GENIUS FORUMS

Here's a summary of the mentality of anti-anarchists:

"People are too stupid or evil to do that which is in their best interests, therefore people have to look out for their best interests."

lol - idiots.

How do you privatize health care in a fair way to make it accessible to all citizens?

How do you privatize driver’s licenses? Have competing companies? that doesn't make any sense.

How do you regulate society with a universal legal system without a governing body?

How do you decide who should pay to pave a main street in a major city when everyone uses it, but in different frequencies and proportions?

Anarchy creates a whole host of problems, and in the end, if we abandoned government and the taxation system altogether, meaning we had to pay for all these services out of pocket as we needed them, I don’t think we would be better off anyway.

For instance: with most current developed nations, governments take a little at a time from everyone, and it gives people more consistent disposable income. However, if all services were privatized, one month you might have to get a HUGE loan to have your road paved, and then the next month, get another HUGE loan to have routine surgery. Sounds like a nightmare to me….bye bye disposable income…. Hello debt. At least with taxation, it is taken from everyone a little at a time.

Moreover, Do you realize how complex the economy is, and how many goods and services do very lousy when privatized? For instance: When the fire departments were privatized, fire fighters were so starving for work that they were going out and starting fires as a means to keep work coming in. They couldn’t keep enough money coming in to pay their salaries, but the community still wanted fire protection services.

I think anarchists are naïve in their thinking to believe such a system could ever work. It has never worked in the past with any successful civilization…From the Aztecs, to Greece, to London, to China…Each had a governing body, and when the governing body failed, the citizens always fall into chaos/violence/power struggles because humans are innately irrational.

The solution to a dysfunctional government is not abandoning all government, that is too extreme, the solution is reform by cutting unnecessary programs and services, getting rid of redundant job positions, meeting budget every year, and taking the surplus to pay down deficits...The solution is responsible governance, not a total abandonment of governance.

Ryan Rudolph wrote:The solution to a dysfunctional government is not abandoning all government, that is too extreme, the solution is reform by cutting unnecessary programs and services, getting rid of redundant job positions, meeting budget every year, and taking the surplus to pay down deficits...The solution is responsible governance, not a total abandonment of governance.

Part of the problem - as I see it in the US at present - is that we elect "leaders." In order to get elected, they have to have a program of things they will do and accomplish. Naturally those things nearly always involve increasing the role of government in something. And of course, once a program or bureaucracy is in place, it is very hard to get rid of it again.

People in favor of reducing the size of government are outside the mainstream of current political discourse in the US.

In the medium term - this is no longer long term - this will need to change to avoid a serious, catastrophic collapse of one sort or another. In fact it is likely too late already.

Loki wrote:Here's a summary of the mentality of anti-anarchists:

"People are too stupid or evil to do that which is in their best interests, therefore people have to look out for their best interests."

lol - idiots.

Nice strawman. Can I set fire to him?

Ryan,

How do you privatize health care in a fair way to make it accessible to all citizens?

Why do you keep asking the same goddamn questions? As I already pointed out, we DON'T support privatization. We DON'T want health care to be privatized.

How do you privatize driver’s licenses? Have competing companies? that doesn't make any sense.

We DON'T want anything to be privatized.

How do you regulate society with a universal legal system without a governing body?

We DON'T want a universal legal system.

How do you decide who should pay to pave a main street in a major city when everyone uses it, but in different frequencies and proportions?

No. We don't want to decide who pays for what. We want to give back the roads to the people who legitimately own the road. They will decide what to do with them.

Anarchy creates a whole host of problems, and in the end, if we abandoned government and the taxation system altogether, meaning we had to pay for all these services out of pocket as we needed them, I don’t think we would be better off anyway.

No, Anarchy is not about saving money. What the hell are you going on about.

oh yes, I remember now, you are the one that doesn't understand economics, politics, or pretty much anything...I'm not even going to bother, waste of time.

Seriously though, are you even aware that there's an option that goes beyond mere taxation and privatization?

nevermind, i really have no desire to go down this meaningless rabbit hole with you again.. once was enough...

Loki wrote:No. We don't want to decide who pays for what. We want to give back the roads to the people who legitimately own the road. They will decide what to do with them.

Who is the legitimate owner of I-87?

DHodges wrote:

Loki wrote:No. We don't want to decide who pays for what. We want to give back the roads to the people who legitimately own the road. They will decide what to do with them.

Who is the legitimate owner of I-87?

Anarchy (in my mind anyway) would work on a small scale perhaps on the strip of land like Cuba, Jamaica, Hawaii. It would be difficult for people to manage their affairs on a landmass the size of China, Canada, the US, Australia.

The USA, in its original setup of 50 nation-states was a brilliant stroke of genius, but the devil (Alexander Hamilton's banking cartel) entered into the details. Yup, but socialism (communism) has taken hold (war between the states) and the resulting War Powers* have never been rescinded, they remain on the books and are routinely quoted (by supreme court) as taking precedence.

There'd be so many rogue elements (little Loki's) running around ranting that "we" own everything! There has to be a theory-in-practice that 'live and let live' takes precedence.

In today's modern world, if there's a kidnapping of a child, how is one ever going to go about finding that child. Everybody would have blinders on their car windows, cops would be powerless to stop people on I-87 for any reason.

Ideally yes, anarchy ruled in the Garden of Eden. But then, religion and politics made its face known.

* - See the military tribunals taking place at Guantanamo, a bit of kangaroo going on, but case law is settled, Abe Lincoln's side won, and the resulting horrors we are harvesting today will only magnify and roll over to more horrors in the forseeable future.


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Tomas wrote:The USA, in its original setup of 50 nation-states was a brilliant stroke of genius, but the devil (Alexander Hamilton's banking cartel) entered into the details. Yup, but socialism (communism) has taken hold (war between the states) and the resulting War Powers* have never been rescinded, they remain on the books and are routinely quoted (by supreme court) as taking precedence

I know the thirteen colonies, what are the other thirty-seven nation-states?

Socialism and communism are not interchangeable, Tomas, no matter the vengeance with which your ignorance informs you.

"Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then 'the state... ceases to exist', and 'it becomes possible to speak of freedom'. Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state...

"And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. *The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord.

"In other words, under capitalism we have the state in the proper sense of the word, that is, a special machine for the suppression of one class by another, and, what is more, of the majority by the minority. Naturally, to be successful, such an undertaking as the systematic suppression of the exploited majority by the exploiting minority calls for the utmost ferocity and savagery in the matter of suppressing, it calls for seas of blood, through which mankind is actually wading its way in slavery, serfdom and wage labor." --Lenin, State & Revolution

*This is socialism---not communism.

Lenin, and Leninist Russia, was one of Marx’s responsibilities and, therefore, faults. But, I judge it so with the strength of Marx’s very own insights.

If dictatorship by the proletariat (socialism) is an historic and transitional phase toward communism, then the method of such a dictatorship necessarily is limited to the interests of the working class as a class, rather than as a people (nation states).

When a Leninist Russia took, for example, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan by military force in 1917, they took, too, the working classes of those countries by force in the interests of nationalism and not in the interests of the proletariat. Consequently, they again lost Armenian to nationalism in 1991, and the place remains a cesspool of socio-political indolence and economic impotence.

Marx should be turning in his grave.

When a Leninist Russia took, for example, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan by military force in 1917, they took, too, the working classes of those countries by force in the interests of nationalism and not in the interests of the proletariat.

It seems to me that what you are calling nationalism in this sentence is just imperialism.

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And I wouldn’t fault you for it, since nationalism is the apple in the eye of imperialism. Lenin didn’t quite make it that far, any such aspirations notwithstanding. That was Britain‘s baby, at the time, and Russia only got as far as it did because everybody was mostly out to claim their piece of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

But, to flesh out the point a little more, had Lenin in his dictatorial power really been actually motivated by anything resembling communistic rather than nationalistic interest, by what possible progression of coherent logic could a dictatorship by (and, therefore, for) the proletariat eventually result, again, in nationalism (in the form of separate nation states) over a unified proletariat?

As part of USSR, circa late eighties, Armenia took, by force, Nagorno-Karabakh (in Azerbaijan), clearly in the national and not proletarian interest. Hence, Azerbaijan and Turkey closed off their borders and in 1995 Armenia constitutionalised* the cause of its failures (and the means of its salvation, ultimately to be paid in the form of compensation for same) on deaths suffered in WWI by leapfrogging (typically backwards) over WWII and the Jews and claiming they were the victims of the first genocide, committed by Turks (who apparently don‘t have a proletariat?).

Communism, my arse.

Not even a fucking successful socialism by Lenin’s own definition!

[Edit to add: *See also Armenia's 1990 Declaration of Independence (from the "Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia" to "Armenia")]

Dan Rowden wrote:

Loki wrote:Here's a summary of the mentality of anti-anarchists:

"People are too stupid or evil to do that which is in their best interests, therefore people have to look out for their best interests."

lol - idiots.

Nice strawman. Can I set fire to him?

Yeah sure let's see your argument. Why are you against anarchy?

Well, I think readers would benefit from a more focused critique of Ryan's weak response.

For instance: with most current developed nations, governments take a little at a time from everyone, and it gives people more consistent disposable income. However, if all services were privatized, one month you might have to get a HUGE loan to have your road paved, and then the next month, get another HUGE loan to have routine surgery. Sounds like a nightmare to me….bye bye disposable income…. Hello debt. At least with taxation, it is taken from everyone a little at a time.

Ryan is foolishly assuming that people would not have higher disposable income minus taxes/fiat banking. He assumes private healthcare would still be the same cost minus intense regulations and entry restrictions. He assumes road owners wouldn't calm their customers worries by introducing easy payment plans etc. etc. etc.

How do you decide who should pay to pave a main street in a major city when everyone uses it, but in different frequencies and proportions?

How does a shopping mall decide who should pay for the paving inside?

How do you privatize driver’s licenses? Have competing companies? that doesn't make any sense.

Ryan foolishly assumes that drivers licenses are the most efficient way to identify drivers.

When the state heavily subsidises roads and it's related industries you aren't seeing true costs and benefits. In my opinion it's impossible at this point for anyone to know whether roads are the most efficient mode of transport and as such whether drivers licenses are even necessary. Still! Just to calm your worries, off the top of my head, some kind of official registration sticker and/or card could be used maybe for specific roads or even groups of roads (South Australia highway megapass!?).

Loki wrote:

Dan Rowden wrote:

Loki wrote:Here's a summary of the mentality of anti-anarchists:

"People are too stupid or evil to do that which is in their best interests, therefore people have to look out for their best interests."

lol - idiots.

Nice strawman. Can I set fire to him?

Yeah sure let's see your argument. Why are you against anarchy?

I didn't say I was, necessarily (it would depend entirely on the proposed model). I called your post on its strawman status, that's all.

dhodges,

Who is the legitimate owner of I-87?

The whole thing does not have only one owner. It would have to be broken up.

Loki,

Ryan is foolishly assuming that people would not have higher disposable income minus taxes/fiat banking. He assumes private healthcare would still be the same cost minus intense regulations and entry restrictions. He assumes road owners wouldn't calm their customers worries by introducing easy payment plans etc. etc. etc.

Privatized healthcare doesn’t seem to be working very well in the USA. They have major problems there, and that is one of the only developed nations that have adopted such a system, so I prefer the socialized system we have here in Canada.

How does a shopping mall decide who should pay for the paving inside?

This example isn’t the same because it is clear who should pay the percentages for shopping lot-paving jobs. The businesses who use it. However, it is difficult with a main street because it is the populous that uses it for other means, and they destroy the roads over time, while the ones that use the roads the most don’t necessarily use the businesses on the street.

When the state heavily subsidises roads and it's related industries you aren't seeing true costs and benefits. In my opinion it's impossible at this point for anyone to know whether roads are the most efficient mode of transport and as such whether drivers licenses are even necessary. Still! Just to calm your worries, off the top of my head, some kind of official registration sticker and/or card could be used maybe for specific roads or even groups of roads (South Australia highway megapass!?).

I think the present system works pretty good, especially as far as safety is concerned. The government regulations and testing keeps inexperienced youth off the road, encourages seniors to stop driving, and our legal system catches street racing, drunk drivers and so on. A governing body combined with a universal legal system that is enforced by the governing body accomplishes this feat very nicely. And it would be difficult for competiting privatized entities to match this sort of system in any realistic fashion.

The whole thing does not have only one owner. It would have to be broken up.

So instead of taxes, you’re just paying toll highway charges every 100 miles, what is the difference? Who cares…..

Ryan Rudolph wrote:So instead of taxes, you’re just paying toll highway charges every 100 miles, what is the difference? Who cares…..

We do pay these toll charges and at much lesser distances than 100 miles. However with Loki's idea we might have to pay them every mile, and there will be price gouging, on popular routes.

Money would be the least of worries in anarchy though. The absence of a binding law would mean that it would be a very dangerous world. Essentially it would become like the jungle, where there are no rules and no limits. Most of the current humans having become soft from civilization will perish in no time.

maestro wrote:Money would be the least of worries in anarchy though. The absence of a binding law would mean that it would be a very dangerous world. Essentially it would become like the jungle, where there are no rules and no limits. Most of the current humans having become soft from civilization will perish in no time.

You know, I've often thought this very thing. Right now you have no way of knowing when you walk down a public street that you will not be attacked. Especially if you ever have been, which I have. I realize it is an illusion I place before me that I will be coming home. That I do come home in no way diminishes the fact that it was an illusion the whole while, and that one will be required the next time I go out. The difference between me and most other people is that they believe mindlessly in that illusion. They think it is real. If anarchy prevailed and those fat, arrogant, pompous, self-important petty-tyrant thug cops were not riding around in their gaudy, state-provided pimp mobiles, even white guys like me would not be able to maintain the illusion in our minds.

Loki wrote:dhodges,

Who is the legitimate owner of I-87?

The whole thing does not have only one owner. It would have to be broken up.

I would like to have part, up around exit 30. Thanks!

brokenhead wrote: If anarchy prevailed and those fat, arrogant, pompous, self-important petty-tyrant thug cops were not riding around in their gaudy, state-provided pimp mobiles, even white guys like me would not be able to maintain the illusion in our minds.

You think those guys are going to protect you? Not too likely. They have no legal obligation to protect you or to stop an attack on you, even if they are watching it from up the block. (This is well established in case law.) They carry guns to protect themselves.

brokenhead wrote: If anarchy prevailed and those fat, arrogant, pompous, self-important petty-tyrant thug cops were not riding around in their gaudy, state-provided pimp mobiles, even white guys like me would not be able to maintain the illusion in our minds.

The police may not protect you as much as you think, but it still provides a lot of disincentive for rampant thuggery.

But the more important thing is the law and the court. Without this, you will find that your Burly neighbor has annexed your house and family while you were away, and you must then try to gather an alliance to defeat him. The world will erupt in conflict. It will take a lot of time for it to come in equilibrium, with the concept of property finished, and organized technology a thing of the past.

Not that it is a horrible thing. Humans would lose their neurosis as they merge with nature. Absurd cultural monstrosities will also vanish. Only that more than 99 percent of the population will face a lot of hardship and might perish as they have become accustomed to the easy (though full of suffering and confusion) lifestyle.