(June 23, 2015 at 3:29 pm)Dystopia Wrote: I was merely debating the revolution V. reformism arguments - I wasn't saying I endorse anarchy (I don't). Honestly, I don't feel comfortable debating anarchy and saying right away it is entirely stupid without reading the books first - I made that mistake many times and I've been defeated (and mocked) by people who know better than me.
One of the things that confuses me is that anarchists frequently say that laws can still exist without a government to prevent chaos - But my question is - If authority is a requirement of any law (otherwise no one needs to follow it), how can there be laws?
A law without a government backing it up is no more than a suggestion. They are just delusional idiots, imagining that people would follow laws without a government backing them up. Hell, even with a government, people are often quite willing to break the law. What do you think would happen if there were nothing enforcing the law?
The idea that we would all happily get along is so ludicrously idiotic that it staggers the imagination to suppose that anyone is stupid enough to believe it.
Of course, as has already been stated in this thread, many who call themselves "anarchists" are not really anarchists. They just want to stay up past their bedtime.
(June 23, 2015 at 3:29 pm)Dystopia Wrote: Pyrrho - I think that's a very simplistic counter-argument - If your State abolished the government, would your first reaction be stealing from the guy next door?
You should read all of my posts in this thread together, rather than view the last one in isolation. I don't want to repeat everything every time I put in a new post, as that would be tedious. So I have not done that, but it is necessary to understand the word "anarchy" to understand my comments about it, and I explained that term in my first post in this thread, which is post 16.
Now, if there were no government, what I would do would depend greatly on whatever my situation was at the time. If I had nothing to eat, and my neighbor had bread, do you suppose that it would be wise to assume that I will simply quietly starve to death in my home? And whether I would or not, you can be sure that many others would not.
Really, if there were a plan to disband the government (which, fortunately, is only a ridiculous fantasy of deluded morons), I would be looking to get out of here before that happened. Perhaps, I would move to Canada, though I would feel a whole lot safer further away from the mess that would ensue. Unfortunately, with the nuclear weapons that are here, no place on earth could be far enough away to be safe from the aftermath of an absence of government here, as there would be no telling who would end up with our nuclear weapons, nor would one know what they would do with them.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
