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Author Topic: A charge against states or "statism"  (Read 1085 times)
Dalkore (OP)
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December 19, 2012, 04:07:31 PM
 #1

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I don't want, and never wanted, to blame "governments".  They don't exist.  All there is, is people doing things.

I blame the belief in the virtue of a group who perpetrates organized aggression to parasitize everyone else.  People under the influence of this belief, whether members or victims of this group, are the ones who believe that governments exist.  Not me.

What you see in observable reality is nothing more than (a) a tiny minority of people telling you what to do and how much to pay so they will let you live unharmed (b) a gaggle of people who incorrectly believe that the first group are their saviors and protectors, and worship them as a result of this incorrect belief.

That is, to me, the essence of statism.  It is to recoil in horror when watching an aggressor murder another, then to watch the exact same scene with the aggressor in a blue costume, only to say "well, he had it coming".  It is to feel terrified about being robbed of half of what you have, but paying up every April 15th with an unease that is hard to explain away.  It is to talk shit about Halliburton while celebrating the paid murderers in green costumes.  It is to cry in awe as the President sheds tears for the death of 20 children, when he himself has ordered the firebombing of 2000.  It is that level of irrationality.  That is statism.

The problem isn't "totalitarianism".  It never was, not in the slightest.  The problem really isn't "aggressive people using too much aggression".  The problem is the belief that a bunch of aggressive people are virtuous and protect you.  That very belief, that the aggressive people are authorized and righteous to use aggression, is precisely what enables the aggressive people to murder everyone else, with total impunity.

If you think for a second that you live in a human farm, where you're farmed for your labor, and suppressed if you become a problem for the farmers, then the distinction between "totalitarianism" and "democracy" becomes very easy to figure out: both are merely methods to organize the farm.

The belief that a human being is righteously authorized to murder, brutalize, or cage another human being, as punishment for peacefully resisting an order, is not a totalitarian belief -- it is a statist belief.  Democide is not caused by totalitarianism -- it is caused by statism.

I quoted this from a user that believe in AnCap that he made this quite serious charge against the nation-state form of government.  I would like to get replies from people who don't believe that the AnCap system is better than nation-states.   These paragraphs above do in essence make-up part of the substance against the nation-state-mandatory-taxaxtion method of organizing society. 

Thoughts?

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December 20, 2012, 12:04:54 AM
 #2

wtf is AnCap?
myrkul
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December 20, 2012, 12:07:16 AM
 #3

wtf is AnCap?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

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December 20, 2012, 12:22:04 AM
 #4

wtf is nation-states?

Introducing constraints to the economy only serves to limit what can be economical.
Dalkore (OP)
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December 20, 2012, 12:26:45 AM
 #5

wtf is nation-states?

Nation-state

"The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit.[1] The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation state" implies that the two geographically coincide. Nation state formation took place at different times in different parts of the earth but has become the dominant form of state organization."

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December 20, 2012, 04:23:32 AM
 #6

I still think with only a theoretical AnCap society there is little debate to be had.  I believe we are in an engineering time for AnCap that will be realized through in a crypto-anarchist society.  Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are really the glue that allows for these crypto-economies to function.  There needs to be better ways to plug into these economies while maintaining ultimate anonymity.  While the use of Tor, bitcoin, and other technologies are easy to use for many people, they still have initial road blocks for other people.  The technologies just need to work.

Introducing constraints to the economy only serves to limit what can be economical.
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December 20, 2012, 04:31:15 AM
 #7

I love that not a single statist has replied yet, though they've been all over the gun and AnCap threads like white on rice. Shows their agenda: Shout down conflicting viewpoints, rather than subject their own to rational discussion.

Dalkore, what's it feel like to be the only intellectually honest proponent of government?

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Dalkore (OP)
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December 20, 2012, 05:36:03 AM
 #8

I love that not a single statist has replied yet, though they've been all over the gun and AnCap threads like white on rice. Shows their agenda: Shout down conflicting viewpoints, rather than subject their own to rational discussion.

Dalkore, what's it feel like to be the only intellectually honest proponent of government?

Sometimes it is hard to sit tight and be right.  Maybe they are just tired of your discredited philosophy and figure it is not even worth the time. 

What you don't realize is the was really to show the type of extreme and non-compromising views that exist in AnCap. 

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December 20, 2012, 05:44:04 AM
 #9

I love that not a single statist has replied yet, though they've been all over the gun and AnCap threads like white on rice. Shows their agenda: Shout down conflicting viewpoints, rather than subject their own to rational discussion.

Dalkore, what's it feel like to be the only intellectually honest proponent of government?

Sometimes it is hard to sit tight and be right.  Maybe they are just tired of your discredited philosophy and figure it is not even worth the time. 

What you don't realize is the was really to show the type of extreme and non-compromising views that exist in AnCap. 

I think not. Read the bold parts again.

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December 21, 2012, 05:52:46 AM
 #10

It is closer to religion than anything else.

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December 21, 2012, 11:24:15 AM
 #11

in germany, a country of 82 million people, the whole police force fired 36 shots total last year, resulting in 6 deaths.

ergo: sorry, i really dont feel like the target audience for this kind of propaganda  Wink
Dalkore (OP)
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December 24, 2012, 06:44:55 PM
 #12

^^^ The above post talks about the importance of an impartial 3rd party to judge criminal and civil infractions.   

What was interesting was AnCap's solution was that people would all volunteer to arbitration but it was made clear that people who didn't "volunteer" to arbitrate then they would likely find few people to trade with.   Interesting concept is "voluntary".  I sure felt like I had a choice. 

 

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December 24, 2012, 08:55:58 PM
 #13

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I blame the belief in the virtue of a group who perpetrates organized aggression to parasitize everyone else.

What that person is saying makes no sense. Organised aggression is a pretty big claim right from the beginning, but the "zero-government" crowd are never able to properly back it up. They just point to examples of corruption, e.g.: police brutality in their particular society, and they assume it must be the same everywhere else.

Who said anything about corruption? Anyone who buys things with their own money and uses it in the privacy of their own home is at risk of such oppression. Anyone who has a relationship not sanctioned by the government, who refuses to pay taxes to keep posessions of the person they were with after their death would face such an oppression.

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The belief that a human being is righteously authorized to murder, brutalize, or cage another human being, as punishment for peacefully resisting an order, is not a totalitarian belief -- it is a statist belief.  Democide is not caused by totalitarianism -- it is caused by statism.

Another big claim, and it sounds like a straw man to me. Who believes that a human being is righteously authorised to murder, brutalise, or cage another human being for peacefully resisting an order?

Anyone who lives under the rule of police, FBI, Interpol, MI6, SSF, or any military organization of another country. Wall Street occupiers have demostrated vividly that peaceful protests often result in you finding your hands secured with zipties, and yourself being carted off to a paddy waggon. People in other more opressive countries find themselves arrested and carted away for things like speaking out against the government, distributing information governments don't particularly like (Wikileaks), or peacefully enjoying things that they don't think the government should make illegal (alcohol used to be on that list).

However, the wording is interesting because in many cases of alleged 'violence', the person actually is authorised -- by society. In some cases, society as a group has collectively determined that for example detaining a person against their will might be acceptable, depending on circumstances. To prevent confusion, these circumstances are spelled out in things called laws.

The problem arises when a society decides for others that it "owns" them, and decides for others that they must follow its laws, even if that other has never agreed to it. Another problem is that, if laws were simply "common sense" things that were easy to follow and understand, I would agree with you. However, laws now require multiple thousand page volumes to list, and in many places "ignorance of the law is not a defense." So, unless you carry around law books to check your every action, the laws have become nothing but a way for the government to have an advantage over you. The situation has quite literally turned into one where everyone is probably breaking the law in some way, and it is simply up to the government to decide who should be punished. this is how totalitarian states operate.

A much more blatantly vivid example is this is how the Church during the Dark Ages operated. Sex, the most basic of human instincts and desires, was largely illegal. Not because it was unethical, or harmed the participants, but only because the church knew it was something everyone wanted and that everyone was doing it, and having such a law on the books allowed it to selectively pick and choose which undesirable characters it wished to send to the dungeons.

For example, even in peace-loving countries far, far away from America, serial killers have been killed by police. In such cases I'm sure the anti-government crowd would point to their own rule-book, the N.A.P., and say "yep, after aggression has already been initiated, it's LEGIT." So, they are in superficial agreement if certain activities in society seem compatible with their ultra-minimalist code of ethics. However, the important point is that their intentions are different. The N.A.P. crowd are the ones condoning and committing violence as intentional acts of retaliation or retribution, while the same acts committed by the rest of society are done based on rules that try to minimise cruelty and harm.

You don't think that taking out those who commit criminal acts out of society, or even a threat of retaliation or retribution, would minimize cruelty and harm in a society?

Let's take another example:
A thief breaks into someone's house and attempts to steal some stuff, but is caught red-handed. In a society with a State, there is certainly some kind of due process that ought to be followed. E.g.: the home owner calls the police, the police catch the thief, arrest him, lock him in a cell, and depending on the severity of the offence he might be remanded in custody until a court hearing, remanded at large until a court hearing, or maybe just discharged the next day. However, with no laws apart from the N.A.P., the home owner would grant himself "judge, jury, and executioner" rights, and commit some act of violence against the intruder because none of the intruder's rights have been suspended, forfeited, or even questioned. If the intruder maintains all of his/her "natural rights" at all times, then any act against them would indeed be a violation and cruel.

If you want a more precise example for AnCap, expand your example beyond borders. If you cross the border into China, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, and commit a crime there, you WILL be imprisoned, and likely killed, regardless of what your society thinks your rights out to be. That's even the case in some states and provinces within the countries you list, where it is legal to shoot your intruder. So, there really is no difference between the statist world you feel comfortable in, and the scary AnCap you are imagining.
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