Central Council of Anarchy

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='11 October 2009 - 11:09 PM' timestamp='1255316996' post='1983614']
No, you are evaluating the morality of statism by the criteria of "need" and the amount of good it produces, which is pragmatism.



I am an anarchist by virtue of my Catholicism, which does not allow me to initiate violence against innocent people. Does [i]your[/i] Catholicism allow you to initiate violence against innocent people?



It is clear that you have not read the articles I offered. What is anarchism, and what is illogical about it? I have stated that anarchism is the result of men believing they do not have the right to initiate violence against innocents, nor to choose someone to do so by proxy.


Your expectations are misplaced. Read the articles.




Again, your expectations are misguided, because you do not understand what anarchy is. Anarchy is not averse to leaders. It is averse to coercion. Anarchy is not a synonym for antinomianism. It is not a world where everyone does what he wants. It is not an embracing of chaos. Anarchy is, again, the "state" resulting from men believing they do not have the right to initiate violence against others.




More pragmatism. I will rephrase what you said, to make sure you see what you said: "Violence against innocents is demanded by living in a society." Incorrect. Society, (properly defined) requires violence only insofar as the individuals who comprise it must defend themselves from aggressors. Society does not require inflicting violence against innocents. Society is a group of individuals engaging in mutually-beneficial, free-will exchanges. There is a reason we call robbery and murder "anti-social" behaviors.

The State is the physical manifestation of the mental illness that causes men to believe they have the right to initiate violence against innocents.

Now, if you desire to continue the discussion, and to know what anarchism is and what it entails, [i]read the articles. [/i]At the very least, read Joe Sobran's article.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
I can't read your articles, as I do not have access to the internet. You'll just have to make the argument yourself and succinctly.

I have no moral problem with your anarchy, whereas you have stated a moral problem with calling government government (instead of calling many tiny governments anarchy). I just know anarchy will not work and will result in tyranny--this is not acceptable because there is a responsiblity for the strong to protect the weak. Ironically, this results as well in tyranny. There is no utopia, though one person appears to be arguing for it.

My argument for monarchy is that it is more efficient. Feudal monarchy is the best form, I believe. It's practical, which is not the same as pragmatic. You're confusing the two.

[Winchester]

This needs its own thread.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 11:15 PM' timestamp='1255317328' post='1983617']
Well, per capita it costs people 160 dollars where I work for fire protection. I'm one of those government thugs, so I'm your enemy. I've been injured on duty several times, missed three months of work for surgery due to one such injury. I get paid nicely, but I'm the sort of person you're looking to make useless. Forgive me if I don't support making me look for another job. You can take that as you like, but it's on the level of your demonizing government workers. If we're going to engage in ridiculous rhetoric, I'm certainly up to the task. Then again, being "The Man," I can afford to have this theoretical discussion whilst I sit upon a pile of my ill-gotten pay.
[/quote]

I am not engaging in rhetoric. Rhetoric is the skillful use of words in an attempt to appeal to emotion. I am using logic to appeal to reason. Your last post was rhetoric.

It comes out. Of course you get paid nicely. The State is very generous with other people's money. And it always looks out for Number 1. Not like the mean free market. It pays people what their labor is worth. The State has no way to judge what people's labor is worth, because their "market" is determined by how much money they can fleece and leech off of innocent, productive people, and by how much money they can print without causing hyperinflation.

I don't blame you for getting paid to do non-violent work. I blame the politicians who see that you get paid with other people's money, taken by force or the threat thereof.

You're not my enemy, any more than the immigrant coming up here and taking advantage of other people's money through state-subsidized welfare is my enemy.

You're not The Man. You just get paid by Him. There's a difference.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Laudate_Dominum]

Stern: Just scanned over your posts and I can't help but think of Spooner. Am I at all correct in thinking that you're coming from a sort of Rothbard-Spooner, anarcho-capitalist perspective? Also, while criticizing the idea of the state is always fun, but could you elaborate on your economic opinions if you get a chance? Just curious.

[Sternhauser]

[quote] I can't read your articles, as I do not have access to the internet.[/quote]

I apologize if I sound rather dull, because I'm a little less than technically-savvy. I don't even have a cell phone. (I know, I know, what will I do if I crash on the highway? Probably bleed out, impaled on the steering wheel, like they did in the olden days.) But how can you access this forum without accessing the internets?

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='11 October 2009 - 11:30 PM' timestamp='1255318233' post='1983635']
It comes out. Of course you get paid nicely. The State is very generous with other people's money. Not like the mean free market. It pays people what their labor is worth. The State has no way to judge what people's labor is worth, because their market is determined by how much money they can leech off of innocent, productive people, and by how much money they can print without causing hyperinflation.

I don't blame you for getting paid to do non-violent work. I blame the politicians who see that you get paid with other people's money, taken by force or the threat thereof.

You're not my enemy, any more than the immigrant coming up here and taking advantage of other people's money through state-subsidized welfare is my enemy.

You're not The Man. You just get paid by Him. There's a difference.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

Collective responsibility.

I do okay. I work 48.7 hours a week without OT until after that (but OT is pretty nice). I spend off hours reading up on the job and I never consider myself off-duty because I take my position seriously. It's how a government employee should be--the first shall be last and all that rot. I intend on staying in the field for my entire career and I choose the busy houses. I practice what I preach insofar as concerns the public and my crew. The government cannot pay the guys I work with what they are worth. It's not doable, but I think the pay is fair if a guy puts himself into it. The pay is too high for those who don't.

And my property tax comes in at over 2 weeks' pay. It's my money, too. I don't mind. It's worth it to me to have the protection. And if it were privatized, the pay and protection would drop, but the money would go higher because a ceo wouldn't settle for the pay even the mayor gets. You'd get three men on an apparatus (still common), promotions would be even screwier than they are now and the turnover would increase, diminishing effectiveness. Fire departments seem to work best in a paramilitary structure. Rural/Metro is one private company out there. There are firefighters working minimum wage because the job is just that awesome.

And yes, you're using rhetoric. I disagree that it need be skillful--there can be poor rhetoric.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Winchester

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' date='11 October 2009 - 11:34 PM' timestamp='1255318474' post='1983640']
Stern: Just scanned over your posts and I can't help but think of Spooner. Am I at all correct in thinking that you're coming from a sort of Rothbard-Spooner, anarcho-capitalist perspective? Also, while criticizing the idea of the state is always fun, but could you elaborate on your economic opinions if you get a chance? Just curious.
[/quote]

Laudate,

I espoused these ideas long before I'd ever heard of Lysander Spooner. In fact, I was pleased to discover that I'd been using many of the same arguments that he and Joe Sobran used, long before I'd read either of their anarchist works. I suppose I am of the Sternhauserian school. Rothbard is not at all my favorite individual, but I respect the good he did provide in the anarchist community.

As for my economic opinions? I am of the Austrian school.

~Sternhauser

[N/A Gone]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='11 October 2009 - 10:17 PM' timestamp='1255313831' post='1983554']
Revproj,

Is it true, what the Poet says? That out in Bethlehem they're killing time, filling out forms, standing in line?

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

I honestly do not get the reference. Could you explain? I assume it is a "shot" but I am not sure.

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 11:26 PM' timestamp='1255318009' post='1983630']
This needs its own thread.
[/quote]

yes, Please flirt somewhere else.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 11:44 PM' timestamp='1255319056' post='1983653']
Collective responsibility.[/quote]

There is no collective responsibility. Organizations do not go to heaven or hell. Individuals do.

[quote]I do okay. I work 48.7 hours a week without OT until after that (but OT is pretty nice). I spend off hours reading up on the job and I never consider myself off-duty because I take my position seriously. It's how a government employee should be--the first shall be last and all that rot. I intend on staying in the field for my entire career and I choose the busy houses. I practice what I preach insofar as concerns the public and my crew. The government cannot pay the guys I work with what they are worth. It's not doable, but I think the pay is fair if a guy puts himself into it. The pay is too high for those who don't.[/quote]

Strange as it is for me to say this to a State employee, I'm glad to hear that you're working as hard as you are.

[quote]And my property tax comes in at over 2 weeks' pay. It's my money, too. I don't mind. It's worth it to me to have the protection.[/quote]
That's all well and good, but you do not have the right to make that decision for others.


[quote]And if it were privatized, the pay and protection would drop, but the money would go higher because a ceo wouldn't settle for the pay even the mayor gets. You'd get three men on an apparatus (still common), promotions would be even screwier than they are now and the turnover would increase, diminishing effectiveness. Fire departments seem to work best in a paramilitary structure. Rural/Metro is one private company out there. There are firefighters working minimum wage because the job is just that awesome.
[/quote]

Privatization (as much as it can be called 'privatization' when it's merely a contract with the State) did wonders for the ambulance service industry. Response times decreased and the quality of care and equipment rose.

The privatization of which you are probably speaking, (not competition, but a bizzare privatized state monopoly) would probably result in what you are foretelling. It would not be the case in a real privatization, with companies marketing directly to consumers, rather than the State.

Not to slight the profession itself, but more the milieu: I've known a lot of firefighters. Their egos were, on average, pretty large. A lot of that would go away when they stopped thinking of themselves as the only ones, thanks to a State-granted monopoly, who could come and save the day.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Winchester]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='11 October 2009 - 11:51 PM' timestamp='1255319515' post='1983663']
yes, Please flirt somewhere else.
[/quote]
You apparently don't understand my personality.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='11 October 2009 - 11:51 PM' timestamp='1255319515' post='1983663']
I honestly do not get the reference. Could you explain? I assume it is a "shot" but I am not sure.
[/quote]

It's not a shot. It's a line from a Billy Joel song, "Allentown."

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 11:52 PM' timestamp='1255319575' post='1983665']
You apparently don't understand my personality.
[/quote]

Yes, Revpro, he's one of those guys who just lets the emotion burst forth whenever it becomes too much to keep inside. A real PDA'er. He gives out lots of verbal hugs. They make you feel dirty . . . not the kind you can wash away.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Aloysius]

rev, Socialism favors ownership of the means of production by the state; democratic ownership of the means of production. this is an affront to the rights of man, for individual human beings each have the right to own that which they work with. you are right to say it's not about private property in terms of cars and houses (though these all get sucked up in the more radical forms of socialism and communism), it's all about who owns the means of production.

Capitalism, practically speaking, denies people ownership of the means of production by centralizing ownership of the means of production into large corporate entities.
Socialism denies people ownership of the means of production by centralizing that ownership in the state... a laborer might feel that because his democratic state that he elects runs the business he works for, he is thus somehow an owner of his own means of production, but he is mistaken.
Distributism is all about truly distributing the ownership of the means of production, truly decentralizing it by criminalizing

Stern, the state threatens force against the innocent in order to maintain their innocence; for in every just action of the state (and I admit, there are very few just actions of the modern states, but in any action that the state could do which was just,) the state is threatening force against the people in order to force them to do what they morally must do; what, if they were to not do, would make them guilty and no longer innocent. thus, the force is threatened against innocent people to force them to do something; if they do not do that thing, then they are guilty of an omission which is a threat to the welfare of everyone and force may be exerted against them. thus, it is important to distinguish "violence" into two types: one type which is the use of force and one which is the threat of force; force may be threatened prior to an act being committed as a consequence... ie, pointing a gun at a threatening person and saying "don't attack or else..."... one is only justified in shooting if the person attacks, but one may threaten to shoot before the person attacks. likewise, the state is only justified in using force against those who threaten, but must threaten force against the whole population of innocent people.

now, the 'state' ought not to be centralized distant power, it ought to be built upon the lower local structures which take care of those things which local structures are capable of taking care of... the first government, the government that ought to be the most powerful, is the nuclear family; and the family must be ruled by the father (insofar as he rules through the consent, advice, and power of the mother, the father and mother form two complementary parts of the full government of the family)... the next and second most powerful government is the extended family, a hierarchy of governance which ought to be able to keep all the nuclear families within it bonded and in peace so that if two brothers' families are feuding over something, those brothers' parents or other siblings would deal with that. the third most powerful government must then extend into the brotherhood and family of all men who choose to live in the same location, be it a city or some rural county; it is that which the formed family of people who choose to live in that location agree to live by; this government may have power precisely on the basis that those who do not wish to live under its rules indeed may move elsewhere. sadly, centralized governments have ruined that quality of local governments by making everywhere so uniformly under the thumb of one giant power; for it is the family of the brotherhood of these local governments that should form the LEAST powerful government, the larger wider government which keeps peace between these local governments.

the point is that all government is a family, or at least it should be. I like your anarchism for precisely one reason: I agree even though I disagree. You want to demolish the modern state? Could you hand me a sledgehammer? We must, however, replace it with a form of government... but that form of government must have power which is DISTRIBUTED so that each individual human being is a powerful member of that government. government must be like family; which is one benefit to the idea of monarchy which centralizes one family and has it act as a patriarchal family over all the other families... in a good monarchy, the judgment of the king would be like the patriarch of family making two brothers end their two families' feud.

I suppose I'll now go into the messy business of splitting this thread in two...

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='11 October 2009 - 11:52 PM' timestamp='1255319536' post='1983664']
Privatization (as much as it can be called 'privatization' when it's merely a contract with the State) did wonders for the ambulance service industry. Response times decreased and the quality of care and equipment rose.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
You apparently don't know many private EMS workers. We run the EMS and our cardiac save rate is the highest in the nation. (which really doesn't mean as much as it sounds, but as far as executing current medical standards, we're the best).

And it started out as private--mortuaries. The big changes showed up in California. Run by municipal departments. That was actually the boon that put EMS into real play.

The best emergency private guys come from surrounding municipal departments. It's their side job. Of course, the best guys come from busy departments. I would take a seasoned EMT basic (I am a basic--I am the dumbest of the EMTs) over an inexperienced doctor in an emergency. Experience is key. Lest ye be confused, I am not on an ambulance. I drove one for three years before scoring a fire apparatus, but my response times were the shizzle.

I know there was more in what you posted, but it's late. I should be in bed now, but I can't resist crowing.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='11 October 2009 - 11:55 PM' timestamp='1255319700' post='1983671']
Yes, Revpro, he's one of those guys who just lets the emotion burst forth whenever it becomes too much to keep inside. A real PDA'er. He gives out lots of verbal hugs. They make you feel dirty . . . not the kind you can wash away.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
Wrong, commie.

I'm the kind of guy who will now continue to hijack your thread. And people will come see because I'm better looking than you and cna throw a football over those mountains.

But L-D is the sort of guy who will move this stuff when he likes.