Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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EquALLity wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:21 pm That's one example against MANY others, and Somalia isn't a democratic government; it doesn't have popular elections.
It's not really even an example, you don't even have to grant that.
I don't see how Teo is still asserting this, because it wasn't an anarchy in that state (although the fall of the national government and the deficiency of what resulted in that period did cause a lot of harm):
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3242&start=10#p31861

The history there is pretty interesting.
It was ruled by a preexisting tribal government system, and by Islamic courts which were massively subsidized by outside aid. Not sustainable.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

Post by teo123 »

Look, to become a dictator, you basically need to brainwash almost an entire nation. It's hard to imagine it happening at all, let alone in a country with free press (which anarchy has by definition).
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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teo123 wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:48 am Look, to become a dictator, you basically need to brainwash almost an entire nation. It's hard to imagine it happening at all, let alone in a country with free press (which anarchy has by definition).
I'm going to respond fully later, but about the dictatorship issue -

My point is that hardship (anarchism) can enable brutal dictatorships. I never said this will ALWAYS be the case. Like I mentioned, Lenin rose from hardship, and he was arguably better to the people than Czar Nicholas II. However, in other cases of hardship, extremely brutal fascists have established totalitarian governments (eg Mussolini and Hitler). This is not always the case, but the hardship provides the ability for anyone who promises to restore stability and feed people to come into power, making a brutal dictator possible.

Update -
You don't need to brainwash an entire population, you just need to exploit their hardships.
Also, the free press is destroyed after the dictator comes into power, not before, so that's kinda irrelevant.
Last edited by EquALLity on Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

Post by EquALLity »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:19 am
EquALLity wrote: Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:21 pm That's one example against MANY others, and Somalia isn't a democratic government; it doesn't have popular elections.
It's not really even an example, you don't even have to grant that.
I don't see how Teo is still asserting this, because it wasn't an anarchy in that state (although the fall of the national government and the deficiency of what resulted in that period did cause a lot of harm):
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3242&start=10#p31861

The history there is pretty interesting.
It was ruled by a preexisting tribal government system, and by Islamic courts which were massively subsidized by outside aid. Not sustainable.
Ooooh, ok. I will look into that before I respond to the post fully, thanks.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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OK, what actual hardship do you think will be caused by anarchy? You all seem to think that people would start shooting each other. In Somalia, there was no central government, and that simply didn't happen. Homicide rate was actually lower than in most of the other African countries.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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Look, guys, I am trying to keep my standards of evidence reasonable. As far as I can see, the evidence that the laws help against murder is even less convincing than evidence shown by the Flat-Earth-ers.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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EquALLity wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:54 am My point is that hardship (anarchism) can enable brutal dictatorships.
Anarchy is not something that can be dropped onto a society suddenly; it is a natural outgrowth of an understanding of each person's inherent freedom and self-ownership. No tyrant can ever sway a society of anarchists who truly understand the position, because as soon as the people get a whiff of "just grant me the power to..." they will start tossing the tomatoes. A conscious anarchist understands that the right to rule is a fallacy, come what may. The world is what it is, and granting someone the ability to dominate never helps, and always hinders. Leaders are one thing; rulers are quite another.

Surely, I must be misunderstanding, but it seems you've equated anarchism with hardship. I don't see the connection.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

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BrianBlackwell wrote: Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:57 am
EquALLity wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:54 am My point is that hardship (anarchism) can enable brutal dictatorships.
Anarchy is not something that can be dropped onto a society suddenly; it is a natural outgrowth of an understanding of each person's inherent freedom and self-ownership. No tyrant can ever sway a society of anarchists who truly understand the position, because as soon as the people get a whiff of "just grant me the power to..." they will start tossing the tomatoes. A conscious anarchist understands that the right to rule is a fallacy, come what may. The world is what it is, and granting someone the ability to dominate never helps, and always hinders. Leaders are one thing; rulers are quite another.

Surely, I must be misunderstanding, but it seems you've equated anarchism with hardship. I don't see the connection.
That's your opinion about how anarchy develops... Anarchy could develop in a different way.
Also, how does a society, like America for example, peacefully go from government to anarchy (as you suggest is possible)?

Anarchy like what you are describing has never happened, from my understanding, so you can't say exactly what would happen if it did. Also, to say that every single person would automatically oppose dictatorship just because the society generally values individual freedom is wrong. There are always people who don't agree with most of society.

Also... I am saying that anarchy likely leads to hardship, which likely leads to dictatorship... I say this because the anarchy that Teo was describing has no justice system, so anyone can do whatever they want. All crime would be legal, including murder, rape, theft, etc. etc. causing social hardship. There would also be nothing to regulate corporations and prevent them from exploiting people in ways that would lead to economic hardship.
Like I mentioned, often when there is hardship, people turn to a strong ruler who promises to solve all of their problems and ignore their social rights.

Do you disagree?
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

Post by BrianBlackwell »

EquALLity wrote: Wed Sep 13, 2017 7:43 pm ...the anarchy that Teo was describing has no justice system, so anyone can do whatever they want. All crime would be legal, including murder, rape, theft, etc. etc. causing social hardship. There would also be nothing to regulate corporations and prevent them from exploiting people in ways that would lead to economic hardship.
Like I mentioned, often when there is hardship, people turn to a strong ruler who promises to solve all of their problems and ignore their social rights.

Do you disagree?
Hi. No, I do not disagree that many people turn to rulers in times of hardship. However, I'm suggesting that they do so precisely because they do not understand, hold to, or even value a principle-based mindset; specifically the principles of non-aggression and self-ownership.

Yes, I suppose anarchy could develop in any number of ways. I am suggesting that it would result necessarily from an adherence to the prescribed philosophical mindset, but I did not mean to imply that it couldn't come about via alternative methods. Violent revolution, for example, could impose the change, but this would be a symptom-focused approach (ignoring causal factors), and as such, would likely fail in the long run because a new ruling body would grow from the fertile ground of fallacy within the minds of the people. We have seen these failed revolutions countless times, and if we lack a historical example for principle-based anarchy, as you have suggested (I do not claim a thorough enough knowledge of history to concede or refute this point), then the lack of a widespread principled foundation seems evident enough. In short, the weeds of authoritarian belief have not been thoroughly rooted out, and anarchy has not grown organically from a firmly-planted seed.

There would presumably be those who may still be inclined to support dictatorship -- and they may subject themselves to it in small societies -- but the prevalent belief would hold sway on a larger scale, disallowing the widespread authoritarian oppression that we see today. If the idea of a voluntary society could be made clear to the majority, we would have a mirror image of what we have today. This would render the authoritarian mindset negligible, just as the anarchist mindset is now. There are anarchists today, but their views do not hold sway, and they are largely ignored. However, it's not simply a matter of two equal ideas in competition. The anarchist view is rooted in sound logic and intuitively-verified moral principles, whereas authoritarianism is rooted in fallacy (that one man can be given the right to rule another), born entirely of fear. For this reason, the former idea is actually more powerful, and would be more difficult to overthrow once established via thorough understanding and experiential knowledge.

The comments about all crime being "legal" implies an unfounded assumption. What you're really saying is that there would be no law to prevent crime, but this assumes that law does, in fact, prevent it, which it clearly does not. A person willing to violate eternal moral principles is highly unlikely to be unwilling to violate man-made law. The people most likely to respect man-made law are also those who already respect natural law without being coerced to do so. This would suggest that law has little to no effect on violent crime, while at the same time creating a far greater amount of criminal activity in the form of victimless crime. In addition, the empowerment of a moral, armed populace is a far greater deterrent to violent crime, for police represent a nigh-unto negligible percentage of the overall population. A violator, who does not fear the nebulous notion of law, but does fear for his own well-being, would be more likely to resist the impulse toward violence if the majority were seen as the more dangerous obstacle.

Corporations, not bolstered by the supreme power of government (via cronyism), would be far less capable of exploiting the public, as they would be subject to a true free-market system, whereby competition would favor those who engage in reciprocally-beneficial relationships with consumers. If there was no bail-out for banks, they would be forced to serve the people well in order to survive. If there were no laws protecting immoral actions on the part of manufacturers, and no laws preventing the population from simply smashing factories to bits, you can see how businesses would be kept in check. Localities would also be empowered to make new choices in the absence of government monopolies, and free economic competition would naturally regulate everything to the benefit of the people. If you believe the overwhelming majority of people are moral individuals, then you must believe that empowering them to directly guide outcomes in their own communities would serve humanity better than the dictates of corrupt lawmakers imposed from the outside.

The bottom line is that freedom is man's natural state, and the notion of government is unnatural and immoral by definition, regardless of the outcome. I have suggested some likely results, but they are irrelevant. Principle-based living does not guarantee that the world will hold no hardship, but it does dissuade one from seeking temporary solutions which violate natural law, because their disastrous long-term consequences are clearly apprehended. It's a matter of maturity; accepting responsibility for managing the harsh realities of life individually and via cooperation, without succumbing to the false relief of men empowered as gods.

Peaceful transition can only happen when it becomes common knowledge that the power to rule is a mere hallucination, particularly among current and would-be law enforcers and soldiers. Once this happens, we may simple ignore the dictates of power-mongers, and they will fade away via lack of attention. Their power, being illusory, may simply be dispelled, requiring no violent overthrow whatever.
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Re: Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

Post by brimstoneSalad »

BrianBlackwell wrote: Sun Sep 17, 2017 12:11 pm Hi. No, I do not disagree that many people turn to rulers in times of hardship. However, I'm suggesting that they do so precisely because they do not understand, hold to, or even value a principle-based mindset; specifically the principles of non-aggression and self-ownership.
Brian, you don't even respect those things or meaningfully value those principles (at least not enough to change your behavior), how do you expect the whole of society to do so?
And no it does not count if you arbitrarily respect them only for SOME individuals but not others. Anybody can behave well with their arbitrary in-groups.

If we were all angels who respected the autonomy and self-ownership of every other sentient being, did not interfere with it save in life-or-death scenarios, and practiced non-aggression in every way with the exception of defense of life then there would be no need for government.
That, however, is not the reality we live in, and you're hypocritical for suggesting others should do something you don't even make an effort to do yourself, and for criticizing others for not holding values you don't even have.
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