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Given that it's the nature of man for one person to attempt to dominate another, what do you think the law is for?
Given your position, you would only follow the "laws" of others if you perceived their claim on your life, time and property as superior to your own.
Is it?
Sorry.
The war was unethical for certain.
Klintock, surely the laws created by society are important and must be taken as the way to live for without law, we live in anarchy and anarchy is merely the survival of the fittest. Without the rule of law, no matter how imperfect one might consider those laws to be, society and civilisation itself would crumble or at least revert to a terribly primitive state as everyone would do as they wanted. Laws have existed since the dawn of civilisation after all...it is not wrong to question those that are wrong, but it is somewhat pointless (that maybe the wrong word for this) say all law is wrong and unneccessary. With out law everyone would do as they wish.
They aren't created by "society" they are created by individuals, who wish to dominate other individuals using force. The "rule of law" is PR to hide this fact.
Anarchy is not the same as disorder or rioting. A group of people up a mountain or in the middle of a desert have no law, but they don't immediately start butchering one another, do they? No, they come to voluntary arrangements that can change as and when they need them to.
No, anarachy means "no rulers" that is no one dominating everyone else by force.
Utter shite. Without the rule of law, we'd be able to do more or less what we wanted. For some reason you think that would entail us all suddenly developing sloping criminal foreheads, losing all capability to reason. I.e. you think that the average man or owman can't wait to rob you, kill you and bury you in a shallow grave.
Is that a reasonable or even remotely accurate view of humanity?
You really think that until they wrote down on paper that stealing was wrong, everyone thought it was perfectly ok?
If you knew the history of the law you would know that this was bollocks. until there is the capability to sit around all day and the means to wield violence on a large scale, there is no law or government. That right there should tell you what it's basic nature is.
As the law works in the overwhelming number of cases to preserve the power of a handful over the many this can be no bad thing. And again, you are assuming that there is a law, rather than it all being one massive fuck off bluff that's been pulled.
You probably think that laws are impartial, neutral rules as well. :rolleyes:
No laws are not neutral, they would only be neutral if neutral people created them and neutral people did not, they had agendas in the creation of law.
Anarchy is a nice little theory, but as there is no consensus on what an anarchist state would be like, how an anarchist economy would function or how society would work in a truly leaderless, law-less and mutually voluntary society, i see it as a theory in need of work to date. Although my last source might be out of date and they may have reached some conclusions, you may have to correct me if so.
Well, the first civilisations had leaders whose word was the law of the society, whether it be a cheif and his tribe or gathered community with leaders chosen from the strong. So yes, laws in some form have always existed whether they would be called laws or not.
Finally, not everyone would turn criminal and i have no idea why you think, i would think their foreheads would suddenly becoming sloping, that makes no sense at all as there is no specific look of a criminal. What i am saying, is there are those who would take advantage of a law-less society, manipulate it with no way to stop them. Voluntary agreements and mutual trust is all well and good, but laws allow business, to run, force people to work for money as they need it to pay for things, as an anarchist system has no clear idea to date of how an economy would work, becoming an anarchist system would be impractical now. It seems that only farmers who produce their own food, crops, and make their own clothes and could trade with each other would be able to accomodate the transition.
Unless i am wrong and you can explain how society could work as you want it to with out a minority of individuals taking advantage, or how it can work with out every country in the world also doing the same thing? If even one country remains as it is with a leader and army and state system they could surely easily impose the will of that nation over other nations with out a centralised government and leaders making decisions on behalf of a whole population.
Please enlighten me as to the way the world could work?
No it's not/ It's the absence of an enforced theory. Everything might stay exactly as it is, who knows? There could be no state, as it is an imposed fiction. Or, to put it another way, everyone would see it as the fiction it is, rather than as a fact. the mere action of realising it's a fiction changes how it would operate to a large degree. the thefts that feed it and give it the half life it does have do not seem so needed or justifiied, the murders "it" performs seen for what they are.
Who said it would be leaderless? All humans seek leaders or to lead, we already said this. What would change is the static postion of a leader into a fluid one, more like an expert than a king. It wouldn't be lawless either, there would be mutually agreed upon rules (as in the examples of humans who live far away from any co-ercive force).
Those rules would be under continual review of the members, and there would be no one with a gun making them stick.
Of course, The same people who seek to take advantage of a society of laws - sociopaths, psychopaths and other types of politician. In a legal system they have a cloak of legitimacy, without that cloak it would be much harder for them to operate. A man who comes to your house demanding money for nothing is a robber, unless he's from the TV licence, tax office or other alphabet agency, Then you are the criminal even though it's you who is being attacked.
There are also two forces that make you work even if you have no need for things at all. One is taxation and the other is inflation. Both of them are thieves of your life and labours and force the average person to do things they normally wouldn't dream of in order to get by.
That's what happens now, for fucks sake. The only difference is that thieves look like thieves and murderers like murderers. Would this make it easier or harder for such people to operate?
If a majority of people decided they would be ungovernable, there really is fuck all that any cult could do. Firstly, freedom is always more attractive to most folk than being ordered around by a pyscho. Secondly, you are describing the historical fight between different gangs of killers, thieves and liars. It's no mistake that every social experiment that has been tried on these lines has indeed been brutally suppressed by those in charge of "countries" because they themselves recognise that if the idea takes hold, they know it's all over for them.
In short they'd have to go do something productive on a mutual voluntary basis, or work for a living as it's also known.
I have no idea. No one does. People are extraordinary and you never know what they will do if they are allowed to.
Have a link about a free market legal system, the myth of the rule of law and some other issues raised -
http://mason.gmu.edu/~jhasnas/MythWeb.htm
Dont you mean They aren't created by "society" because it dosnt exsist
Although Psychopaths couldnt really take advantage as they are psychopaths, they are absent of that level of understanding or is it perception, i forget which.
And the next bit is i wasnt on abotu gangs but nations, one nation taking over what would be an anarchist system.
But yes, you answered everything very well.
Most decent businesses have standards in excess of what the law demands already, usually as part of some voluntary organisation.
Horseshit. Totally the wrong way around. You can more realistically make rules for a small tribe than for a large number of people, because the more people you add, the more likely it is that someone is going to slip through the cracks. This is why we get more and more regulation all the time, as those who believe you can make laws to cover every eventuality try to do just that.
Can you really make just one rule about anything for 5 million people?
For almost every law theres an exception and another law to counter that one and so on and so on. Voluntary spontaneous order springs up wherever two or more people get together.
It works in every business, every family, every school, church, pub and street.
It's not as simple as you make out though.... the current system isn't perfect but 5 million people can't just telepathically agree on what should be laws for the current moment... I doubt people would prefer to meet up every day and decide whether drugs should be legal because the wind is blowing to the east or something...
You said that the people that manipulate society can get away with it through legal framework... thats probably true... Ok so say you get rid of the laws... you just bring something in that has the same effect with a different name... consequences of 'disallowed' actions, even if the community has agreed on it..
People are too different for anarchism to work... capitalism is like the opportunity cost of human nature..
They don't have to. There really is no link whatsoever between me and the fellah three doors down. I don't know his name, where he goes to work, or anything much about him at all. We could get together and discuss or area of mutual interest easily enough though.
The wonderful people in the "government" who run things through this fiction have managed to convince most folk that we are all linked in ways we really aren't. As though 20 men building a road 40 miles away from where I am stood has anything whatsoever to do with me or you.
Again, we don't have to. You don't take them, you take them, shrug. Not my business. You get wasted and injure me or my livelihood, you can make amends. It wouldn't be by my locking you up safe and sound and paying for your food and board for a few years, that's for sure.
People are too different for anarchism to be anything other than inevitable. Capitalism is, or at least the commonly meant usage of the term is, another game, like the "countries" game or the "legal" game to make the world divide neatly into winners and losers. It's one of the interesting things about those dependant on a winners/successful/rich persons psychology, that they have to create a loser/failure/poor person in order to function.
If you look at Marx, he divided the world into two types - workers and parasites. But he was a little off base. The world is divided into two types - those who earn their living through mutual voluntary exchange and those who use violence or threats in order to survive. You could be the boss of a giant conglomerate, but if you had got thee through mutual exchange and adding/trading value to others, then you have done more than a doctor who has been paid for by theftation.
Tony Blair and co as an example only ever consume other people's labour. They provide nothing of their own. The bigger the state gets, the less productive people become, the less wealthy they are.
I don't think anarchism is inevitable but maybe something in the middle ...
The word 'mutual' seems to come up a lot around anarchism ... I don't ever see many exchanges as being truely mutual... most are out of neccessity/desperation of one party and the realisation of opportunity for another...Interests are rarely the same, everyone has different agendas and thats why anarchism would have a downside on society (referring to standard of living).
Could you explain this plz? Why would it be much harder for them to operate?
There wouldn't be legislation against them would there? I would think it was much easier to operate if there wasn't consequence and everyone was passive except for the victims...
Or maybe you could make a punishment? But that brings up all the 'what ifs' and it just turns back into the current system....
Your kinda right. As things stand a lot of the time we are playing zero sum games with each other mostly because of the way the monetary system "works." Theres also a lot of completely unproductive people to support as well as those who are in the business of actively destroying wealth.
Mostly because of the way the monetary system works and the way that property exchanges are enforced by men with guns. The land doesn't give two shits who owns it, but there are men who "own" large swathes of it and get to sit around doing not a great deal merely because of that fact. Meanwhile, everone else is beavering away keeping them in luxury. This is hardly news.
That view depends on how you look at value and if you see the world as a "i win, you lose" game out of inevitability. If I trade you gold for fish, at the time the trade is made, I must value fish more than gold, and you gold less than fish. We both benefit, or the trade doesn't take place.
As things stand the people most likely to come to you house and steal your furniture are the "government". Let's have a look at something simple like the television licence. Someone somewhere has decided that they are going to provide you with a crap TV channel, and you are going to pay for it whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not.
You will pay for that TV station even if you hate it, or you will go to jail.
Most civilised people would find it very peculiar the idea that you could just set up a business, and then issue bills to everyone in a given area just because you had opened. They would wonder what the fuck was going on. They would tell you to get stuffed, more than likely.
Add in the rule of law and a lot of people actually feel bad when they haven't paid this demand. Best. Con. Ever!
What stops you from shooting/attacking people who come into your house uninvited? The law!! Who are the people most likely to come to your house uninvited to injure/rob/kidnap you? hmmmmmm........
Except that there isn't a "current system". It's a confidence trick. I've made this point before, but you don't face this gigantic all powerful beast with telepathic links over a wide area when you face "the government", you face a disinterested office worker who just does what they are told and isn't that bright.
As long as you AND they think and believe in the whole thing then everything runs smoothly. Ask a few questions and it soon becomes apparent there's fuck all there. The big problem is that the people at the "top" know it's all a scam, and act accordingly (see Blair and the Iraq war) but the people at the "bottom" try to play by the rules and get shat on good style.
I am flat out TELLING you there is no International law. Its a fact and all your foot stomping and bush bashing can't change that.
There is Treaty Law, but we didnt have a tray with Iraq.
The war was not illegal, legally speaking.
The Israelis have a vested interest in seeing the current Syrian administration wiped out, just as they do in hyping the nuclear threat of Iran, just as they did in hyping the WMD threat of Iraq. Any analyst would seriously doubt intelligence sources in Israel when it comes to the Middle East.
What about when a gang of people come to your house/business (or whatever) with guns... what happens to them in an anarchist society? The one's that don't agree to the mutual benefits/agreements etc would dominate in anarchism...they could manipulate the system with much more ease... and although some of those people slip through loopholes in the law at the moment at least a lot of them get punished for it..
Aye. Here's the funny thing. We already have anarchism. No human can control any other human save through physical force. It's not an "installation" of anarchy that needs to happen, it's a large scale realisation that it's already here. I quite like what meme theory has to say about the idea of government.
In everything human's do it's thought - action. Change the thoughts and you get different actions.
In our anarchy, these are the politician's, the bureaucrat's and so on. The fact that they are so good at acquiring and maintaining legitimacy is where the real problem lies, imho. Democracy is great for them, because it allows every member to imagine himself as a dictator of his neighbours. There is no "system" to manipulate though, it exists only in your head.
How many times on this board do perfectly normal, rational people who would never steal, never attack their neighbours say something like "the government should....."?
What they are asking for is violence, what they want is someone else to threaten for them. Because the person asking for the change is removed from how it will be implemented they don't have to think about this. Later they will moan about prices rises in this or that or having being "taxed" to fund things they wouldn't voluntarily pay for.
You have to recognise that the government itself is merely the largest criminal gang in our location. Everything it does is through theft, threats or outright violence. What it pays for it does so with stolen money, the services it provides a smokescreen to hide what's really going on or to make it harder to let go of the idea.
Government has the highest death toll of any known disease.
Without a government the most you can have is a riot.
Anarchy has been tried in small communities of like minded individuals. All of them failed. Now, they may all be due to the fact that they were founded by strong willed persons who couldn't release control, or their inability to deal with the surrounding society (a lot were founded in the midst of war), or the stupidity in not being able to grow enough food for themselves, but they all failed.
Anarchy is best only as a state of mind and a fantasy utopia which forms part of your framework for viewing society and helping you make decisions, i.e. if I do this, does it increase or decrease the amount of freedom in the world?
The problem with anarchy is that there is always someone who is willing to kill you to get what he wants. He gets his cannon fodder all fired up and comes to take it away. So then you have to defend yourself, and hierarchial military structures have always thrumped anarchial ones (ask the Spanish) and then you're dead. He what got the most guns wins.
Oh yeah. And remember one other thing. The only thing two anarchists can agree on is what's shit about the third one's politics. Which means that I am full of crap and you should make up your own mind. But that's only my opinion. If you want me to tell you what to do I will be glad to. FINISH YOUR PEAS. There. Happier?
Anarchism is what we already have. Most people don't know it, so it looks a lot like something else.
I think you are referring to the collectivist experiments which have nothing to do with anarchy in the slightest. Theres one great experiment in it - the American one which is failing at the moment to the problem you mention of someone with guns always wanting to take control.
You've missed a step though, and that's the acquiration of the guns through a cloak of legitimacy. People don't naturally butcher each other in large numbers, you have to do a salemen's job of epic proportions first.
It's this bit that's the problem. If there's a large scale realisation of what's going on, it's much more difficult to do this. Hence our "war on terror" instead of an open war. 60 years ago we would have had the draft and been sat in some field somewhere waiting to get bombed by the americans/axis powers if the people at the top had wanted to acquire more control.
No two people agree with each other about what's best to have for dinner, never mind about anything else. I don't want to tell you what to do, I just want you to leave me alone to get on with things.
It was only illegal if the first Gulf War was. It was just a binning of the ceasefire - that first war never ended and Saddam had violated the no-fly zone several times. Had anyone been bothered before that was enough to recommence hostilities. Call it a technicality if you want. Say they did it against the UNSC if you like. Illegal it was not.
Actually, Article 51 of the UN constitution states that members can only go to war in self defence. Iraq was not a threat to any country that took part in its invasion. The first Gulf War, by contrast, was the perfect example of cooperation in the international community to liberate Kuwait. Or did you forget that they went in under UN guidance?
The first Gulf War was never officaally declared over!!
Multiple resolutions and then combing said resolutions gace them the UN backing for war!!
No treaty violated!!
All these meant the war was NOT ILLEGAL. Fact and undeniable.
Ah, so invading other countries without sufficient reason is legal? Please link to where this is the case.
Also, the Gulf War was never declared over, because war was never declared. it was a police action, and also took less time to campaign then would be needed to make the US (who did almost all the fighting) have to make a Senate vote to declare war.
You may want to read it, sometime, sparky.
Even if true, irrelevant to the second war.
Not quite. The UN never backed the 2003 war- despite much trying by Bush and Blair. Bush and Blair went to war without UN mandate. The war was based on lies and false information.
And therefore, it was as illegal as hell.