CDZ Anarchy: Moral Imperative or Inherently Immoral?

[Brian Blackwell]

Again you still need programmable automatons to get the system you want. Our system, properly used, is the best balance between government power and individual rights. The problem is that currently it is NOT being used properly, and government power is being concentrated at the federal level, and most importantly in the federal bureaucracy, as far away from the people as possible. Add in a judiciary that has over-stepped its bounds on numerous occasions and you have the situation you have now.

As for your personal interaction issues with authority figures, again you will always have bad actors unless you can prevent them from happening, i.e. the equivalent of borg drones.

I appreciate your recognition of the broken state of government, but that recognition stops short of the mark. Government may be broken according to the people's intent for it, but that's not the relevant concern. The intent itself is the problem. For a moment we'll put aside whether government should be what people want it to be, and focus on whether it ever could be what people want it to be.

I submit to you that it is government, not a free society, that needs automatons to make it work (though of course a free society would also work better with automatons). After all, a free society is no system at all; it's just man in his natural state (though now with the benefit of advanced technology). If it can be said to be a system at all, it is the system designed by the creator, or nature, or whatever power guides the organization of the universe.

We want people of moral virtue to take positions of power and make all their decisions based upon what's best for the people. But think about any other industry and consider - why do people do what they do? Does the pretzel manufacturer make pretzels from a noble desire for the populace to have snacks? No, he does it to make as much money as possible; i.e. to serve himself. This works out fine, since to achieve his goal he must provide a pretzel that satisfies the masses, and so it's win-win. This is the same for the overwhelming majority of people who do what they do (with the rare exceptions of the Mother Theresas of the world).

With government, we put up a sign that says, "Help Wanted: people to make rules the rest of us must follow; the goal being the overall benefit of the people at large". But what is offered in return for this? A salary, yes, but particularly at higher levels of government, the people who vie for these positions make way more money in their private endeavors. So what is the real appeal of the job? The power. Who shows up to take these jobs? Those who want power. In order for the system to work as intended, it would require that the people who apply for the position want power, but ONLY for the benefit of others; as to desire power for themselves (to profit or dominate) is considered a misuse of that power. Unlike the pretzel man, working in government for your own benefit is not win-win.

There are hundreds of high-level positions, and we suppose that they will be filled with hundreds of Mother Theresas, when in all areas of life we see that people take jobs or open businesses primarily for their own benefit. And do politicians need to satisfy the masses to succeed? Of course not. No one I've ever spoken with has been satisfied with government. Politicians just need to be charismatic, and spin their failures to look like honest mistakes, or failed attempts due to opposing forces, or even just present themselves as the lesser of two evils. Imagine the pretzel man offering such nonsense: "We know you've paid for pretzels but are getting rat tails instead. We are working hard to resolve this issue, and with your continued support, we know we can overcome this hardship!" He'd be out of business immediately. No one would keep spending their money on rat tails with the hope that someday they will get pretzels.

History shows us deception, cronyism, and corruption in governments everywhere, at all times, and yet we suppose that hope yet remains for the next snowball to survive the fires of hell. There is no chance that government can ever be what we want it to be, as long as humans are in those positions. Humans simply don't work that way. This is one tiny sliver of what's wrong with government as a concept, never mind the immensely important philosophical and moral considerations about inequality of rights, the fallacious superstition of authority, and the power of people to delegate rights they don't have themselves.

You are still railing for the replacement of something that is working, even imperfectly, for something that has never been successfully implemented. As the old saying goes, if you want to replace the fence in the middle of the field, first tell me why it was there in the first place.

Government may be that fence that you no longer want in the field, but tell me why we put it there first so we can figure out what will happen when we take it down.

I’m actually arguing for the abolition of something, not the replacement of it, but I get your point. I thought I did a fair job of explaining why government is not “working” earlier in our exchange, and most recently described why the “solution” that government represents repeatedly fails to solve, and will always do so. But I will attempt to answer in terms of this newly offered context...

The fence is there to mitigate the fact that people sometimes use their free will inappropriately by infringing upon the self-evident, inalienable rights of others. It also serves other organizational purposes, but I am not calling for the abolition of these functions, because these are not functions inherent to government, as I will explain.

Government does not protect people’s rights, or contribute to a more moral society. In fact, It does precisely the opposite. To see this clearly, we must first recognize what government actually is. Government is the “right” to use coercive threats (backed up by violence) to gain compliance. That is all. Please refer to my most recent reply to Xelor above for a more thorough explanation.

Another way of saying this is that government is an institutionalized exemption from morality. It claims the right to do things that would be immoral if anyone else did them. All functions it performs that would be morally acceptable if anyone else did them are not inherent to government, and therefore do not require government.

Defending the innocent is not inherent to government; anyone has the right to do that. Organizing the building of roads, likewise, does not require governmental authority, as it is perfectly moral to cooperate toward that goal. However, demanding a portion of your labor via threat of violence (euphemized as “taxation”) does require governmental authority because it would be immoral if anyone else did it. Throwing you in a cage for possessing a certain plant (drug arrests), insisting you fly across the world with a gun to kill people (conscription), stopping you on the road and checking to see if you’ve been drinking alcohol (sobriety checkpoints), violently forbidding you to pass an arbitray and immaginary line (border control) etc., are functions inherent to government because they are immoral if performed by an individual not shielded by the fallacious concept of “authority”.

This demonstrates how government is inherently immoral, and so cannot lead to a more moral society. It also demonstrates how it encourages the usage of free will to infringe upon the rights of others (exacerbated by the democratic process whereby “citizens” vie for control of the governmental sword of power to exact their will on the private activities of others in matters such as personal health choices (drugs, abortion), association (the choice to not hire an elderly person), financial transactions (prostitution, gambling), freedom of movement (immigration), even the decision whether or not to add a handicap ramp outside your store).

The fence does not serve the purpose for which it was built, and is inherently antagonistic to the stated goal.

 

[martybegan]

Again you still need programmable automatons to get the system you want. Our system, properly used, is the best balance between government power and individual rights. The problem is that currently it is NOT being used properly, and government power is being concentrated at the federal level, and most importantly in the federal bureaucracy, as far away from the people as possible. Add in a judiciary that has over-stepped its bounds on numerous occasions and you have the situation you have now.

As for your personal interaction issues with authority figures, again you will always have bad actors unless you can prevent them from happening, i.e. the equivalent of borg drones.

I appreciate your recognition of the broken state of government, but that recognition stops short of the mark. Government may be broken according to the people's intent for it, but that's not the relevant concern. The intent itself is the problem. For a moment we'll put aside whether government should be what people want it to be, and focus on whether it ever could be what people want it to be.

I submit to you that it is government, not a free society, that needs automatons to make it work (though of course a free society would also work better with automatons). After all, a free society is no system at all; it's just man in his natural state (though now with the benefit of advanced technology). If it can be said to be a system at all, it is the system designed by the creator, or nature, or whatever power guides the organization of the universe.

We want people of moral virtue to take positions of power and make all their decisions based upon what's best for the people. But think about any other industry and consider - why do people do what they do? Does the pretzel manufacturer make pretzels from a noble desire for the populace to have snacks? No, he does it to make as much money as possible; i.e. to serve himself. This works out fine, since to achieve his goal he must provide a pretzel that satisfies the masses, and so it's win-win. This is the same for the overwhelming majority of people who do what they do (with the rare exceptions of the Mother Theresas of the world).

With government, we put up a sign that says, "Help Wanted: people to make rules the rest of us must follow; the goal being the overall benefit of the people at large". But what is offered in return for this? A salary, yes, but particularly at higher levels of government, the people who vie for these positions make way more money in their private endeavors. So what is the real appeal of the job? The power. Who shows up to take these jobs? Those who want power. In order for the system to work as intended, it would require that the people who apply for the position want power, but ONLY for the benefit of others; as to desire power for themselves (to profit or dominate) is considered a misuse of that power. Unlike the pretzel man, working in government for your own benefit is not win-win.

There are hundreds of high-level positions, and we suppose that they will be filled with hundreds of Mother Theresas, when in all areas of life we see that people take jobs or open businesses primarily for their own benefit. And do politicians need to satisfy the masses to succeed? Of course not. No one I've ever spoken with has been satisfied with government. Politicians just need to be charismatic, and spin their failures to look like honest mistakes, or failed attempts due to opposing forces, or even just present themselves as the lesser of two evils. Imagine the pretzel man offering such nonsense: "We know you've paid for pretzels but are getting rat tails instead. We are working hard to resolve this issue, and with your continued support, we know we can overcome this hardship!" He'd be out of business immediately. No one would keep spending their money on rat tails with the hope that someday they will get pretzels.

History shows us deception, cronyism, and corruption in governments everywhere, at all times, and yet we suppose that hope yet remains for the next snowball to survive the fires of hell. There is no chance that government can ever be what we want it to be, as long as humans are in those positions. Humans simply don't work that way. This is one tiny sliver of what's wrong with government as a concept, never mind the immensely important philosophical and moral considerations about inequality of rights, the fallacious superstition of authority, and the power of people to delegate rights they don't have themselves.

You are still railing for the replacement of something that is working, even imperfectly, for something that has never been successfully implemented. As the old saying goes, if you want to replace the fence in the middle of the field, first tell me why it was there in the first place.

Government may be that fence that you no longer want in the field, but tell me why we put it there first so we can figure out what will happen when we take it down.

I’m actually arguing for the abolition of something, not the replacement of it, but I get your point. I thought I did a fair job of explaining why government is not “working” earlier in our exchange, and most recently described why the “solution” that government represents repeatedly fails to solve, and will always do so. But I will attempt to answer in terms of this newly offered context...

The fence is there to mitigate the fact that people sometimes use their free will inappropriately by infringing upon the self-evident, inalienable rights of others. It also serves other organizational purposes, but I am not calling for the abolition of these functions, because these are not functions inherent to government, as I will explain.

Government does not protect people’s rights, or contribute to a more moral society. In fact, It does precisely the opposite. To see this clearly, we must first recognize what government actually is. Government is the “right” to use coercive threats (backed up by violence) to gain compliance. That is all. Please refer to my most recent reply to Xelor above for a more thorough explanation.

Another way of saying this is that government is an institutionalized exemption from morality. It claims the right to do things that would be immoral if anyone else did them. All functions it performs that would be morally acceptable if anyone else did them are not inherent to government, and therefore do not require government.

Defending the innocent is not inherent to government; anyone has the right to do that. Organizing the building of roads, likewise, does not require governmental authority, as it is perfectly moral to cooperate toward that goal. However, demanding a portion of your labor via threat of violence (euphemized as “taxation”) does require governmental authority because it would be immoral if anyone else did it. Throwing you in a cage for possessing a certain plant (drug arrests), insisting you fly across the world with a gun to kill people (conscription), stopping you on the road and checking to see if you’ve been drinking alcohol (sobriety checkpoints), violently forbidding you to pass an arbitray and immaginary line (border control) etc., are functions inherent to government because they are immoral if performed by an individual not shielded by the fallacious concept of “authority”.

This demonstrates how government is inherently immoral, and so cannot lead to a more moral society. It also demonstrates how it encourages the usage of free will to infringe upon the rights of others (exacerbated by the democratic process whereby “citizens” vie for control of the governmental sword of power to exact their will on the private activities of others in matters such as personal health choices (drugs, abortion), association (the choice to not hire an elderly person), financial transactions (prostitution, gambling), freedom of movement (immigration), even the decision whether or not to add a handicap ramp outside your store).

The fence does not serve the purpose for which it was built, and is inherently antagonistic to the stated goal.

You are equating being told to do something you don't want to do as "immoral" without examining the morality of the acts in question. I disagree that any form of government is automatically immoral just because it may clamp down on the more base and selfish aspects of human nature, even if it may also clamp down on some of the more harmless ones as a side effect.

And when you argue for the abolition of government, you ARE advocating for a replacement, because something has to fill the vacuum in a real world situation.

it would be all "yay! we got rid of the central government authority and we can live as we want!" and then everyone starts fighting over how they want to live when those concepts come into conflict.

You reach for the decapitation solution to government overreach when just a haircut might get better results.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

Again you still need programmable automatons to get the system you want. Our system, properly used, is the best balance between government power and individual rights. The problem is that currently it is NOT being used properly, and government power is being concentrated at the federal level, and most importantly in the federal bureaucracy, as far away from the people as possible. Add in a judiciary that has over-stepped its bounds on numerous occasions and you have the situation you have now.

As for your personal interaction issues with authority figures, again you will always have bad actors unless you can prevent them from happening, i.e. the equivalent of borg drones.

I appreciate your recognition of the broken state of government, but that recognition stops short of the mark. Government may be broken according to the people's intent for it, but that's not the relevant concern. The intent itself is the problem. For a moment we'll put aside whether government should be what people want it to be, and focus on whether it ever could be what people want it to be.

I submit to you that it is government, not a free society, that needs automatons to make it work (though of course a free society would also work better with automatons). After all, a free society is no system at all; it's just man in his natural state (though now with the benefit of advanced technology). If it can be said to be a system at all, it is the system designed by the creator, or nature, or whatever power guides the organization of the universe.

We want people of moral virtue to take positions of power and make all their decisions based upon what's best for the people. But think about any other industry and consider - why do people do what they do? Does the pretzel manufacturer make pretzels from a noble desire for the populace to have snacks? No, he does it to make as much money as possible; i.e. to serve himself. This works out fine, since to achieve his goal he must provide a pretzel that satisfies the masses, and so it's win-win. This is the same for the overwhelming majority of people who do what they do (with the rare exceptions of the Mother Theresas of the world).

With government, we put up a sign that says, "Help Wanted: people to make rules the rest of us must follow; the goal being the overall benefit of the people at large". But what is offered in return for this? A salary, yes, but particularly at higher levels of government, the people who vie for these positions make way more money in their private endeavors. So what is the real appeal of the job? The power. Who shows up to take these jobs? Those who want power. In order for the system to work as intended, it would require that the people who apply for the position want power, but ONLY for the benefit of others; as to desire power for themselves (to profit or dominate) is considered a misuse of that power. Unlike the pretzel man, working in government for your own benefit is not win-win.

There are hundreds of high-level positions, and we suppose that they will be filled with hundreds of Mother Theresas, when in all areas of life we see that people take jobs or open businesses primarily for their own benefit. And do politicians need to satisfy the masses to succeed? Of course not. No one I've ever spoken with has been satisfied with government. Politicians just need to be charismatic, and spin their failures to look like honest mistakes, or failed attempts due to opposing forces, or even just present themselves as the lesser of two evils. Imagine the pretzel man offering such nonsense: "We know you've paid for pretzels but are getting rat tails instead. We are working hard to resolve this issue, and with your continued support, we know we can overcome this hardship!" He'd be out of business immediately. No one would keep spending their money on rat tails with the hope that someday they will get pretzels.

History shows us deception, cronyism, and corruption in governments everywhere, at all times, and yet we suppose that hope yet remains for the next snowball to survive the fires of hell. There is no chance that government can ever be what we want it to be, as long as humans are in those positions. Humans simply don't work that way. This is one tiny sliver of what's wrong with government as a concept, never mind the immensely important philosophical and moral considerations about inequality of rights, the fallacious superstition of authority, and the power of people to delegate rights they don't have themselves.

You are still railing for the replacement of something that is working, even imperfectly, for something that has never been successfully implemented. As the old saying goes, if you want to replace the fence in the middle of the field, first tell me why it was there in the first place.

Government may be that fence that you no longer want in the field, but tell me why we put it there first so we can figure out what will happen when we take it down.

I’m actually arguing for the abolition of something, not the replacement of it, but I get your point. I thought I did a fair job of explaining why government is not “working” earlier in our exchange, and most recently described why the “solution” that government represents repeatedly fails to solve, and will always do so. But I will attempt to answer in terms of this newly offered context...

The fence is there to mitigate the fact that people sometimes use their free will inappropriately by infringing upon the self-evident, inalienable rights of others. It also serves other organizational purposes, but I am not calling for the abolition of these functions, because these are not functions inherent to government, as I will explain.

Government does not protect people’s rights, or contribute to a more moral society. In fact, It does precisely the opposite. To see this clearly, we must first recognize what government actually is. Government is the “right” to use coercive threats (backed up by violence) to gain compliance. That is all. Please refer to my most recent reply to Xelor above for a more thorough explanation.

Another way of saying this is that government is an institutionalized exemption from morality. It claims the right to do things that would be immoral if anyone else did them. All functions it performs that would be morally acceptable if anyone else did them are not inherent to government, and therefore do not require government.

Defending the innocent is not inherent to government; anyone has the right to do that. Organizing the building of roads, likewise, does not require governmental authority, as it is perfectly moral to cooperate toward that goal. However, demanding a portion of your labor via threat of violence (euphemized as “taxation”) does require governmental authority because it would be immoral if anyone else did it. Throwing you in a cage for possessing a certain plant (drug arrests), insisting you fly across the world with a gun to kill people (conscription), stopping you on the road and checking to see if you’ve been drinking alcohol (sobriety checkpoints), violently forbidding you to pass an arbitray and immaginary line (border control) etc., are functions inherent to government because they are immoral if performed by an individual not shielded by the fallacious concept of “authority”.

This demonstrates how government is inherently immoral, and so cannot lead to a more moral society. It also demonstrates how it encourages the usage of free will to infringe upon the rights of others (exacerbated by the democratic process whereby “citizens” vie for control of the governmental sword of power to exact their will on the private activities of others in matters such as personal health choices (drugs, abortion), association (the choice to not hire an elderly person), financial transactions (prostitution, gambling), freedom of movement (immigration), even the decision whether or not to add a handicap ramp outside your store).

The fence does not serve the purpose for which it was built, and is inherently antagonistic to the stated goal.

You are equating being told to do something you don't want to do as "immoral" without examining the morality of the acts in question. I disagree that any form of government is automatically immoral just because it may clamp down on the more base and selfish aspects of human nature, even if it may also clamp down on some of the more harmless ones as a side effect.

And when you argue for the abolition of government, you ARE advocating for a replacement, because something has to fill the vacuum in a real world situation.

it would be all "yay! we got rid of the central government authority and we can live as we want!" and then everyone starts fighting over how they want to live when those concepts come into conflict.

You reach for the decapitation solution to government overreach when just a haircut might get better results.

I understand why it seems that way from your perspective, because I used to think from that perspective myself. No surprise, since we’ve been utterly immersed in it our whole lives.

But it’s not merely a practical matter of “which way is better?”. I’m challenging the validity (and thus the very existence) of governmental authority. In addition, I’m pointing out how supporting an inherently immoral and fundamentally non-existent authority is an immoral act in itself.

Though I believe things would be better without government, that’s really beside the point. There is simply no valid basis for the authority of government - it is a mass hallucination. We’ve covered this, in part, throughout the thread that preceded this one.

But I’ve noticed that you hold to your position without directly addressing the objections I’ve made. Do you have answers to these objections? I know it’s uncomfortable to face the prospect of a world without government, but would you willing to face that discomfort and adopt an alternative view if you became convinced it was a logical necessity for you to do so?

In regard to the first paragraph of your comment, I have made an argument for why government is always immoral - because its only inherent quality is the “right” to do things that are generally considered immoral when anyone else does them. This would need to be addressed for one to reasonably reject the inherent immorality of government (and thus the moral imperative of anarchy).

 

[martybegan]

Again you still need programmable automatons to get the system you want. Our system, properly used, is the best balance between government power and individual rights. The problem is that currently it is NOT being used properly, and government power is being concentrated at the federal level, and most importantly in the federal bureaucracy, as far away from the people as possible. Add in a judiciary that has over-stepped its bounds on numerous occasions and you have the situation you have now.

As for your personal interaction issues with authority figures, again you will always have bad actors unless you can prevent them from happening, i.e. the equivalent of borg drones.

I appreciate your recognition of the broken state of government, but that recognition stops short of the mark. Government may be broken according to the people's intent for it, but that's not the relevant concern. The intent itself is the problem. For a moment we'll put aside whether government should be what people want it to be, and focus on whether it ever could be what people want it to be.

I submit to you that it is government, not a free society, that needs automatons to make it work (though of course a free society would also work better with automatons). After all, a free society is no system at all; it's just man in his natural state (though now with the benefit of advanced technology). If it can be said to be a system at all, it is the system designed by the creator, or nature, or whatever power guides the organization of the universe.

We want people of moral virtue to take positions of power and make all their decisions based upon what's best for the people. But think about any other industry and consider - why do people do what they do? Does the pretzel manufacturer make pretzels from a noble desire for the populace to have snacks? No, he does it to make as much money as possible; i.e. to serve himself. This works out fine, since to achieve his goal he must provide a pretzel that satisfies the masses, and so it's win-win. This is the same for the overwhelming majority of people who do what they do (with the rare exceptions of the Mother Theresas of the world).

With government, we put up a sign that says, "Help Wanted: people to make rules the rest of us must follow; the goal being the overall benefit of the people at large". But what is offered in return for this? A salary, yes, but particularly at higher levels of government, the people who vie for these positions make way more money in their private endeavors. So what is the real appeal of the job? The power. Who shows up to take these jobs? Those who want power. In order for the system to work as intended, it would require that the people who apply for the position want power, but ONLY for the benefit of others; as to desire power for themselves (to profit or dominate) is considered a misuse of that power. Unlike the pretzel man, working in government for your own benefit is not win-win.

There are hundreds of high-level positions, and we suppose that they will be filled with hundreds of Mother Theresas, when in all areas of life we see that people take jobs or open businesses primarily for their own benefit. And do politicians need to satisfy the masses to succeed? Of course not. No one I've ever spoken with has been satisfied with government. Politicians just need to be charismatic, and spin their failures to look like honest mistakes, or failed attempts due to opposing forces, or even just present themselves as the lesser of two evils. Imagine the pretzel man offering such nonsense: "We know you've paid for pretzels but are getting rat tails instead. We are working hard to resolve this issue, and with your continued support, we know we can overcome this hardship!" He'd be out of business immediately. No one would keep spending their money on rat tails with the hope that someday they will get pretzels.

History shows us deception, cronyism, and corruption in governments everywhere, at all times, and yet we suppose that hope yet remains for the next snowball to survive the fires of hell. There is no chance that government can ever be what we want it to be, as long as humans are in those positions. Humans simply don't work that way. This is one tiny sliver of what's wrong with government as a concept, never mind the immensely important philosophical and moral considerations about inequality of rights, the fallacious superstition of authority, and the power of people to delegate rights they don't have themselves.

You are still railing for the replacement of something that is working, even imperfectly, for something that has never been successfully implemented. As the old saying goes, if you want to replace the fence in the middle of the field, first tell me why it was there in the first place.

Government may be that fence that you no longer want in the field, but tell me why we put it there first so we can figure out what will happen when we take it down.

I’m actually arguing for the abolition of something, not the replacement of it, but I get your point. I thought I did a fair job of explaining why government is not “working” earlier in our exchange, and most recently described why the “solution” that government represents repeatedly fails to solve, and will always do so. But I will attempt to answer in terms of this newly offered context...

The fence is there to mitigate the fact that people sometimes use their free will inappropriately by infringing upon the self-evident, inalienable rights of others. It also serves other organizational purposes, but I am not calling for the abolition of these functions, because these are not functions inherent to government, as I will explain.

Government does not protect people’s rights, or contribute to a more moral society. In fact, It does precisely the opposite. To see this clearly, we must first recognize what government actually is. Government is the “right” to use coercive threats (backed up by violence) to gain compliance. That is all. Please refer to my most recent reply to Xelor above for a more thorough explanation.

Another way of saying this is that government is an institutionalized exemption from morality. It claims the right to do things that would be immoral if anyone else did them. All functions it performs that would be morally acceptable if anyone else did them are not inherent to government, and therefore do not require government.

Defending the innocent is not inherent to government; anyone has the right to do that. Organizing the building of roads, likewise, does not require governmental authority, as it is perfectly moral to cooperate toward that goal. However, demanding a portion of your labor via threat of violence (euphemized as “taxation”) does require governmental authority because it would be immoral if anyone else did it. Throwing you in a cage for possessing a certain plant (drug arrests), insisting you fly across the world with a gun to kill people (conscription), stopping you on the road and checking to see if you’ve been drinking alcohol (sobriety checkpoints), violently forbidding you to pass an arbitray and immaginary line (border control) etc., are functions inherent to government because they are immoral if performed by an individual not shielded by the fallacious concept of “authority”.

This demonstrates how government is inherently immoral, and so cannot lead to a more moral society. It also demonstrates how it encourages the usage of free will to infringe upon the rights of others (exacerbated by the democratic process whereby “citizens” vie for control of the governmental sword of power to exact their will on the private activities of others in matters such as personal health choices (drugs, abortion), association (the choice to not hire an elderly person), financial transactions (prostitution, gambling), freedom of movement (immigration), even the decision whether or not to add a handicap ramp outside your store).

The fence does not serve the purpose for which it was built, and is inherently antagonistic to the stated goal.

You are equating being told to do something you don't want to do as "immoral" without examining the morality of the acts in question. I disagree that any form of government is automatically immoral just because it may clamp down on the more base and selfish aspects of human nature, even if it may also clamp down on some of the more harmless ones as a side effect.

And when you argue for the abolition of government, you ARE advocating for a replacement, because something has to fill the vacuum in a real world situation.

it would be all "yay! we got rid of the central government authority and we can live as we want!" and then everyone starts fighting over how they want to live when those concepts come into conflict.

You reach for the decapitation solution to government overreach when just a haircut might get better results.

I understand why it seems that way from your perspective, because I used to think from that perspective myself. No surprise, since we’ve been utterly immersed in it our whole lives.

But it’s not merely a practical matter of “which way is better?”. I’m challenging the validity (and thus the very existence) of governmental authority. In addition, I’m pointing out how supporting an inherently immoral and fundamentally non-existent authority is an immoral act in itself.

Though I believe things would be better without government, that’s really beside the point. There is simply no valid basis for the authority of government - it is a mass hallucination. We’ve covered this, in part, throughout the thread that preceded this one.

But I’ve noticed that you hold to your position without directly addressing the objections I’ve made. Do you have answers to these objections? I know it’s uncomfortable to face the prospect of a world without government, but would you willing to face that discomfort and adopt an alternative view if you became convinced it was a logical necessity for you to do so?

In regard to the first paragraph of your comment, I have made an argument for why government is always immoral - because its only inherent quality is the “right” to do things that are generally considered immoral when anyone else does them. This would need to be addressed for one to reasonably reject the inherent immorality of government (and thus the moral imperative of anarchy).

Please do go with the "I'm woke, you are not" line of argument, it's degrading to the person you are arguing with, and it does not equate with proof that your view is in any way more valid than the other persons.

It is not being uncomfortable, it is my Engineer's brain saying that it would never work, that you would create more misery than ever seen before, and that there is nothing immoral about people deciding to cede some of their power to another authority as a concept, but immorality can come out of it via application.

I am a fan of limited government, not big government, and I see a valid reason and a moral reason to have such a limited government.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

I appreciate your recognition of the broken state of government, but that recognition stops short of the mark. Government may be broken according to the people's intent for it, but that's not the relevant concern. The intent itself is the problem. For a moment we'll put aside whether government should be what people want it to be, and focus on whether it ever could be what people want it to be.

I submit to you that it is government, not a free society, that needs automatons to make it work (though of course a free society would also work better with automatons). After all, a free society is no system at all; it's just man in his natural state (though now with the benefit of advanced technology). If it can be said to be a system at all, it is the system designed by the creator, or nature, or whatever power guides the organization of the universe.

We want people of moral virtue to take positions of power and make all their decisions based upon what's best for the people. But think about any other industry and consider - why do people do what they do? Does the pretzel manufacturer make pretzels from a noble desire for the populace to have snacks? No, he does it to make as much money as possible; i.e. to serve himself. This works out fine, since to achieve his goal he must provide a pretzel that satisfies the masses, and so it's win-win. This is the same for the overwhelming majority of people who do what they do (with the rare exceptions of the Mother Theresas of the world).

With government, we put up a sign that says, "Help Wanted: people to make rules the rest of us must follow; the goal being the overall benefit of the people at large". But what is offered in return for this? A salary, yes, but particularly at higher levels of government, the people who vie for these positions make way more money in their private endeavors. So what is the real appeal of the job? The power. Who shows up to take these jobs? Those who want power. In order for the system to work as intended, it would require that the people who apply for the position want power, but ONLY for the benefit of others; as to desire power for themselves (to profit or dominate) is considered a misuse of that power. Unlike the pretzel man, working in government for your own benefit is not win-win.

There are hundreds of high-level positions, and we suppose that they will be filled with hundreds of Mother Theresas, when in all areas of life we see that people take jobs or open businesses primarily for their own benefit. And do politicians need to satisfy the masses to succeed? Of course not. No one I've ever spoken with has been satisfied with government. Politicians just need to be charismatic, and spin their failures to look like honest mistakes, or failed attempts due to opposing forces, or even just present themselves as the lesser of two evils. Imagine the pretzel man offering such nonsense: "We know you've paid for pretzels but are getting rat tails instead. We are working hard to resolve this issue, and with your continued support, we know we can overcome this hardship!" He'd be out of business immediately. No one would keep spending their money on rat tails with the hope that someday they will get pretzels.

History shows us deception, cronyism, and corruption in governments everywhere, at all times, and yet we suppose that hope yet remains for the next snowball to survive the fires of hell. There is no chance that government can ever be what we want it to be, as long as humans are in those positions. Humans simply don't work that way. This is one tiny sliver of what's wrong with government as a concept, never mind the immensely important philosophical and moral considerations about inequality of rights, the fallacious superstition of authority, and the power of people to delegate rights they don't have themselves.

You are still railing for the replacement of something that is working, even imperfectly, for something that has never been successfully implemented. As the old saying goes, if you want to replace the fence in the middle of the field, first tell me why it was there in the first place.

Government may be that fence that you no longer want in the field, but tell me why we put it there first so we can figure out what will happen when we take it down.

I’m actually arguing for the abolition of something, not the replacement of it, but I get your point. I thought I did a fair job of explaining why government is not “working” earlier in our exchange, and most recently described why the “solution” that government represents repeatedly fails to solve, and will always do so. But I will attempt to answer in terms of this newly offered context...

The fence is there to mitigate the fact that people sometimes use their free will inappropriately by infringing upon the self-evident, inalienable rights of others. It also serves other organizational purposes, but I am not calling for the abolition of these functions, because these are not functions inherent to government, as I will explain.

Government does not protect people’s rights, or contribute to a more moral society. In fact, It does precisely the opposite. To see this clearly, we must first recognize what government actually is. Government is the “right” to use coercive threats (backed up by violence) to gain compliance. That is all. Please refer to my most recent reply to Xelor above for a more thorough explanation.

Another way of saying this is that government is an institutionalized exemption from morality. It claims the right to do things that would be immoral if anyone else did them. All functions it performs that would be morally acceptable if anyone else did them are not inherent to government, and therefore do not require government.

Defending the innocent is not inherent to government; anyone has the right to do that. Organizing the building of roads, likewise, does not require governmental authority, as it is perfectly moral to cooperate toward that goal. However, demanding a portion of your labor via threat of violence (euphemized as “taxation”) does require governmental authority because it would be immoral if anyone else did it. Throwing you in a cage for possessing a certain plant (drug arrests), insisting you fly across the world with a gun to kill people (conscription), stopping you on the road and checking to see if you’ve been drinking alcohol (sobriety checkpoints), violently forbidding you to pass an arbitray and immaginary line (border control) etc., are functions inherent to government because they are immoral if performed by an individual not shielded by the fallacious concept of “authority”.

This demonstrates how government is inherently immoral, and so cannot lead to a more moral society. It also demonstrates how it encourages the usage of free will to infringe upon the rights of others (exacerbated by the democratic process whereby “citizens” vie for control of the governmental sword of power to exact their will on the private activities of others in matters such as personal health choices (drugs, abortion), association (the choice to not hire an elderly person), financial transactions (prostitution, gambling), freedom of movement (immigration), even the decision whether or not to add a handicap ramp outside your store).

The fence does not serve the purpose for which it was built, and is inherently antagonistic to the stated goal.

You are equating being told to do something you don't want to do as "immoral" without examining the morality of the acts in question. I disagree that any form of government is automatically immoral just because it may clamp down on the more base and selfish aspects of human nature, even if it may also clamp down on some of the more harmless ones as a side effect.

And when you argue for the abolition of government, you ARE advocating for a replacement, because something has to fill the vacuum in a real world situation.

it would be all "yay! we got rid of the central government authority and we can live as we want!" and then everyone starts fighting over how they want to live when those concepts come into conflict.

You reach for the decapitation solution to government overreach when just a haircut might get better results.

I understand why it seems that way from your perspective, because I used to think from that perspective myself. No surprise, since we’ve been utterly immersed in it our whole lives.

But it’s not merely a practical matter of “which way is better?”. I’m challenging the validity (and thus the very existence) of governmental authority. In addition, I’m pointing out how supporting an inherently immoral and fundamentally non-existent authority is an immoral act in itself.

Though I believe things would be better without government, that’s really beside the point. There is simply no valid basis for the authority of government - it is a mass hallucination. We’ve covered this, in part, throughout the thread that preceded this one.

But I’ve noticed that you hold to your position without directly addressing the objections I’ve made. Do you have answers to these objections? I know it’s uncomfortable to face the prospect of a world without government, but would you willing to face that discomfort and adopt an alternative view if you became convinced it was a logical necessity for you to do so?

In regard to the first paragraph of your comment, I have made an argument for why government is always immoral - because its only inherent quality is the “right” to do things that are generally considered immoral when anyone else does them. This would need to be addressed for one to reasonably reject the inherent immorality of government (and thus the moral imperative of anarchy).

Please do go with the "I'm woke, you are not" line of argument, it's degrading to the person you are arguing with, and it does not equate with proof that your view is in any way more valid than the other persons.

It is not being uncomfortable, it is my Engineer's brain saying that it would never work, that you would create more misery than ever seen before, and that there is nothing immoral about people deciding to cede some of their power to another authority as a concept, but immorality can come out of it via application.

I am a fan of limited government, not big government, and I see a valid reason and a moral reason to have such a limited government.

Again, people do not “cede some of their power” to government, they attempt to magically create new powers that no individual among them have. This has yet to be addressed - how do you justify the delegation of powers such as the “right” to tax, when you do not have that power yourself?

 

[evenflow1969]

This thread follows the conclusion of a conversation between myself and Xelor on the following thread:

CDZ - The Government of No Authority, Part 1: Law and Morality


The transitional comment is provided here for easy reference:

"I have claimed that any moral person must conclude that governmental law is of no authority and therefore to support it would be both illogical and immoral. Illogical because it asserts a non-existent authority, and immoral because it demands that a person act immorally where divergences with their moral standard occur, while contributing nothing where they align (subsequently providing only the potential for net immorality).

This suggests that we must adopt the anarchist position by moral necessity; however, the proposition that anarchy is inherently immoral is antithetical to this conclusion. How do we resolve this contradiction?"

Simple your conclusion is wrong. Your statement is wrong, governmental law does have authority and so do natural laws. True Chaos and anarchy were only possible prior to the physical laws of the universe. It is not a moral imperitive to strive for an impossability. If order does not come out of chaos then there is nothing here to witness the chaos. Just because one does not recognize an authority does not mean one is not effected by it. For as long as the more massive elements atract the less massive rules and order will come out of chaos whether they are recognized or not. Our thought is ruled by a physical world the rules of the physical world can not be kept out of our thought rules will always follow!

 

[martybegan]

You are still railing for the replacement of something that is working, even imperfectly, for something that has never been successfully implemented. As the old saying goes, if you want to replace the fence in the middle of the field, first tell me why it was there in the first place.

Government may be that fence that you no longer want in the field, but tell me why we put it there first so we can figure out what will happen when we take it down.

I’m actually arguing for the abolition of something, not the replacement of it, but I get your point. I thought I did a fair job of explaining why government is not “working” earlier in our exchange, and most recently described why the “solution” that government represents repeatedly fails to solve, and will always do so. But I will attempt to answer in terms of this newly offered context...

The fence is there to mitigate the fact that people sometimes use their free will inappropriately by infringing upon the self-evident, inalienable rights of others. It also serves other organizational purposes, but I am not calling for the abolition of these functions, because these are not functions inherent to government, as I will explain.

Government does not protect people’s rights, or contribute to a more moral society. In fact, It does precisely the opposite. To see this clearly, we must first recognize what government actually is. Government is the “right” to use coercive threats (backed up by violence) to gain compliance. That is all. Please refer to my most recent reply to Xelor above for a more thorough explanation.

Another way of saying this is that government is an institutionalized exemption from morality. It claims the right to do things that would be immoral if anyone else did them. All functions it performs that would be morally acceptable if anyone else did them are not inherent to government, and therefore do not require government.

Defending the innocent is not inherent to government; anyone has the right to do that. Organizing the building of roads, likewise, does not require governmental authority, as it is perfectly moral to cooperate toward that goal. However, demanding a portion of your labor via threat of violence (euphemized as “taxation”) does require governmental authority because it would be immoral if anyone else did it. Throwing you in a cage for possessing a certain plant (drug arrests), insisting you fly across the world with a gun to kill people (conscription), stopping you on the road and checking to see if you’ve been drinking alcohol (sobriety checkpoints), violently forbidding you to pass an arbitray and immaginary line (border control) etc., are functions inherent to government because they are immoral if performed by an individual not shielded by the fallacious concept of “authority”.

This demonstrates how government is inherently immoral, and so cannot lead to a more moral society. It also demonstrates how it encourages the usage of free will to infringe upon the rights of others (exacerbated by the democratic process whereby “citizens” vie for control of the governmental sword of power to exact their will on the private activities of others in matters such as personal health choices (drugs, abortion), association (the choice to not hire an elderly person), financial transactions (prostitution, gambling), freedom of movement (immigration), even the decision whether or not to add a handicap ramp outside your store).

The fence does not serve the purpose for which it was built, and is inherently antagonistic to the stated goal.

You are equating being told to do something you don't want to do as "immoral" without examining the morality of the acts in question. I disagree that any form of government is automatically immoral just because it may clamp down on the more base and selfish aspects of human nature, even if it may also clamp down on some of the more harmless ones as a side effect.

And when you argue for the abolition of government, you ARE advocating for a replacement, because something has to fill the vacuum in a real world situation.

it would be all "yay! we got rid of the central government authority and we can live as we want!" and then everyone starts fighting over how they want to live when those concepts come into conflict.

You reach for the decapitation solution to government overreach when just a haircut might get better results.

I understand why it seems that way from your perspective, because I used to think from that perspective myself. No surprise, since we’ve been utterly immersed in it our whole lives.

But it’s not merely a practical matter of “which way is better?”. I’m challenging the validity (and thus the very existence) of governmental authority. In addition, I’m pointing out how supporting an inherently immoral and fundamentally non-existent authority is an immoral act in itself.

Though I believe things would be better without government, that’s really beside the point. There is simply no valid basis for the authority of government - it is a mass hallucination. We’ve covered this, in part, throughout the thread that preceded this one.

But I’ve noticed that you hold to your position without directly addressing the objections I’ve made. Do you have answers to these objections? I know it’s uncomfortable to face the prospect of a world without government, but would you willing to face that discomfort and adopt an alternative view if you became convinced it was a logical necessity for you to do so?

In regard to the first paragraph of your comment, I have made an argument for why government is always immoral - because its only inherent quality is the “right” to do things that are generally considered immoral when anyone else does them. This would need to be addressed for one to reasonably reject the inherent immorality of government (and thus the moral imperative of anarchy).

Please do go with the "I'm woke, you are not" line of argument, it's degrading to the person you are arguing with, and it does not equate with proof that your view is in any way more valid than the other persons.

It is not being uncomfortable, it is my Engineer's brain saying that it would never work, that you would create more misery than ever seen before, and that there is nothing immoral about people deciding to cede some of their power to another authority as a concept, but immorality can come out of it via application.

I am a fan of limited government, not big government, and I see a valid reason and a moral reason to have such a limited government.

Again, people do not “cede some of their power” to government, they attempt to magically create new powers that no individual among them have. This has yet to be addressed - how do you justify the delegation of powers such as the “right” to tax, when you do not have that power yourself?

because of the concepts of society and civilization in general. And yes, we do cede some powers to government, such as the right to justice for transgressions. We also cannot make treaties with foreign powers, or decide some plot of land is ours all of a sudden.

And a person could theoretically "tax" people living on their own property if they decided to create a pseudo nation-state on a large and remote enough piece of property. hell, Rent can be seen as a form of taxing people using your property to live on.

 

[Brian Blackwell]

This thread follows the conclusion of a conversation between myself and Xelor on the following thread:

CDZ - The Government of No Authority, Part 1: Law and Morality


The transitional comment is provided here for easy reference:

"I have claimed that any moral person must conclude that governmental law is of no authority and therefore to support it would be both illogical and immoral. Illogical because it asserts a non-existent authority, and immoral because it demands that a person act immorally where divergences with their moral standard occur, while contributing nothing where they align (subsequently providing only the potential for net immorality).

This suggests that we must adopt the anarchist position by moral necessity; however, the proposition that anarchy is inherently immoral is antithetical to this conclusion. How do we resolve this contradiction?"

Simple your conclusion is wrong. Your statement is wrong, governmental law does have authority and so do natural laws. True Chaos and anarchy were only possible prior to the physical laws of the universe. It is not a moral imperitive to strive for an impossability. If order does not come out of chaos then there is nothing here to witness the chaos. Just because one does not recognize an authority does not mean one is not effected by it. For as long as the more massive elements atract the less massive rules and order will come out of chaos whether they are recognized or not. Our thought is ruled by a physical world the rules of the physical world can not be kept out of our thought rules will always follow!

The term “anarchy” is not being used to mean “chaos” in this discussion on social order. The definition “no rulers” is what’s meant - does this alter your response?

 

[evenflow1969]

This thread follows the conclusion of a conversation between myself and Xelor on the following thread:

CDZ - The Government of No Authority, Part 1: Law and Morality


The transitional comment is provided here for easy reference:

"I have claimed that any moral person must conclude that governmental law is of no authority and therefore to support it would be both illogical and immoral. Illogical because it asserts a non-existent authority, and immoral because it demands that a person act immorally where divergences with their moral standard occur, while contributing nothing where they align (subsequently providing only the potential for net immorality).

This suggests that we must adopt the anarchist position by moral necessity; however, the proposition that anarchy is inherently immoral is antithetical to this conclusion. How do we resolve this contradiction?"

Simple your conclusion is wrong. Your statement is wrong, governmental law does have authority and so do natural laws. True Chaos and anarchy were only possible prior to the physical laws of the universe. It is not a moral imperitive to strive for an impossability. If order does not come out of chaos then there is nothing here to witness the chaos. Just because one does not recognize an authority does not mean one is not effected by it. For as long as the more massive elements atract the less massive rules and order will come out of chaos whether they are recognized or not. Our thought is ruled by a physical world the rules of the physical world can not be kept out of our thought rules will always follow!

The term “anarchy” is not being used to mean “chaos” in this discussion on social order. The definition “no rulers” is what’s meant - does this alter your response?

No, it does not. Due to difference of strength and skill a social order will always develope it can not be stopped. This either happens or the group will not survive but will be over come by a group that has developed order. There is no order with out authority. Anarchy and chaos are the same thing, like it or not. A pecking order will always develpoe it can not be stopped. No rules or no ruler what is the diference. Natural rules will take over if there is no ruler the group will not function as well as other groups that do have rules or a ruler. In a social construct if there are going to be rules which are needed to function, this will lead to a ruler. Some one will always be needed to decide wether the rules have been broken. Anarchy can not be acheived either the strong or th egroup will always develope rules or the group will not survive!

 

[Brian Blackwell]

This thread follows the conclusion of a conversation between myself and Xelor on the following thread:

CDZ - The Government of No Authority, Part 1: Law and Morality


The transitional comment is provided here for easy reference:

"I have claimed that any moral person must conclude that governmental law is of no authority and therefore to support it would be both illogical and immoral. Illogical because it asserts a non-existent authority, and immoral because it demands that a person act immorally where divergences with their moral standard occur, while contributing nothing where they align (subsequently providing only the potential for net immorality).

This suggests that we must adopt the anarchist position by moral necessity; however, the proposition that anarchy is inherently immoral is antithetical to this conclusion. How do we resolve this contradiction?"

Simple your conclusion is wrong. Your statement is wrong, governmental law does have authority and so do natural laws. True Chaos and anarchy were only possible prior to the physical laws of the universe. It is not a moral imperitive to strive for an impossability. If order does not come out of chaos then there is nothing here to witness the chaos. Just because one does not recognize an authority does not mean one is not effected by it. For as long as the more massive elements atract the less massive rules and order will come out of chaos whether they are recognized or not. Our thought is ruled by a physical world the rules of the physical world can not be kept out of our thought rules will always follow!

The term “anarchy” is not being used to mean “chaos” in this discussion on social order. The definition “no rulers” is what’s meant - does this alter your response?

No, it does not. Due to difference of strength and skill a social order will always develope it can not be stopped. This either happens or the group will not survive but will be over come by a group that has developed order. There is no order with out authority. Anarchy and chaos are the same thing, like it or not. A pecking order will always develpoe it can not be stopped. No rules or no ruler what is the diference. Natural rules will take over if there is no ruler the group will not function as well as other groups that do have rules or a ruler. In a social construct if there are going to be rules which are needed to function, this will lead to a ruler. Some one will always be needed to decide wether the rules have been broken. Anarchy can not be acheived either the strong or th egroup will always develope rules or the group will not survive!

Ah, ok, we are not in utter disagreement so far; we just need to clarify our terms. “Anarchy”, or “No rulers” is not intended to mean “no rules” or “no hierarchical organization”.

I would offer the example of a corporation. All interactions are voluntary in this arena; the owners are not rulers, because they claim no authority over employees that is not willingly accepted. Both parties agree to the terms beforehand, and either can end the arrangement at any time. Consent is clearly expressed.

A ruler, in this context, would be one who claims authority, willingly granted or otherwise, like a King. The U.S. government does not need your expressed consent to dictate laws which you must obey or be punished. Instead, it operates by a clever con called “implied consent”, which means if you exist anywhere within the arbitrary boundaries of its claimed territory, you imply your consent to their rule. Even if you express your denial of this consent, it is ignored. According to this insanity, under these circumstances you would both consent and not consent at the same time, and they get to decide which one counts.

Anarchy only means that there are no such rulers, and all interactions are voluntary; like a business, or a theater club, or any other non-government organization. There can still be complex organizational practices, and people still have their natural right to defend themselves against aggressors, etc., but there are no masters threatening punishment for a litany of “crimes” which harm no one, and making claims to a portion of your labor.