If you want a check from the government you are, by definition, not an "anarchist". Oh, you can call yourself an anarchist while clamoring for a dole cheque, there, Nigel... You can call yourself Princess Griselda or a Bengal tiger, too, but that don't necessarily make it so. You can't smash the state and expect an allowance from it at the same time.
Incidentally, if thousands of protesters in the streets proves a government isn't legitimate, how long before Barack calls for Cameron to step down and we declare a No-Fly Zone over London?
soon as Cameron starts dropping bombs on the Anarchists. which i think we'll then be too busy laughing to demand a no-fly zone.
ReplyDeleteI think the rule is you only drop bombs if they have oil.
ReplyDeleteAnd poor grooming doesn't count.
Some thing about all these riots and protests Stink of Leftists trying to shake up Society to bring about the New Soviet Man, 2011 version. Which White House Czar is responsible for the Facetube and Youbook Co-ordination of these events? "The World Wonders...."
ReplyDeleteAnarchy just isn't what it used to be.
ReplyDelete"Incidentally, if thousands of protesters in the streets proves a government isn't legitimate"
ReplyDeleteThen the Tea Party protests would indicate that Teleprompter Jesus isn't legit, no?
The incense, beads and no-that's-really-not-paraphernalia store near Flat State U sold a button proclaiming "Anarchists - Unite!" I almost got one just to see if anyone else found it as funny as I did.
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
Sadly, the popularly understood definition of anarchy has changed from the original and correct "lack of government" to "chaos".
ReplyDeletePublik ejikashun ain't wut it used to be.
McVee said...
ReplyDeleteI think the rule is you only drop bombs if they have oil.
North Sea....Bombs away!
Gerry
I think if you are willing to take the check but you want to tear down the government that sends it, you can still call yourself an anarchist. It is the next step to nirvana where you eschew all social structure and also refuse the check. That is nihilism.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, they are both deeply illogical.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteSorry, but "anarchy" means what it means, not what they want it to mean or what you want it to mean. I know they think it means "Cool!" and you think it means "Smelly Commies!", but really it just means "No Ruler". Which, by definition, means "No Dole Check".
"I think if you are willing to take the check but you want to tear down the government that sends it, you can still call yourself an anarchist. "
You can call yourself Napoleon Bonaparte, too, but that don't make it so.
During the G20 summit in London, riot police wasted no time in beating the tar out of any protesters within a baton's length of them.
ReplyDeleteWhy not now? What's different?
It is so difficult to communicate when I've got my tongue planted so firmly in my cheek!
ReplyDeleteYou are, of course, precisely correct. But in practice, the definition gets warped. It's sort of like "communist"--which classically leads to withering away of the state. In practice, however, it leads to monolithic state and a totally planned economy.
There is a lot more going on in the decay of British society than simply welfarism. The football hooligans, the binge drinking women of Wales, the multi-culturalism and the related cesspools of humanity in the slums, are all part of the package.
And, how did you know I call myself Napoleon Bonaparte?
I think the term anarchist is valid as it describes advocacy for a stateless society while anarchy is an actual stateless society.
ReplyDeleteThough anarchy is defined as a society without a state there are various views by anarchists on how to achieve this. The people protesting were social anarchists who are basically communists (using the definition put forth by Karl Marx, where means of production are equally controlled by all people in a classless society).
They believe in things such as society providing the basic needs for survival for everybody (of course they can never can explain the economic method of doing this without a state to collect taxes to dole out to those who either don't want to or can't work). Thus they see the state as a necessary evil at the moment in order to provide basic needs to people.
So I believe they can accurately be called anarchists as they advocate a stateless society. Granted I think they're advocating something that is oxymoronic but alas I believe the label is valid due to what they advocate.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteHeh.
I'm sorry. This is one of those things that gets me all wound up.
(Although, if they had really wanted to wind me up, they could have said: "Organizers of the demonstration hadn't, in their wildest expectations, imagined a crowd of this enormity. Later, when things got out of hand, shop windows were decimated...")
These "cuts" are marginal and trivial.
ReplyDelete"We’ll never have enough officers to protect every building in Central London."
When I was part of the 490,000 in the big Hunting march, I had this picture in my mind that if we all just scattered and started wrecking things, there was nothing the authorities could do.
They don't have enough officers to protect ANY building in Central London.
We talk about cutting budgets, but in this country if we get real cuts you will see serious urban violence.
The kind from Detroit and Watts.
And since NO politician in this country will order troops to fire on rioters, then we won't have cuts.
Monetize. Q. E. D.
Tam - I'm glad am not the only one who gets annoyed at the misuse of the English language.
ReplyDeleteThe news says "anarchists" because real Anarchists who wanted the government dissolved used violence over a century ago. Being leftists / statists themselves, the press doesn’t want to properly identify them as whining, parasitic socialists.
On the other hand, I am pleased that leftists are no longer called “liberals,” since they are the opposite.
"how long before Barack calls for Cameron to step down and we declare a No-Fly Zone over Londonistan?" (fixed it for ya)
ReplyDeleteAll in good time, Tam ....... patience.
jimbob86 - So we can help the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Queda take over.
ReplyDeleteIt ought to be legal, upon encountering such a twunt, to punch him in the face.
ReplyDeleteRepatedly.
staghounds said...
ReplyDeleteWe talk about cutting budgets, but in this country if we get real cuts you will see serious urban violence.
The kind from Detroit and Watts.
And since NO politician in this country will order troops to fire on rioters, then we won't have cuts.
Monetize. Q. E. D.
The cuts will come it will take time and let me fix that last part
The riots "in" Detroit, Watts, and don't forget Washington DC and Chicago after King was killed, stayed in their own neighborhoods....
"And, how did you know I call myself Napoleon Bonaparte?"
ReplyDeleteIt's the devotion to the horse, Ed. Dead giveaway, every time.
I'm reminded of a 12/8/2010 statement from Clayton Cramer's blog:
ReplyDelete...."More amusingly, is the number of people who fancy themselves "anarchists" and do not realize that anarchy (as opposed to rich kids destroying stuff in large groups to show how cool they are) is actually a worse situation than a government. In an anarchy, a bunch of masked kids running through a big city smashing in shop windows would be machine gunned or sold into slavery by the private security firms that would exist in a true anarchy."
And, my response to "rioters in the streets" is Tam's statement about how many magazines one needs: "More."
I'm waiting for the restart of school and the annual flood of papers on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation...." There's potential for some of them to be pretty interesting.
"jimbob86 - So we can help the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Queda take over (Londinistan)."
ReplyDeleteIs that not what we are doing down Carthage way?
Wahabism delenda est.
Who's side are we on (t)here? Oh, you don't know, Mr. President? Or you know, and are not sharing?
Might I suggest, Barry, the Golden Rule of Tool Use: If you don't know what you are doing, DON'T.
There are those that work and there are those siphon. Hence with this motley crew or rabble their revolution will be subsidized, that is until all the money runs out, then they will just eat their enablers. It always happens that way. As for Britain, they have had this coming for years. Sometimes the best lessons are the most painful.
ReplyDeleteshop windows were decimated
ReplyDeleteOh, god yes that one bugs the crap out of me. "That word has a meaning! You're not using it!"
Yeah, decimate is used correctly about 1/10th of the time...
ReplyDeleteOk, so this "anarchists" are really conservative leftists. (i.e. they are some form of re-destributive morons who at the very least wish to conserve the status quo. How I would like the news to call them that to watch heads explode.)
And I get the impression a large fraction of the readers here are" progressive liberal with a modestly right wing bent."
i.e. open minded people fighting against the established left of centre power base and want to preserve or expand certain revolutionary idealogies.
Snort.
This IS fun.
The money will never run out, it will just take more and more of it.
ReplyDeleteA dollar or a pound has lost what, 90, 95% of its value over the last 40 years, and the "money" hasn't run out yet.
Look at it the other way, from the perspective of say 1970- everything costs ten times as much as then, and we're still perking along.
Zimbabwe is only a really accelerated version.
"The cuts will be made".
Ha ha, the cuts are a political decision. More than half the people subsist off government. Who is going to vote for his own 25% pay cut? What majority of politicians will be elected on a serious cut platform?
And when, ever, has it happened in the history of man that a democratically chosen government deflated its currency? Or even held the line for more than a couple of years?
The cuts will be made as productive people decide not to produce that which can be stolen. We see it now in Europe as the productive German birth rate drops. The mouchers and looters won't be able to enslave the people who don't exist. Who is going to make all those products these people seem to think they deserve?
ReplyDeletewv: chetatli - Why are there no casinos in Africa? Too many chetatlis
Excuse me Picadilly, which ones are the Mods and which are the Rockers?
ReplyDeleteThe term Anarchism lost all popular meaning leading up to the Spanish Civil war which stuck a knife into the bloated corpse.
ReplyDeleteNowadays they are a component of the international left's street muscle organically deployed in much the same way the SA was by the national socialist German worker's favorite party.
Hell, they even color code themselves.
Do they call themselves anarchists, or is this MiniTru covering for the fact that they are garden variety lefty parasites not very different from those we've seen in Madison these past few weeks?
ReplyDeleteAnarchist and Statist are on the exact opposite sides of the political scale. Libertarians our the closest you can get to true anarchists; as, Libertariians want the smallest government possible.
ReplyDeleteCheck this out:
http://www.friesian.com/quiz.htm
David Nolan came up with a test and the Nolan Chart. You can also think of it as a line with anarchy on one side and total state control on the other, with conservatives and social liberals fighting over how much control the government has in telling you how to live your life.
Socialists (not liberal. The co-opting of that word is my pet-pive) want the government to tell you how to spend your money, and conservatives want the government to dictate how you live your life morally. The Statists; communist and progrissives want to do both, and 'true' anarchist believe that there should be no government; we should be able to work things out on a personal level.
There now we can have a discussion with some commen definitions.
:-)
Josh
There is a very agreeable form of anarchism which is not as well, known as the communist flavor.
ReplyDeleteAnarcho-Capitalists, support a society where every interaction is voluntary and personal property rights and the non-aggression principle are a priori.
They support the Austrian form of free market capitalism that the Libertarians also support. Not the corporatism we have now.
They are very rigorous in their assertion that all rules must be universal in order to be valid. i.e. if one person has a right to tax, then all people have the right to tax and thus there is no point in taxation. It's the ultimate in equality under the law. If the majority want something, like roads, schools, and defense, then the majority will pay for it willingly.
It's an interesting ideology which only fails in that it's impossible to implement in today's society... but in the future who knows.
McVee:
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily oil. A dictator's career length is inverse to his good relations to the US.
Saddam was an ally: Hung by the neck until dead.
Mubarak was an ally: Out on his ear.
Quadaffi was trying to normalize relations: On his way out.
Ahmad Dinnerjacket calls us the Great Satan and builds U-235 centrifuges: Gets stiff notes of protest.
Kim il Sung Threatens us with nukes and IRBMs: We send him aid.
Christopher -
ReplyDelete"Anarcho-Capitalists" and this statement "It's the ultimate in equality under the law" don't go together.
I "love" made up words and fraises that don't really discribe what it they're ment to describe. Anarcho-Capitalism is just at its heart a form of Laissez Faire Capitalism. For there to be laws there has to be a authoritative body to in force the law i.e., government or governing body, so therefore no anarchy.
:-)
Josh
Joshkie:
ReplyDeleteSpellcheck.
As for grammar, try reading it aloud, and see if it sounds like you want it to....
Josh... I love when people decry a theory they don't consider or even fully understand instead of asking what might have been a reasonable question.
ReplyDeleteNo rulers doesn't mean no rules, but you'd have to read Rothbard, Mises, Spooner, Hoppe, and Thoreau to understand why your assertion is unfounded.
Christapher -
ReplyDeleteTo have laws or rules you have to have an in forcing body. If not they are not laws or rules, they are suggestions.
I can say there is a law or rule that no idiots our allowed to make comments on this blog, but with out a way to enforce it It's just a wish I have.
Sigh...I did not decry the theory I made fun of it's name.
You made two assumptions in your last paragraph.
1. That I haven't read the authors you listed, and...
2. That I would agree with them and see the error of my ways if I had.
You know what they say about assuming things.
You want me to ask a question.
Here is one in this statement of yours, "Anarcho-Capitalists, support a society where every interaction is voluntary and personal property rights and the non-aggression principle are a priori." If every action is voluntary the then it's up to you if you want to follow the rules/laws or not, wright? How our personal property rights enforced if non-aggression principle is a priority? I love theories that to work rely on every one just doing what is right.
If everyone would just get along and do what is right the world would be a better place. See I just solved all the worlds problems. Now where's my Nobel Peace Prizes.
:-)
Josh