Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Rise of Brownianism, the final chapter...I hope!

http://www.thedailybell.com/1630/Anthony-Wile-The-Rise-of-Brownianism.html


@Carl Herman (LA County Nonpartisan Examiner)

"Then you are an anarchist and all forms of law are areas of slavery to you."

I will come to this shortly.

We are both living a pipe dream. Certainly anarchy (as properly defined) is a pipe dream. I believe this so primarily because of inadequate education. Your quote above is a perfect example of this. The fact is, in most of our day to day activities, we are all anarchists. Our happiest moments are during such times.

We are taught to believe anarchy equals chaos, lack of laws, and lack of order. It is one of many terms of freedom and liberty that have been so completely bastardize on purpose, such that we cannot even discuss the concept because we don’t have a vocabulary. Liberal, conservative, freedom, liberty, patriot, free-markets. All are gone, and countless others.

Anarchy does not mean all forms of law are slavery. This is to your discredit that you cannot see further. I do believe when laws are made, enforced, and interpreted by the same monopoly entity, there is no law and there is no justice. These types of laws are slavery.

However, there are many “laws” that I can fully support. First and foremost is non-aggression. In this case, initiation of physical violence would be a violation of the law. Fraud would be a violation of the law.

Second, are agreements we voluntarily make with each other. Think in terms of contracts, service agreements, etc.

Third would be norms that we choose to operate under because it makes life easier. These can be shaped by community, religious, or other influences. For example, which side of the road do I drive on? As everyone in a given region has a vested interest in agreeing on this, no one needs to pass a “law” in the sense that term is understood today. Or, what about children, or the poor? These have been in the past, and can be today, fully “governed” by a community in the various, voluntary meanings of the term.

Actually, I find your example of driving on a side of the road hilarious and ignorant. Do you think all of a sudden, one day, there were 300 million cars on the road, when the day before there were none? With no one having any idea of what to do? Certainly, thousands of years ago pedestrians learned to pass on one side or the other. They further developed this custom on horseback. The costs of failure existed, but were not deadly. This further developed with automobiles.

Yes, anarchy is a pipe dream, but primarily because it is not understood. The reality is, most people take pleasure in living the lives of anarchists the better part of every day and don’t know it, because they don’t really know the meaning of the word.

If anarchy is a pipe dream, limited government is also a pipe dream however of a much larger magnitude. I believe this is so for two reasons. 1) What I have discussed all along in this thread: once monopoly of violence is established over a jurisdiction, it cannot be contained. I will not reiterate the reasons again here. And 2) we all have different visions of what limited government means. There can be no such thing as limited government with no agreement of what this means.

You want every possible action to be debated and open to the possibility of government action. Somehow, you call this limited government. For example, your limited government includes universal health care. This is the first time I have heard a so-called advocate of limited government include universal health care in their vision. But I shouldn't be surprised. There is no agreement on the meaning of the term. I guess limited government could mean anything short of government required death at birth. In other words, anything short of unlimited government is limited government. No thanks, you can have it.

Now, you call for joining hands in debating and discussing “limited government.” I wish you well, however I am already skeptical because of what you have chosen to include in your definition of “limited,” and because of the force you admit you will use to get others to comply with the majority rule. As I said above, I will not join you in this.

I advocate anarchy; more precisely anarcho-capitalism (again, read carefully how I define this). Call it voluntary society if that is more palatable. I know almost no one today agrees with this position. Certainly, if you ask people on the street – heck, ask all the members of Congress – they will almost all agree they are for limited government. It is easy to agree to a term that isn’t defined. They will all look at you crazy if you ask them about anarchy. It is easy to disagree with a term that is falsely defined in the way that anarchy is.

So, you and I (and others) have this discussion and debate over the last two days. At best, you have kept hold on the majority of viewers of this thread who believe we must have “some” amount of government.

However, I (and others) argue for anarchy. If I didn’t change a single opinion, I lose nothing. I am already over-governed as it is, and the vast majority is against my view anyway. But what if I did get someone to consider this view? What if someone decided to go to mises.org, or to read Rothbard or Block? I can only win or tie in this battle, I cannot lose.

What is my objective? The current system has died. I think this became obvious in 2008, but the signs were there in 1971, 1913, 1865, 1789 or pick your year. But it is dead.

This dead system will be replaced by something. Advocating limited government replaces it with exactly what we have today. Remember, this is what we had 200 years ago, and given there is no definition of limited government, this is what we have today. Limited government can mean different things to different people. The only limit is that is must stop somewhere short of unlimited government – death at birth on somebody’s whim. Your own inclusion of universal health care is a fine example. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better one.

So I advocate anarchy. For the reasons I state. I condemn any who advocate the right to lord over me, to force me to be an unwilling party to an unwanted contract. You call this limited government, an undefined term. It is another form of slavery and theft. It is license to murder and steal. Pretty words and feigned charity attempt to hide that fact, but they don’t change it. So I will point this out whenever I can.

Thank you for being the foil.

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