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No. You missed the point completely. People are pretty obsessed with individuals. With stars and celebrities. With people who have a lot of power and are symbols of this power.
Corporations won't all merge. But if they merge and it becomes obvious to many people that rather than Obama someone who has no democratic justification behind him at all is actually the most powerful person on the planet, how the system works becomes a lot more obvious.
So it's just a hypothetical example that if it would happen people won't accept it. But they accept it now.
Anarcho capitalism would just take private tyrannies much much further by reducing democratic power to a minimum.
States were created so the elite could be the elite and exploit the poor. Taxes were created so the elite could fund armies and become more powerful. States were never created to tax so we could have schools and roads.
When states stopped being ruled by monarchs the idea of the corporation started to emerge. They would form a balance against the tyranny of the state and people would own what normally was always owned by the state.
Right now the elite decided democracy isn't so great and is very annoying. So they are moving power away from the government towards corporations. Corporations can rule free from any democratic constraints.
As for states, people never voted to have a state. Until you have a referendum about if a certain people actually want to have a state and a government, it is an illegitimate power structure.
All states we have now are what is left. Democracy in the western world is still very much a work in progress. What we have in the west are compromises where the people didn't get all their demands.
A good example are the voting systems in the US, France, UK, the Netherlands. They are all still a bit rigged in favour of what used to be the elite.
People need to understand that the struggles of their ancestors, from which they benefited so much, didn't succeed in achieving all it's goals. You can make good analogies of Tunesia and Egpyt. But we in the west actually struggle to retain the freedoms we have.
In Egypt and Tunesia the revolutions were youth led. The problem Europe has is they have too many old people. They support the status quo.
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Dramatic improvement is easy to achieve if the old situation is piss and piss poor to begin with. This was the case in Somalia.
And I don+t know if I should laugh or cry when it´s being mentioned that the private security and telecom industries are booming. Since when is a phone a primary need for a human being. And since when do private security companies provide any kind of protection to Jo Somali and kids.
Bunch of stupid statistical spin.
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On July 03 2011 11:03 Slakter wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 11:01 HellRoxYa wrote:On July 03 2011 10:32 Slakter wrote:On July 03 2011 10:05 HellRoxYa wrote:On July 03 2011 09:23 Focuspants wrote:On July 03 2011 09:17 Slakter wrote:On July 03 2011 09:01 Focuspants wrote:On July 03 2011 07:21 Slakter wrote:On July 03 2011 03:16 white_horse wrote:
anarchists get their argument totally thrown in the garbage here and now ther squirming to rationalize their shit by trying to twist the definition of anarchy.
it's good to work towards an ideal - but at one point it becomes stupidity. Daydreaming that a governmentless, lawless society could work is about the dumbest cock-a-bullshit that someone could think about. Really, the fact that using somalia as an example of a successful anarchy just reflects on the anarchists' ability to think. Get back to reality.
but hey, if you want to keep raging about how evil government is, feel free to continue stressing yourselves out - or better yet, move to somalia - because nothing's going to change. Once again, an anarchy does not mean lawless. It also doesnt necessarily mean "tax-less". The difference is that the tax would be decided by the people themselves instead of letting a state choose how your money gets spent. And no, I dont mean that in the libertarian way where My money = I choose what to put my taxes in but what I mean is My money gets put where my people as a collective thinks it is needed the most, be it food or infrastructure. An Anarchy should in an uberutopia (awesome word) also abolish the idea of money but I am of the opinion that that is just too far hehe. I hope people will be able to differentiate between Anarchists and Extreme Libertarians now. On the political scale Anarchism fits between Socialism and Liberalism while Somalia fits in straight in the Libertarian corner with a little taste of Fascism where the man with the greatest guns rules and anyone who opposes tastes lead. So youre going to get the 35 million people in Canada together to make every decision? Or even worse, youre going to get the 300 million people in the US together to make every decision? No, thats not possible, youre going to have to elect people to represent you in this decision making process. This sounds awfullly familiar doesnt it? Why do we have to keep old nations borders? So the world is going to unite unanimously? How are we going to decide who were alligned with? Everyone is going to agree with your new arbitrary state lines? Who gets to decide who is in and who is out? Whats going to happen when some groups get left out by others, or some groups get better land than others? If I was living on shit land, while a neighbouring group had rich fertile land, why wouldnt I find a way to take it from them? Why is it fair that they get that and I get the shaft? Whos going to protect you from my invasion? Do you not see, that every proposal you guys make, lead to thousands of problems, problems you cant offer effective solutions to? No, they don't. They genuinly believe that the state is holding themselves and everyone else back and are blinded by this belief. Edit: The opposite is true, you have the freedom you have now, and the livingstandard you have now, due to living in a successful and well-run state. On July 03 2011 08:40 Slakter wrote:On July 03 2011 08:28 HellRoxYa wrote:On July 03 2011 07:39 Slakter wrote:On July 03 2011 07:31 Harrow wrote:On July 03 2011 07:21 Slakter wrote:On July 03 2011 03:16 white_horse wrote:
anarchists get their argument totally thrown in the garbage here and now ther squirming to rationalize their shit by trying to twist the definition of anarchy.
it's good to work towards an ideal - but at one point it becomes stupidity. Daydreaming that a governmentless, lawless society could work is about the dumbest cock-a-bullshit that someone could think about. Really, the fact that using somalia as an example of a successful anarchy just reflects on the anarchists' ability to think. Get back to reality.
but hey, if you want to keep raging about how evil government is, feel free to continue stressing yourselves out - or better yet, move to somalia - because nothing's going to change. Once again, an anarchy does not mean lawless. It also doesnt necessarily mean "tax-less". The difference is that the tax would be decided by the people themselves instead of letting a state choose how your money gets spent. And no, I dont mean that in the libertarian way where My money = I choose what to put my taxes in but what I mean is My money gets put where my people as a collective thinks it is needed the most, be it food or infrastructure. An Anarchy should in an uberutopia (awesome word) also abolish the idea of money but I am of the opinion that that is just too far hehe. I hope people will be able to differentiate between Anarchists and Extreme Libertarians now. On the political scale Anarchism fits between Socialism and Liberalism while Somalia fits in straight in the Libertarian corner with a little taste of Fascism where the man with the greatest guns rules and anyone who opposes tastes lead. How does the collective decide where the money goes? Does every decision need to be unanimous? If it's put to a vote, how do you enforce that the dissenting opinion follows along with the majority rule? If you're just talking about utopia here, then fine, sounds like fun. But I think it's more worthwhile to try and work within reality. Depends on where you are and what the collective decides. I cannot tell you since it will vary from area to area if an anarchist revolution ever happens. How it would be enforced however most people believe that people will not need to be enforced since they will respect the collectives needs. In the society we live in now this could never be the case since, as we already have said, at the moment people are assholes. So you subscribe to Rosseau then I presume? Humans were the nicest beings ever before society? It's just not realistic. Look, people don't respect collective needs, they respect what's best for them and their family - specifically for them and their family in the short term. Doesn't matter if the collective needs coincide with their own in the long term. As other people have stated what you said can only realistically come to terms within a very small community. The ones we don't have and haven't had for a good while now. Edit: Also, concider that, just as society is now, even if most people actually do see to the collective needs it's very improbable that noone would go "Hmm... I could exploit the shit out of this". On July 03 2011 07:39 Slakter wrote:
Another idea is that the people themselves will enforce it. People police themselves and if anyone notices that someone does something shitty they tell the rest of the collective and they act accordingly. I've always been a fan of lynching. Did you ever play that one game, Mafia? You should try it, it's even on B.net these days. Great fun. I do not believe people were better before society, however I believe that we have to evolve past todays society, and in my opinion the natural evolution of society is to a more compassionate way of living. Also, what you´re saying is only true for people now, and even now people misstrust people way too much in my opinion. The human being is not naturally evil, we´ve just not evolved the shitty part yet you might say. I never said anything about humans being evil. They're oppurtunistic and egotistical. This will lead to major problems in the anarchy fantasy. It's funny that you say people should evolve when it should be perfectly clear to you that people don't "evolve" unless millions of years pass. We have to work with what we have right now. Im not talking about some Evolution of species man with a Darwinistic way of looking at it man, I´m talking about simply evolving as human beings and a people. For instance we dont rape women and pull them by the hair into caves anymore, we have evolved from that and it is my belief and hope that we will some day evolve from the nowadays way of looking at society and ourselves. Evolution is not a word that comes from a darwinistic perspective, it does mean other things aswell. Also, for your own good and for the good of the discussion, dont put words in my mouth. I've put no words in your mouth. What you just said is even stupider. Do you realize where this evolution has taken place? And why it's even been possible? It's not due to your anarchic fantasy society. I never said it was.
You just did. You were talking about evolving passed rape. It's right there. I have no idea how you can even deny it in the slightest. Incase you didn't actually understand what I wrote, though, I was telling you that such evolution came about through statehood (or the state-like entities which formed a long, long time ago).
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On July 03 2011 02:00 HellRoxYa wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 01:21 Sumsi wrote:
Yeah, I want to see this, lol.
Haemonculus invests a shitload of money into a clinic and recognizes that he gets no "costumers" because no one is that dumb to go to a surgeon without any reputation.
You should think first instead bombard us with so many questions. Reputation given to you by who? How does a new practicioner start out? Apprenticeship? How is the knowledge retained? Books? The ones which will stop getting published? The academic world as a whole will collapse. You should really ask yourself if we really need tax-driven institutions to "produce" able surgeons or to find out if somebody is an able surgeon. It doesn't make any sense.
By the way getting rid of lot of state driven academic "knowledge" wouldn't be such a bad idea if you think about it.
On July 03 2011 03:16 white_horse wrote:
but hey, if you want to keep raging about how evil government is, feel free to continue stressing yourselves out - or better yet, move to somalia - because nothing's going to change.
It's not so that government is evil. It's more the fact that cooperation between individuals, free enterprise and non-aggression is considered as the way to go. Government pretty much represents the opposite of these things.
Sure you can think that we need it, it's legitimate, but you should never ever be confused about it's nature whatever cloak government wears.
On July 03 2011 03:16 white_horse wrote:
Really, the fact that using somalia as an example of a successful anarchy just reflects on the anarchists' ability to think. Get back to reality. To be fair the article linked in the op doesn't use the word "success". It's just a clinical giving of evidence that the overall situation got slidly better in somalia even with the lack of a central government.
So the article is more a slap in the face of the statists ( who argue hell on earth breaks out in the abscense of a central government ) than a celebration of anarchy in somalia.
The author even admits that this place is "no paradise".
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On July 03 2011 19:59 Sumsi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 02:00 HellRoxYa wrote:On July 03 2011 01:21 Sumsi wrote:
Yeah, I want to see this, lol.
Haemonculus invests a shitload of money into a clinic and recognizes that he gets no "costumers" because no one is that dumb to go to a surgeon without any reputation.
You should think first instead bombard us with so many questions. Reputation given to you by who? How does a new practicioner start out? Apprenticeship? How is the knowledge retained? Books? The ones which will stop getting published? The academic world as a whole will collapse. You should really ask yourself if we really need tax-driven institutions to "produce" able surgeons or to find out if somebody is an able surgeon. It doesn't make any sense. By the way getting rid of lot of state driven academic "knowledge" wouldn't be such a bad idea if you think about it.
That's pretty much what I asked you to do. We would not be better of with unregulated doctors (or pharmacists, etc). But rather than ask if we really need it, I want you to ask yourself what would happen should we not have it. Describe a realistic, desireable scenario for me. Preferably one that I can't refute in one sentence.
And I'm not sure what this "state driven academic knowledge" you're talking about is. Not only is that completely unclear, you're actually missing the point. The academic world as a whole would be shattered without the structure of a state to support it. Are you trying to tell me that all academia is just forced state dogma? Or what? What are you even trying to argue?
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On July 03 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
To blackflag:
as for the development of agricultural societies and change from hunter-gatherer societies, you are right in stating that the true reasons are largely unknown as there are no written sources and it's largely a guess-game. But people would not alter their ways if their new way was not perceived as preferable. choosing the word "lazy" was well, a "lazy" choice of word by me.
But when it comes to tyrants/kings - tyrant is originally a greek term and they initially were given the power by the population. eventually however, tyrants became too cruel in their ways, some people revolted and killed tyrants, and they formed "democracies" instead. as for kings, originally kings were chosen for being the most powerful within their group (often in terms of physical power). eventually kings clinged on to their power through being the most powerful within their society (rarely in terms of physical power.) now, for a peasant living around year 1300 whom was born into poverty and bound to his vassal through birth, there was no choice involved - but some hundred years earlier when his ancestor(s) chose to move closer to his protector because he/they didn't want his family to be raped and murdered, that was a conscious choice.
Yes, Rome was a monarchy too (there's very little known about that time, pretty sad), before they became a Republic, and then again became a de facto monarchy haha. I once heard that the Tyrants in greece couldn't keep their power because they needed mercenaries, because if they'd armed their own people they would revolt, that's one of the reasons that in the long run they were "outgunned" by the democracies.
The way I always seen and learnt about how states/ monarchies came into being after the fall of the Roman Empire happened is pretty similiar to the "wild parts" of Africa today. Powerful Warlords fighting each other, and the most powerful "united" them with the help and under the banner of Christendom.
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Right, their growth is down to a form of government and not the millions theyve been getting due to ransoming massive ships.
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There is so much ignorance in the world, and it's on full display on the internet, and in this thread in particular.
Any individual or group of individuals which initiates the use of force (coercion) on another individual or group of individuals is by definition not operating in an state of anarchy.
Governments, tribal warlords, bullies, mafia dons, parents, I don't care who or why, are not adhering to anarchism.
I don't care if you think somalia is in a state of anarchy, the fact is that for any given relationship, you can easily evaluate in terms of whether or not it is coercive and to what extent, and to that same extent it is not an anarchic relationship. And somalia is chock full of non-voluntary relationships, if any of the evidence on hand is to be believed.
I have a girlfriend. We did not coerce each other into the relationship - it is a voluntary relationship of equals, and therefore it is anarchic. Neither party rules the other
I have a bank account. I did not force the bank to accept my money, and my bank did not force me to deposit it. It is a voluntary, contractual agreement. It is an anarchic relationship. Neither party rules the other.
I have a job. I did not force my boss to hire me, and he did not force me to work. We agreed on terms, and voila! Anarchy got me a job.
If there were no government, and the person or group with the most guns made the rules, or might makes right, this would still not be anarchy. So much fail in this thread, especially from those making the argument from effect (the effect of anarchy would be.... something that is not anarchy? FACEPALM)
So, if you think it is OK to initiate the use of force against others to get them to do what you want, well, you are in the majority. Remember this though, that violence is not any solution to complex social problems. If there aren't enough hats to go around, the solution is not to start lopping off heads. Don't complain when you get forced to do what other people want though.
But if you think that it is not OK to initiate the use of force against others to get what you want, and if you are not an anarchist, then you are a hypocrite. Just my opinion and I could be wrong, but it makes sense.
A caveat to the above, it is important to be aware that you can hold coercion to be wrong, but that it can be trumped by necessity. I'm going to use coercion on a child that wants to run into a busy street, because it is less wrong then letting the child have it's own way. A simple example, to be sure, but enough to make the point.
And as far as the 'pirates' go, well, here: You are being lied to about pirates.
We now return to your regularly scheduled bickering.
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On July 03 2011 21:54 BlackFlag wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 03:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
To blackflag:
as for the development of agricultural societies and change from hunter-gatherer societies, you are right in stating that the true reasons are largely unknown as there are no written sources and it's largely a guess-game. But people would not alter their ways if their new way was not perceived as preferable. choosing the word "lazy" was well, a "lazy" choice of word by me.
But when it comes to tyrants/kings - tyrant is originally a greek term and they initially were given the power by the population. eventually however, tyrants became too cruel in their ways, some people revolted and killed tyrants, and they formed "democracies" instead. as for kings, originally kings were chosen for being the most powerful within their group (often in terms of physical power). eventually kings clinged on to their power through being the most powerful within their society (rarely in terms of physical power.) now, for a peasant living around year 1300 whom was born into poverty and bound to his vassal through birth, there was no choice involved - but some hundred years earlier when his ancestor(s) chose to move closer to his protector because he/they didn't want his family to be raped and murdered, that was a conscious choice. Yes, Rome was a monarchy too (there's very little known about that time, pretty sad), before they became a Republic, and then again became a de facto monarchy haha. I once heard that the Tyrants in greece couldn't keep their power because they needed mercenaries, because if they'd armed their own people they would revolt, that's one of the reasons that in the long run they were "outgunned" by the democracies. The way I always seen and learnt about how states/ monarchies came into being after the fall of the Roman Empire happened is pretty similiar to the "wild parts" of Africa today. Powerful Warlords fighting each other, and the most powerful "united" them with the help and under the banner of Christendom.
Roman occupied Europe had cities, public bathhouses, marketplaces, public offices, etc. It would probably have been pretty nice had it not been a foreign occupation. When the Roman empire fell apart, much of Europe went back to their pre-Roman lifestyle. That of nomadic tribes, usually lead by a single male, (the strongest). They were quite literally barbarians. Cities were abandoned, and everyone went back into the woods to survive via hunting, killing each other, etc.
A man in post-Roman Britain is recorded to have come across the ruins of a Roman city and claimed that it must have been built by giants, for no man could move stones of that size.
The first European "states" were simply one clan leader who got really powerful and declared himself king. He'd lead battles from the front lines. His friends, perhaps siblings would collect taxes from unwilling subjects. He'd show up to villages in person to enforce his laws, which could be anything. Again, this system may have worked nicely with less than a million people living on the entirety of the British isles. And I'm sure that for a while, these people living as nomadic tribes were indeed very free. But they also treated their women terribly. Such a system doesn't work with today's population.
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Medical standards are absolutely necessary. Doctors in the past practiced horrific things. Gynecological exams after handling dead tissue from the mortuary used to kill roughly 10% of female patients. That number dropped to less than 2% when doctors were *required* to thoroughly wash their hands before treating patients. We used to lobotomize anyone considered mentally unwell. We used to forcefully commit women considered "hysterical" to electroshock therapy, (essentially forcing a hemorrhage in the brain to "calm them down" )
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On July 04 2011 00:23 TheWestWind wrote:
Any individual or group of individuals which initiates the use of force (coercion) on another individual or group of individuals is by definition not operating in an state of anarchy.
Governments, tribal warlords, bullies, mafia dons, parents, I don't care who or why, are not adhering to anarchism.
Ok, what is your definition of anarchy then? Everyone is an equal? Everyone has consented to every aspect of an agreement? Sounds wonderful, honestly. I'm all for consent.
Do you think such a system on a large scale is compatible with human nature?
I have a bank account. I did not force the bank to accept my money, and my bank did not force me to deposit it. It is a voluntary, contractual agreement. It is an anarchic relationship. Neither party rules the other.
Yes. And there are government regulations in place that enforce what your bank can, and cannot do with your money. Your bank account is even federally ensured so that in the event that the bank loses your money, you as an individual are not screwed over. There is also a structured legal system where if the bank refuses to give you your money for whatever reason, you have legal options.
I have a job. I did not force my boss to hire me, and he did not force me to work. We agreed on terms, and voila! Anarchy got me a job.
What. Do I also need to explain the role of government regulation in hiring and employment practices? That you're guaranteed a fair wage, standardized work hours, and benefits, and legal options if your employer ever violates that contract?
If there were no government, and the person or group with the most guns made the rules, or might makes right, this would still not be anarchy. So much fail in this thread, especially from those making the argument from effect (the effect of anarchy would be.... something that is not anarchy? FACEPALM)
Again, do you think humanity is capable of your happy system where we all just consent to everything and never hurt each other? I just find your definition of anarchy impossible to achieve.
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^^ What you wrote is a misunderstanding. All of what you write in this thread is of a similar misunderstanding.
The only claim I am making is that it is possible to evaluate any given relationship and determine whether it is anarchic.
Whether or not coercion is exercised on one or more parties in a relationship by a third party does not impact whether or not the relationship is anarchic in principle or not.
(My girlfriend pays taxes - she is being coerced by the state; it doesn't mean our relationship isn't voluntary.)
The reason the bank doesn't steal my money and the reason my boss doesn't exploit me is not to do with being coerced by the state.
In the same vein, the reason I (and hopefully most others) don't go around raping and murdering and stealing is not because of my being coerced by the state.
Human nature impacts this not at all. There is either coercion, or not. Human nature has nothing to do with it. You seem to want to use it as an excuse for bad behavior and failure of problem solving.
Besides which the entire concept of 'human nature' is pretty collectivist thinking, not to mention vague and metaphysical at best.
So you start by asking me what my definition of anarchy is, and then you end your post with saying my definition (whatever it may be) is found to be impossible to achieve? Well played....
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Something that may be relevant, but even if not enjoyable:
Story of NPR Planet Money about a Libertarian Summer Camp
Of course, it's Libertarians and not Anarchists, but it sounds pretty much like the things people here are proposing.
In the end, the reporter notes, that what we need the government for primarily is trust.
Either we trust the government to enforce the rules on every individual or we have to trust every individual we meet to enforce the rules. And that's costly.
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Come on TheWestWind, you're arguing semantics and it's a complete non-sequitor from the thread. By your definition, nothing is anarchy, so what's the point of the definition if it doesn't describe anything?
On July 03 2011 19:59 Sumsi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 02:00 HellRoxYa wrote:On July 03 2011 01:21 Sumsi wrote:
Yeah, I want to see this, lol.
Haemonculus invests a shitload of money into a clinic and recognizes that he gets no "costumers" because no one is that dumb to go to a surgeon without any reputation.
You should think first instead bombard us with so many questions. Reputation given to you by who? How does a new practicioner start out? Apprenticeship? How is the knowledge retained? Books? The ones which will stop getting published? The academic world as a whole will collapse. You should really ask yourself if we really need tax-driven institutions to "produce" able surgeons or to find out if somebody is an able surgeon. It doesn't make any sense. By the way getting rid of lot of state driven academic "knowledge" wouldn't be such a bad idea if you think about it. Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 03:16 white_horse wrote:
but hey, if you want to keep raging about how evil government is, feel free to continue stressing yourselves out - or better yet, move to somalia - because nothing's going to change.
It's not so that government is evil. It's more the fact that cooperation between individuals, free enterprise and non-aggression is considered as the way to go. Government pretty much represents the opposite of these things. Sure you can think that we need it, it's legitimate, but you should never ever be confused about it's nature whatever cloak government wears. Show nested quote +On July 03 2011 03:16 white_horse wrote:
Really, the fact that using somalia as an example of a successful anarchy just reflects on the anarchists' ability to think. Get back to reality. To be fair the article linked in the op doesn't use the word "success". It's just a clinical giving of evidence that the overall situation got slidly better in somalia even with the lack of a central government. So the article is more a slap in the face of the statists ( who argue hell on earth breaks out in the abscense of a central government ) than a celebration of anarchy in somalia. The author even admits that this place is "no paradise".
Uhm. What? Do you think anyone who calls themselves a doctor should be able to charge people to cut them up? And "Tax Driven" institutions? You do realize there are privately run colleges in the US. In fact, most of the top schools in the US are privately run unlike a lot of other countries. Just because we have standards and practices does not mean all education is "Tax Driven."
Do you know what surgeons have to do in order to be able to cut people up and mess around in their innards? I'm sorry, I don't really want any fellow with a hacksaw doing amputations. I want somebody who actually knows what the hell they are doing.
What the hell is "state driven knowledge"? Are you suggesting that Biology and Medicine is propaganda? Do you have any idea the amount of technology goes on in the medical world right now? There's a lot to learn.
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One of Government's main purposes is non-aggression. You are not allowed to assault, blackmail, or threaten people (even for business reasons). Government and Law tries to do everything in a clean and tidy court if possible with clean and tidy laws. And "free enterprise" has tons of problems with zero government interference. Government is often trying to protect free enterprise.
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DoubleReed? Why don't you go practice the oboe or whatever it is you do when you aren't misreading other peoples writings on the internet? Where exactly is the logical fallacy in my writing? Please provide an example using quotes, so that I can learn from my mistake.
I didn't define anarchy in my post. You can go look up the word anarchy in any major dictionary and find a definition which you can then apply to my post. I always encourage any person who doesn't understand a word to look it up.
One thing I certainly did not do is argue any semantics (unless you have some proof of this claim?). And even if I did argue semantics, it would still be valid because the meanings of words are important, they are one of the major ways that we communicate with each other. We don't just get to make up definitions that we like to suit our needs, otherwise nothing would ever mean anything.
And as to your baseless assertion that "One of Government's main purposes is non-aggression." To that I say "hah!". The relevant statistic from the article reads "After studying over 8,000 reports of government-caused deaths, Rummel estimates that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century." And this from a statist no less.
The simple fact of the matter is that the available evidence is very clear that the main purpose of the government, the stated purpose of the government by government, even the semantic content of the very word 'govern' is the initiation of aggression. Gotta point out now for all you frothing at the mouth tryhards, I'm not saying anything here about right or wrong. I'm not saying anything about how things 'ought' to be. I'm simply pointing out the evidence of what was and is.
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IMHO: A democratic goverment is a (somewhat) democratic organisation that has monopoly on violence.
Personally I think the corruption of democratic countries in the West probably started with the news services and then continued with other parts of the goverment (yes I actually consider news part of the goverments even if this might not be a commonly held opinion internationaly, it _is_ often called the forth power of the goverment (in Sweden at least))
But hey, I dont have any solution to the problem, even if I desperatly hope that new news organisations (such as young turks etc) will be able to make people better informed.
Btw in EU we have rules on how you must stamp food items, list of ingridients, best before date etc. Maybe we ought to do the same with news, any news service should have their list of owners on display etc, so that people watching the news can clearly see lines of ownership?
TL;DR
Main problem in democrazy: News services tell people what people want to hear instead of what they need to hear.
But, I dont see anarchy solving this problem either 
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On July 01 2011 12:13 xarthaz wrote:![[image loading]](http://images.mises.org/DailyArticleBigImages/5418.jpg) Somalia is experiencing progress according to several criteria, despite (or, some would say, because of) its lack of a strong central government. As a result, it is by far the fastest growing, fastest improving among all the less developed countries. This should be a model for the world.. As Robert Murphy points out in his latest article, despite the biased assessment of BBC's Reflects on 20 Years of Anarchy, careful analysis of conditions in the area suggest remarkable improvement in living standards. For example, Somalia has the most vibrant telecommunications sector in Africa Show nested quote +
Somali telecoms expert Ahmed Farah says the first mobile telephone mast went up in Somalia in 1994, and now someone can make a mobile call from anywhere in the country.
There are nine networks to choose from and they offer services from texting to mobile internet access.
In addition, the area is at the forefront of the development of the security industry, Show nested quote +
What is particularly amusing is the complaint that businesses currently must pay private security firms to guard their goods. Well, a government police and court system won't work for tips — they too will need to be financed, but through involuntary taxation. As with any monopoly, the government's provision of a "justice system" will be more expensive — other things being equal — than the provision through private, competing agencies.
In addition, Murphy addresses several of the fallacies statist critics often commit in their assessment of the private security sector. As Ben Powell et al. in his fantastic work has shown, so Murphy too concludes that if people in the more developed countries of the world wish to help the impoverished region, we can certainly send money and even visit to offer medical services and other assistance. But if the West foists the "gift" of another state on the beleaguered Somalis, their appropriate response should be, "No, you shouldn't have."
it's not exactly hard to improve when you're at the bottom
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Then why don't other countries in Africa, which are as bad as Somalia, also improve so quickly? Of course Somalia isn't as nice as the first world - that doesn't mean we can't learn from their successes. The Somali system of law, the xeer, is quite interesting as well.
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On July 05 2011 07:09 DoubleReed wrote:Uhm. What? Do you think anyone who calls themselves a doctor should be able to charge people to cut them up?
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Do you know what surgeons have to do in order to be able to cut people up and mess around in their innards? I'm sorry, I don't really want any fellow with a hacksaw doing amputations. I want somebody who actually knows what the hell they are doing.
1. If you don't know if your "surgeon" knows what he's doing then do some research about this person
2. Certificates that prove you are a doctor can easily be provided by non-government institutions.
3. Don't you think that everyone who cuts up other people without the proper knowledge would risk his reputation or whatever or take the risk to go to jail because he could kill someone? I don't know dude, it doesn't make sense to me.
4. Opening your own clinic, hiring nurses and so on is a huge investment. I don`t know why anyone would do such a thing without any competence as a doctor. Failure would be preprogrammed. Which leads us to point ...
5. No clinic directorate with a brain would hire such a person.
thats a bit of brainstorming by me, you can surely find more points which could relativize your argument
On July 05 2011 07:09 DoubleReed wrote:What the hell is "state driven knowledge"? When I think about it "research" would be the better term here. What I mean is research that is only done because the state enforces it.
The "knowledge" it produces is either useless or could be provided by the free market at a later point in time.
A good example for useless knowlege is "gender mainstreaming" . It's an idelogy which plagues germany at the moment and is enforced by left politicians and the EU mostly and the research on this matter is mostly financed by the state. I guess in a free market system it would simply disappear because no one would "buy" it or spent any money on it and it would remain in the heads of hardcore feminists.
A good example of research which could be provided by the free market at a later point in time would be Space Travel IMO and all the research to make it possible. If you consider the fact that england became the most industrialized country in the world during the 19th century with basically no state-research funds it shouldn't sound that utopian.
The good thing about the market is it makes things possible when they are producable in a cost-effective way and when there is real demand for it and not politicians which think something has to happen for overpowered costs.
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I think anyone who calls himself a doctor should be able to cut open anyone who agrees to be cut open by him.
If I want to go to some guy that was a doctor in India but isn't certified to practice medicine here, because he wants to charge $20 and the hostital wants to charge $2000, why is that a problem for you?
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On July 02 2011 07:25 mcc wrote:Please an example  Although I think I get what are you thinking, you mean that US is killing innocent people outside US, because as far as I know your government is not yet killing its own citizens unless they are criminals. If your objection was to the fact that government can kill criminals and it is not a crime, then true, but I think in the original post it was implied that he meant that government can kill anyone it chooses without it being a crime.
Are you really unaware of this? First of all, I wouldn't have a problem with them being able to kill "criminals" as long as I agree with why they are saying someone is a criminal, which of course I won't every single time.
Next to that, and much more importantly, lets assume every single criminal they kill is a scumbag that deserve today. Great. Well too bad it is common practice for them to just bomb the fuckers house or residence, killing his wife, kids, as well as any other poor fool who happens to be in the blast radius. I mean go back to WWII, where the US freaking fire bombed Tokyo and later dropped two atomic bombs on the country. You think no innocents were killed there? Please spare me whatever justifications you may or may not throw my way about how it saved more lives than it killed, etc. Innocents were killed, and it was not an accident - it was the intentional bombing of cities. The same applies to the bombs falling in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in every single country the US sends it's military. All of them.
The same mentality applies to nearly every war, it is only a question of degree. Blow this shit up because we really, really want to, and we have this or that justification as to why we think this is the "best" route. Let god sort 'em out.
This isn't exactly to single out the US, as it most definitely applies to almost every single government that has every existed - but the US has definitely been the word offender in the past 50-60 years. You ever stop to realize how much the US has been at war? I was talking to my dad, saying the US has been at war pretty much every single year I have been alive. Then he said the same applied to him - kind of puts it into perspective. We are fucking war mongers.
It is always this or that excuse that the government feeds people about why this or that war is justified and usually they buy into it. But when you look at the big picture, you have to realize that the US just likes being at war, it's what we do. We don't have military in 170+ countries around the world because we were forced into by chance and circumstance, they're building a damn empire while calling it something else. It's that simple.
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EPT
