Question for anarchists - How would you handle national defense?

[otherone]

Well, the 20% ended up winning, this time.

What time?

 

[otherone]

No, it never was, and never will be.

A group of guys who believe they can sign away my rights against my wishes can never be a moral decree.

But if you can secede, where's the problem?

 

[Travlyr]

No, it never was, and never will be.

A group of guys who believe they can sign away my rights against my wishes can never be a moral decree.

If it is not a moral document, never has been, and never will be, then why doesn't everybody just ignore it and we'll enjoy anarchy.

 

[Black Flag]

That would be a likely course of action for our enemy if guerrilla units composed of towns/communities kept harassing their ground troops.

It may all be hypothetical, but this is the type of theorizing you have to do in order to be confident in anarchy. You have to be prepared for the worst.

Vietnam, correct .... and who won?

You cannot defeat an enemy who will not surrender, nor has a political center which you can attack.

The Apache resisted the US army for decades - they could not be defeated.

They had no center of political power - leaders appeared by their action, not by decree - and when one died, another leader naturally arose from the people.

The US government defeated them by giving them cattle ... and designated one Apache the power to allocate the cattle.

All Apache resistance collapsed within a year .... now that the government could control but one man, the government controlled them all.

This is a lesson - and the strength of such resistance as the 4th and 5th Generation Warriors - they have no center of political power, and hence, impossible to defeat by such political means as war.
...but we are seriously straying from the topic.

 

[Black Flag]

I think we will have to agree to tip hats and part ways then, for I do not see us ever coming to agreement.


I believe that the days of "The Patriot" - one man against an invading army - are long gone due to ever advancing military technology.

And I argue, with fact, that the ever-advancing technology empowers the individual at the cost of the centralized State.

Today, a man can command the financial resources of a nation, and arguably can obtain weapons of magnitude in competition with any Nation state.

Technology is the rue of centralized power, which is why they have always sought to control it.

The Magna Carta came to be - along with the first breath of human rights - because of technology.
A long bow in the hands of a peasant was able to fell a knight at 300 paces... who had trained for 10 years, wearing today's financial equal of $2 million in armor.

The Declaration of Independence - a renewed breath of human rights - came to be because of technology.
The long gun, in the hands of a frontiersman, whose livelihood depended on his quick, deadly shot defeated the most powerful army the world had know to that time.

But the cat is out of the bag. Technology moves faster then than blundering bureaucrats can control it - the future is freedom of the individual, not slavery of the State.

 

[Black Flag]

What time?

1776

 

[Black Flag]

But if you can secede, where's the problem?

Didn't agree in the first place.

 

[otherone]

1776

Are you a minarchist, now?

 

[otherone]

Didn't agree in the first place.

huh?

 

[Black Flag]

Are you a minarchist, now?
.

Of course not.

But one must remember their time within their paradigm.

All the 'archy' that came before them -- and every one of the dissolved into tyranny.

It is reasonable for brilliant men to review them all and come to many different conclusions.

The one that held sway was: "It was because the people who were ruled had no say", so let's try that - let the governed govern.

Well, it failed too - for the same reason as all the rest.

The Right to Rule other men .... does not exist without inflicting violence on the non-violent.

Adding violence by doing violence where there was none increases violence.

Increase in violence disrupts social order.

Disruptions in social order collapses society.

Society in collapse revolts and replaces the old order.

...maybe next time, we will chose better than merely using another form violence over non-violent men.

PS: I didn't agree to the conditions, so claiming under the conditions I could leave simply does not apply

 

[mczerone]

Are you a minarchist, now?

The Revolutionary War was not fought to institute a new government. It was fought to throw the shackles of the old one off.

The minarchy wasn't instituted until after the war, and notably quite a few former patriot leaders stayed home rather than attend the continental congresses.

 

[otherone]

The Revolutionary War was not fought to institute a new government. It was fought to throw the shackles of the old one off.

The minarchy wasn't instituted until after the war, and notably quite a few former patriot leaders stayed home rather than attend the continental congresses.

So the individual state governments were "anarchy"?

 

[Black Flag]

So the individual state governments were "anarchy"?

Compared to the Empire from which they were born... yeah, I'm sure that is how King George saw them...

 

[otherone]

PS: I didn't agree to the conditions, so claiming under the conditions I could leave simply does not apply

So...you were born under the protection of a condition with which you don't agree, and having the option to disassociate is not adequate...what is your alternative?

 

[Black Flag]

So...you were born under the protection of a condition with which you don't agree, and having the option to disassociate is not adequate...what is your alternative?

No man can make an agreement on my behalf, nor can I impose my agreement upon the future, nor the unborn.

Thus, I do not accept the such done to me.

 

[Travlyr]

The united States of America were not anarchy unless governments create anarchy.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America​

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

 

[mczerone]

So the individual state governments were "anarchy"?

Honestly I responded just thinking that you were implying that the rebels were fighting in order to establish a minarchy in the US.

But to answer your question:

As amongst each other - YES. They may have been mini tyrannies within themselves, like Massachusetts, but once the King was overthrown there was no government making rules for who the people in the colonies needed to act with respect to people in other colonies.

 

[mczerone]

The united States of America were not anarchy unless governments create anarchy.

The two passages you imply are important:

"...and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"...and to provide new Guards for their future security."

While "Government" in the first passage is capitalized, where does it say that ALL people are bound? It says that only those people who have declared their independence need to institute a new Govt. And why should they be bound to each other after throwing off the old govt?

In fact "Safety and Happiness" are distinctly personal, subjective measures of quality of life - and to go along with "provid[ing] ... future security" - there is no way to institute a single system that meets every individual's needs in a manner that every individual is willing to support.

So to truly take the Dec. of Ind. to heart, you should embrace anarchy, where each individual person, or any group of people, can institute their own rules on their own lives and property.

 

[otherone]

Honestly I responded just thinking that you were implying that the rebels were fighting in order to establish a minarchy in the US.

I'm just asking questions. I don't see anything in the early US that wouldn't be an anarchist's dream...

 

[Black Flag]

I'm just asking questions. I don't see anything in the early US that wouldn't be an anarchist's dream...

And you'd probably be right.

As with all things, it is a matter of cost and a matter of tradeoffs.

The cost for the "little" bit still under coercion worth it? Probably not. Plus there was the whole wild west where one could migrate to .... and live free.... with all its reward and risk.