to comment can generate outsized wealth and attention. Rush Limbaugh and his numerous conservative epigones have etched lucrative careers perpetuating the myth that if we just vote for the right candidates (literally, in Limbaugh's case) the world will be set properly on its axis and the United States' master-of-the-universe status will grow further still.

Of course, for left-liberals, the right person resides on the left. For either side, the right person is a myth — a fraud, actually. There is no right person, left or right, because the right person from any one person's perspective will always be the wrong person from everyone else's perspective.

Stripped to its core, politics is nothing more than an egregiously expensive exercise in self-aggrandizement and frustration. Once you get past the preening and rabble-rousing, all democratic government is Fabian government. Democratic government always grows. That Limbaugh consistently persuades his putative 20 million daily listeners that Republicans are champions of the free market and small government is a tribute to charismatic oratory. Republicans are nearly as progovernment as Democrats. The great Republican revolution lasted from 1995 to 2008. Over that period, total federal outlays grew to $2.982 trillion from $1.515 trillion, a 5.3 percent average annual growth rate.

Federal government spending as a percentage of GDP dropped to 18 percent in the early years of the revolution, but once Republicans became accustomed to dispensing the spoils to their constituents, the small-government bone fides faded with the economy. When the revolution flamed out, in 2008, federal-government spending as a percentage of GDP was higher when the GOP lost the majority than when they had gained it, rising to 22 percent of GDP by the end of the reign.

Republican or Democratic, nothing changes. The tea-party movement, the Green Party, the Modern Whig Party cannot change anything. Neither can the Libertarian Party or its favorite Republican son, Ron Paul. Government institutions eventually overwhelm and corrupt the principled politician.

These institutions are the intractable obstacle to human progress because they demand conciliation. Conciliation debases the brightest ideas and elevates the stupidest ones. What ideology is left is a thin brown gruel that satisfies no one. The insanity of it is that, like Oliver Twist, many of us ask for more, even when we don't have to.

We are different; our combination of wants and desires confers individuality. This uniqueness makes division of labor and free markets possible. Our differences, our uniqueness, mean we value scarce resources differently (I prefer the term constrained resource; no big-box retailer conjures thoughts of scarcity), and thank goodness for that. Otherwise, everything would be reduced to gruel. Life would be like a flock of seagulls converging on the same trawler for the same fish chum.

Politics and government twist the overwhelming advantages of our unique desires and skills into conflict. Instead of each of us going his own way to satisfy his needs and earning a living satisfying other people's needs in a manner each of us finds most accommodating, we are forced to choose between suboptimal options imposed by institutions. Politics distills options to the most ascetic elements when a cornucopia should prevail.

To wit: evolution or intelligent design? If the elected school board picks one over the other, a minority's interests prevail and bitterness and frustration rise among the dissenting majority. Why evolution or intelligent design, why not evolution for evolutionists and intelligent design for creationists? More important, why not something else for those of us who believe both are barren explanations?

This perverse system of coercing people to accept limited options decivilizes. The question of Ford or Chevrolet produces discord between two pot-valiant knuckleheads at a NASCAR race, the rest of us choose a Ford, Chevrolet, or whatever brand best suits our fancy.

Politics always distills everything to the knucklehead Ford-or-Chevrolet conundrum. Is it any wonder politics infuriates and inflames? The media apotheoses of political conflict — the repugnant Keith Olbermann and the shrewish Ann Coulter — are two sides of the same coin. Their stock in trade is forcing people to consider the lesser of two evils, when no evil need prevail. Do most of us give a thought, much less a damn, about gay marriage? Does anyone think politics will settle the abortion debate?

When politics isn't decivilizing society, it's raising time preferences. Problems must be immediately resolved, lest the world grind to a halt. Immediacy neuters logic and reason. Who else but a politician could believe sagging pants are a leading contributor to juvenile delinquency? Many do, and when these ad hoc thoughts invade a politician's consciousness, those thoughts must be legislated post haste.

cont.

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 10/09/12 11:15 AM
cont.

When politics isn't fomenting conflict, raising time preferences, and stupefying the nation, it is attenuating progress. Contrary to the incessant jabbering on the need for "change," all politicians despise change. Change — real human progress, Schumpeterian change — erodes political power and undermines regimes. Politics myopically focuses on the known, which is why politicians ruthlessly strive to maintain the status quo.

Stasis is the binding factor in political power. Education is delivered in big sterile buildings, seven classes of 50 minutes each, scheduled to accommodate ancient agrarians. Regulation expands to encompass the last crisis, thus assuring the next. The military markets big landmass enemies, thus enabling rag-tag bands of freelancers from smallish countries to wreak havoc on the country's largest city.

Marginalization is the only solution. Government is marginalized when it is ignored, when individuals eschew the political process.

So, do yourself and the rest of us a favor: if you are considering running for elected office, don't. If you are a small-government type, you're unable to impede government growth anyway. If you are a big-government type, you are unable to grow government to your liking. Once in the system, you'll be marginalized. You will make more enemies than friends, and rightfully so. How dare you force me to choose when I'd rather not.

Eschewing government also inures you to government's corrupting influence. Look closely: politicians are exemplars of the characteristics we most despise in others: covetousness, cowardice, equivocation, fecklessness, and sophistry. If elected, you'll adopt these characteristics. Your personality will shift to stultified, reelection-seeking politician from firebrand reformer. Public service is the most ignoble of callings.

Voting wastes scarce time and resources. Political debate (the ultimate exercise in futility) is equally as wasteful. If you can educate your kids out of public school, do so.

The further we pull away from government institutions, the weaker they become. Ostracizing works. The strongest institutions, if ignored and neglected long enough, eventually crumble. The post office is literally crumbling before our eyes. Other seemingly impenetrable government institutions would suffer similar fates if we removed the stanchions by removing our participation in the political process.

The same crumbling effect would occur to individuals committed to maintaining government institutions and the status quo. Extracting ourselves from politics marginalizes the Barack Obamas, the Hillary Clintons, the Charles Grassleys, the Barney Franks, the Harry Reids, the Mitt Romneys, the et al. Delivering speeches in empty auditoriums and having a handshake rebuked with a turned back weakens confidence in the validity of the political mission.

But won't the socialists run roughshod? No, because the socialists are a small minority, and small minorities can only impose their will when the majority participates in a process that allows them to impose their will.

There is a salutary effect to minding one's business: the more one withdraws from politics, the more one realizes how trifling politics actually is, while concurrently realizing how cooperation and freedom provide the best solutions to the greatest number of problems.

http://mises.org/daily/5758/Depoliticize-Everything

Chazster's photo
Tue 10/09/12 11:17 AM


I don't trust the government but anarchy is much worse.

http://mises.org/daily/6145/Anarchy-in-the-Aachen

And you can compare a small place like that to a huge land mass rich with natural resources how? Are farm lands alone would be worth conquering us. No government no military superiority no country.

Conrad_73's photo
Tue 10/09/12 11:30 AM
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1715223

Repelling States: Evidence from Upland Southeast Asia

Edward Peter Stringham

Fayetteville State University - School of Business and Economics

Caleb J. Miles

Trinity College (Hartford CT) - Department of Economics

November 25, 2010

Review of Austrian Economics, Forthcoming

Abstract:
Although many economists recognize the existence of stateless orders, economists such as Cowen, Sutter, and Holcombe question how viable stateless orders are in the long run. Research documenting the historical existence of stateless societies is much more developed than our understanding of whether societies can successfully remain free of states. This article analyzes historical and anthropological evidence from societies in Southeast Asia that have avoided states for thousands of years. The article provides an overview of some of their customary legal practices and then describes the mechanisms that they use to avoid, repel, and prevent would-be states. Such stateless societies have successfully repelled states using location, specific production methods, and cultural resistance to states. A better understanding of these mechanisms provides a potential explanation for how such societies remained free of states for long periods of time.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 32

Keywords: self-governance, stateless order, ordered anarchy, analytical anarchism

JEL Classification: N45, N95, P16
Accepted Paper Series


Download This Paper
Date posted: November 26, 2010

willing2's photo
Tue 10/09/12 02:03 PM
Edited by willing2 on Tue 10/09/12 02:13 PM
Spanish citizens are anarchists right now.

They want their gov to answer up and are usinf force to do it.

One persons anarchist is another persons freedom fighter.

Look at kang shabitch. He is hero to many idiots.
BTW,
I keep forgetting, Mndfkmdy is a Canookie.

So, which gov you be hatin' on, Ms Mndfkmdy?:wink:

msharmony's photo
Tue 10/09/12 03:14 PM


hate is not healthy

I hate noone and nothing

I do not like some of the things our government does but I do like others


they are , to me, representative of americans ...imperfect


The perfect socialistic attitude. "I disagree, but if you say so....ok."

Hate is a strong word, but so is murder, rape and many others....it exists because it is.... not unhealthy except in translation and exercize of it




semantics



negative is not good for us, whatever label we wish to argue

HATE is a very strong type of negative energy,,,,if thats a 'socialist' idea,, who cares

the labels get rednundant and so overused that they become no longer impactful,,,,,

Dodo_David's photo
Tue 10/09/12 03:21 PM

hate is not healthy

I hate noone and nothing

I do not like some of the things our government does but I do like others


they are , to me, representative of americans ...imperfect


huh msharmony, you should have checked MindfreakMandy's nationality before commenting. She is Canadian.

msharmony's photo
Tue 10/09/12 03:23 PM


hate is not healthy

I hate noone and nothing

I do not like some of the things our government does but I do like others


they are , to me, representative of americans ...imperfect


huh msharmony, you should have checked MindfreakMandy's nationality before commenting. She is Canadian.


nice to know

my feeling hasnt changed



Dodo_David's photo
Tue 10/09/12 03:25 PM


hate is not healthy

I hate noone and nothing

I do not like some of the things our government does but I do like others


they are , to me, representative of americans ...imperfect


The perfect socialistic attitude. "I disagree, but if you say so....ok."

Hate is a strong word, but so is murder, rape and many others....it exists because it is.... not unhealthy except in translation and exercize of it


huh What socialist attitude? Non-socialists are opposed to hatred, too.

MindfreakMandy's photo
Wed 10/10/12 10:10 AM
I hate ALL governments. Not just mine.

willing2's photo
Wed 10/10/12 10:57 AM

I hate ALL governments. Not just mine.

Good girl!drinker

FearandLoathing's photo
Wed 10/10/12 11:07 AM

I don't trust the government but anarchy is much worse.


How so?

I'll give you that most people do not truly understand what would befall a country under anarchy, but I've often wondered if it would truly be worse off than it is now. People should not fear their government, and the government in place should be easily trusted; both of these things the United States doesn't have. We fear our government now more than ever and I as you said, who could trust them at this point?

Chazster's photo
Wed 10/10/12 11:12 AM
I don't want to live in a lawless land sorry. I don't want my country which is rich in natural resources to be captured by a nonanarchist country who has a military as we don't.