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Imperial Forum → Politics → An Idea for Anarchists
True. There are anarcho-capitalists. I think Acolyte is one. Basically, they believe the state a wicked monopoly on force, and functions like justice and protection would be better provided in a free-market system. Acolyte praised Robert Nozick's idea of protection agencies, hehe.
Of course, I don't buy any of it for a second. Although, it would be funny to take Acolyte's citizenship away and let him buy protection from the state - or the mafia - if he so chooses.
I don't care about anyone's self-description. When "anarchist" groups show up to do anything, it's in support of 100% communist causes. That your bother and some forum poster describe themselves as "anarchists" is irrelevant. There are no groups of these people. I'm speaking about the vast majority of people who describe themselves with the term. I'm speaking about the groups that organize and show up to break and steal things. They're 100% communist.
There is not a huge difference between them. The difference IS semantics. Anarchists describe the same thing with very different language.
"There are no groups of these people."
There are significant large groups of them. There are many organizations (can it be more ironic?). There are also numerous fascist and communist organizations and many many others.
I doubt eg the local anarchy groep has much to do with the local Trotsky-fan groep. In fact they are known to beat each other often.(except maybe for the pacifists 
)
Radical anarchists think less gov would be better. In theory thats no different from someone who believes in the final stage blabla.
But in reality many communists believe in more state and gov control.
That huge difference makes communists more dangerous in my eyes. To have no gov is very hard to achieve, and reversal till a certain point. To have to much of it, often becomes irreversible very quick. So I rather have one fanatic as the other in case one becomes to strong.
I don't think this is an important point to debate. I'm far too intoxicated and I find the level of debate here to be far too juvenile to motivate me to search out numbers and citations for % of "anarchist" groups and their actual motivations/political philosophies.
But the first thing I think of is "anarchists" in Britain in the recent riots. 100% were communists. This is the same as the "anarchist" protests to the G20. 100% communist.
It's entirely a matter of semantics. They believe that there should be no "government." BUT, they believe, people should live in harmony with one another. Everyone should own everything. Everyone should just "naturally" live in harmony. It's a lot like the "communist" vs "socialist" equivocation. Whereas the rhetoric is all about "the people," in actuality "the people" need an actual system in place and that system inevitably means "government." While anarchists obviously believe in less "government," they invariably state the desire for something just like government--a very powerful one--just by a different name. I detest dishonesty in discourse, and this is why I so harshly criticize references to "anarchists" as anything other than communists equivocating over labels.
If you can refer me to any events in which "anarchist" groups weren't acting at the behest of overtly communist groups, I'd be interested to learn more. But I've no knowledge of actual organized groups who aren't effectively communist groups. Nobody but 12-14 year olds think "anarchy" is a desirable/possible state. Any adult acknowledges that 0 situations of anarchy have persisted for more than moments in the history of the planet. I hope I don't need to explain the mechanics and rationale of that statement.
"But the first thing I think of is "anarchists" in Britain in the recent riots. 100% were communists."
Are you talking about the riots last year? Where bored teens were smashing into shops and stealing things? Because last I checked, those riots were no politically motivation or have any agenda surrounding them except pure greed...the greed that causes someone to steal for self gain. A communist wishes for control amongst the people, with equally shared items, where these groups had no control or agenda, they were seeking to gain for themselves (self-gain is now a communist ideal?! when did that happen???).
Ok, I have finished my mid-semester exams, so I can get back to the original point that I was making in this thread.
"The point is that Obama & Co. are pretending that international approval can substitute for US law--Although there's no basis in US law for this. The point is that Obama & Co. are substituting international approval for US sovereignty."
International approval in this case has nothing to do with US sovereignty. As I keep stating time and time again, the UN Security Council has no authority or ability to even issue "commands" to another nations army to be involved in armed conflicts. When we look at how the UN Security Council acts on situations, it is often the nation that puts the idea forward that then presents the troops. Like I have stated, another nation cannot order the US forces into a conflict (outside of treaties signed by the US, but I will get to that later), so where/how does international approval play into US sovereignty? (I mean, the US still decide what, where, how, when they will troops, even if the UN issue a resolution allowing force, still sounds like a sovereign nation to me).
"But surrendering US sovereignty to international organizations is an important step in that direction, and Obama's trying his hand at this even though it's not lawful."
Ok, so the example you presented was commiting forces to Libya, so lets look at this shall we?
"In response, the United Nations Security Council (UNSCR) adopted Resolution 1970 on 26 February 2011, which expressed
"International approval in this case has nothing to do with US sovereignty. As I keep stating time and time again, the UN Security Council has no authority or ability to even issue "commands" to another nations army to be involved in armed conflicts."
I'm talking about the president doing their bidding. He's doing the bidding of foreign powers--that it isn't official through the UN is irrelevant--in violation of US law. That's the simple point I made.
"So, we see a resolution that expresses concerns, certainly not an order to send troops. I also might add, the US voted for the resolution (so the US officials were also concerned with the situation. If they weren't concerned, why did they not VETO it?)."
They're all corrupt: They should have voted against it. That he had already acted pressured them to approve it. They're a bunch of corrupt [wussies] and they would get into a big fight and the bribe money would stop flowing if they voted against it. They don't even have the authority to declare a military dictator--we'll get back to this.
Granted, they should have voted against it: But he and his officials openly admit they don't follow US law on the matter. That Congress is also irresponsible and corrupt doesn't change this.
I'm not accusing any members of the international community of attacking US sovereignty. I'm accusing the president of freely giving it away to his international handlers. It's an attack on US law and sovereignty, not by any member of the international community, but by the president. It's an assault on US sovereignty because the people of the United States and the law are being ignored in favor of the will of an individual without the legal authority to do what he does. Whereas the law gives the people control, the law is being ignored in favor of other, international, interests.
The legislation you cite is recent. It's corrupt garbage, and it's unconstitutional. The supreme court should demolish it but they're a bunch of progressive (aka communist) [wussies], appointed by progressive presidents for decades for this reason.
Ghaddafi was not an imminent threat to the United States or its allies in any way. Sure, he supported terrorism. But his bad attitude was easily defended against without attacking a foreign nation, spending a billion dollars, and killing 10,000+ human beings. None of these things were necessary to protect the USA. The US didn't fly thousands of sorties over Libya to protect itself. The notion is laughable.
In the testimony I linked (and others), their defense is not based on powers granted to the president in recent legislation. They aren't making the argument they have the authority to, for instance, attack a foreign nation and kill 10,000+ of them because of a threat to US security. They're arguing that they have the authority to act based on international consensus, with no consideration of Congress's constitutional authority on the matter. We can quibble over how many tens of thousands the US can kill legally to "protect" allies from refugees, but this administration isn't making that argument. They're arguing that, even in cases without US security concerns, they can just consult the international community and act, regardless of the fact that Congress, not the office of the President, legally has this power.
Granted, interpreting recent corrupt legislation (as you've cited) as giving the president the power to do literally anything with the US military, his actions are consistent with these laws. Unfortunately for him, these laws are clearly unconstitutional. Congress has not amended the Constitution to make this sort of authoritarianism lawful. Congress is not authorized to give the president a free pass (plz keep the bribes coming mr president!) to play with the military and kill whoever he wants. The process to do that would require an amendment to the Constitution. Until they take up that debate and take up that vote (as do the states), they don't have the authority to appoint a military dictator with unlimited military power. As the Ghaddafi example shows, that's how it's being interpreted. Ghaddafi was a terrorist; he was a bad guy. But he was absolutely no threat to the USA, and what the USA did was by no reasonable measure necessary for its security.
The US president can act in defense of allies; alliances are approved and all that zazz by Congress. Alliances are mutually beneficial, so acting in defense of an ally is acting in defense of the US, yadda yadda. But killing 10,000+ people and bombing a foreign nation to "protect" allies from refugees is a bit of a stretch. Sure, you can literally protect your allies from refugees by slaughtering them from the air, but I don't think that was the intent of the alliances/treaties Congress has ratified.
In any event, the legal nuances are irrelevant when they're all illegal, regardless. What's being done is unlawful. The US Constitution does not give the president the power to bomb Libya because his handlers told him to, nor does it give Congress the authority to appoint a military dictator. That power is being unlawfully taken from the people--as the people's law is being ignored--is a surrendering of US sovereignty to whoever's making these decisions in their place (in this case, Obama and/or whoever he takes orders from). That he isn't officially taking orders from X Y or Z countries/alliances is irrelevant. He's taking a power lawfully granted to the people (Congress represents the people, yadda yadda) and unlawfully giving it to foreign interests.
> Justinian I wrote:
> There are anarcho-capitalists. I think Acolyte is one.
Actually, I don't like that word and find it highly contradictory. Historically, anarchy has always been a war cry for radical left-wing elements -- to include communists, as V.Kemp has pointed out -- and entail philosophies that stand in opposition to laissez-faire values and nonviolence. The very definition of the word, anarchy, implies social anomie (the absence of order), which does not adequately describe my vision for a stateless society. The presence of law and order does not hinge itself on the existence of the state, it's roots lie somewhere much deeper in the fabric of human psychology, and often within the ad hoc morality of customs and traditions specific to a region's cultural background.
It would also be inaccurate to say I am in favor of Robert Nozick's concept of protection firms competing to meet the demand for police services. I'm in favor of whatever idea can prove itself a viable alternative by surviving on a commercial basis in a free and open market. In that respect, private security firms and arbitration services are one such possibility that people have considered. Unlike central planners, I do not pretend to understand the outcomes of human behavior, or the motivations behind the choices people make.
We see emergence -- or spontaneous order -- everywhere in nature. From the organization of atoms into molecules, the birth of star systems and galaxies, the growth rates of bacterial populations, the patterns of an individual leaf, the structure of insect hives, the texture of windblown sand dunes, the list goes on and on. It could even be argued that our cognitive abilities are a mere accident of physics; the structure and organization of our brain an evolutionary happenstance, with neurons that spontaneously network in the necessary order, and synapses coincidentally firing to give us the appearance of non-random, intentional behavior. In other words, free will could just be an illusion afforded by our ignorance to the physics of cognition. We make choices everyday, but those choices are still dependent upon a pattern of interaction that involves associations made from our memories of past events or experiences, and how we equate them to our subjective evaluations of satisfaction; but I digress.
The free market, in my opinion, is the closest theory of economics we have that retains the same properties of emergent order as found in nature. That is why I sit in staunch opposition to socialism, and view it as nothing more than a malignant growth atop mankind's achievements and intellectualism.
No thread necromancy!
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