Topic: How long would it take for Anarchy to start working? - page 7. (Read 16391 times)

Telling you to keep your hands off of that which isn't yours and not to harm others is an imposition of morality to you?

Correct.  That's how civilization works.  A minority agitates for a moral cause; they convince enough people to have the law changed and society advances.  For example, that's why we don't have slaves.  In a free market slavery would still exist.

Its also how we reduced things like female genital mutilation and animal cruelty. 

So yes - I am all for imposing morality. 

You say that state is evil and should be liquidated, you probably think that this would be moral and justified. If state hurts you somehow (even through taxes which you deem excessive or not justified at all) or somebody else for that matter, you would obviously pretend that this is immoral... How come?

Actually, I'm not justifying anything just as I don't try to justify predator hunting some prey. It simply doesn't make sense (beast cannot be held guilty in the first place)

If a homophobe claims gays should not marry, but the gays say "We should be able to marry, to tell us we can't marry is immoral", are the gays now imposing their morality on the homophobe?

Anyway to answer your question: you begin by claiming the other person has no morality.  You then assert your own morality as the only morality in existence.  You can then easily dictate what is and is not moral.

Isn't that you imposing your morality on other people?  For example I am opposed to animal cruelty.  Is it your argument that people who are cruel to animals that they own should not be prosecuted?  What gives you the right to dictate that?

I and all my fellow subjects should be able to secede without having to leave.

My basic argument is that there is no way you can justify infringing on someone else's rights to life, liberty, and property.  So yes, I can say that no ends justify those means.

It is our moral judgment that we erroneously extend on state which is beyond morality. You just can't attach your idea of means not justifying ends to state, whether you like it or not. It would be equal to saying that it is immoral when one animal kills another. Such judgments are simply inapplicable here...

Your appeal only makes sense when it is directed to a human being for whom there exists a moral scale (i.e. by which he can tell that some decisions are more moral than others). But it would not be my decision to set up economic growth before equality. State would be interested in equality as long as it has some influence on economic growth if it decides to prioritize that metric...

You just can't draw out a morally justified decision from an entity which doesn't have morality inherent to it

Otto von Bismarck once said that "Die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen", which can be translated as "politics is the science of achieving the possible". It may be better to persuade people to abstain from alcohol instead of just outlawing it (in fact, I have no doubts that what you say is true), but it would require so many resources (human, financial or whatever) that it would actually be more damaging in other parts than useful in just one. So outright outlawing alcohol may actually turn out to be the best option available, taking into account all possible consequences and effects...

As I said above, the system you promote is already here. Though it may look very different from what you likely dream about, but the staples are present there. And even if you prefer to remain neutral you can secede and fly to Antarctica which has no government and is considered politically neutral...

How is that different from what we have right now on an international level with the difference being only that your parties/governments (i.e. states) are distributed across the globe? But in today's world, where you can fly from any inhabited area to any other within several hours, even this limitation is actually losing its significance...

The problem is this: if you decide to use economic growth as a metric, then you are setting up economic growth as being valued more highly than other factors.  Say some people would want equality over economic growth.  Either way, this is a moral decision.

The basic principle is this: the ends (your metrics) don't justify the means.  So some system might result in more economic growth, but that doesn't mean it's right to force it on people - maybe they value something else more highly than that economic growth.  Or some system might result in better equality, but it would be wrong to force it on you or others who believe economic growth should be paramount (just an example).  Or maybe reducing traffic deaths is the number one goal, or childhood obesity.

When you justify using force to force people to be part of your system, you are justifying tyranny.  Even if your system is measurably great in some way, or many ways.  The ends (greatness in economic growth or some other measure) do not justify the means (infringing the right of other people to their life, liberty, and/or property).

Part of the whole point here is that power, as we know it, is wrong!

You should have the power to defend your rights to life, liberty, and property.

You shouldn't have the power to compel people to go along with your ideas.  So, for example, you think everybody should abstain from alcohol.  Great - persuade people instead of outlawing it, because nobody should have the power to outlaw it.  It shouldn't be a matter of voting on who gets that power over everybody, because nobody should have it.

It's no good merely taking turns at tyranny.  Tyranny has to be eliminated.

All they have to do is just respect each other's rights to life, liberty, and property.  Imagine if the Republican and Democratic parties were each governments.  Each citizen picks whichever one they want.  If you commit a crime against another citizen of your party, your party handles it in the way they deem appropriate.  If they commit a crime against a citizen of the other party, it'd be handled by collaboration between governments: extradition, etc.  So, if you are Republican and murder a Democrat and the whole world witnessed it on television, the Republicans probably hand you over to the Democrats to face justice.  But if you are Democrat and have an abortion, the Democrats don't hand you over to the Republicans, because while the Republicans have outlawed abortion, the Democrats have not.

Now generalize it: instead of two parties/governments, allow any arbitrary number of them.  Allow people to create new ones as they see fit.


No, in elections (as we know them), you are picking the government that other people will be subject to.  What we want is for each person to be allowed to pick their own government.  Example: when George W. Bush won in 2000, it was immoral to force everybody to be subject to his government; people should've been allowed to be under a competing system run by Gore instead, if that's what they really wanted.  (Personally I'd pick neither.)

Yes, exactly.  I fully support the people around me continuing to keep their existing government if they choose, so long as that institution stops compelling everybody in this territory to be its citizens/subjects.  They can keep their flag, national anthem, Congress, courts, Presidents, etc.  They can keep their schools.  They can even keep their wars.  What they can't do, morally, in my opinion, is force everybody to belong to their "jurisdiction" simply because they live here.  Other people within this region should be able to belong to other organizations with different courts, Presidents, etc., or even none at all and arranged differently (perhaps they want a king, as an example).

That's an easy one, the little blighters are lazy - they never work

I keep misreading the topic as "How long would it take for Anchovy to start working?"

I don't think so. And if, nevertheless, you are going to insist on this, please provide some convincing evidence for your assertion or give strong reasons why measuring the "effectiveness" should necessarily be a moral issue...

Actually, there are many objective metrics to measure the efficiency of the state existing nowadays for this very purpose. Economic growth as one of the most evident and encompassing example of such a metric. Also, how are you going to define freedom/liberty in more or less objective terms and would it be a moral issue then?