Am I an Anarchist?

[The Grand Nudger]

I happen to live in Canada, my place of birth and residence for most of my life, a relatively free country. Of course I don’t consider myself a Canadian or express any loyalty to the state or the “nation”. Countries are merely territories to me, soil, rock, water and vegetation. I don’t anthropomorphize a country like a patriot or nationalist.
I have come to realize I am more anti-nationalist than I am anarchist. I can tolerate a state as long as it is very weak and limited. I guess I’m more of a libertarian then. But a stateless society has its appeal too. Let me be quite honest, I’d rather live in a place like Somalia with its roaming militias than in China with its spotless streets. You can’t put a price on freedom. The point is I absolutely hate any kind of authoritarianism. I sincerely hope North America continues to be relatively free and doesn’t go down the route of Europe or Britain.

I think that you might wanna test that particular preference out.  

As for atheists, to each his own, but it must be admitted that the Soviet Union and now China have been the bastions of state sponsored atheism and persecute religious groups. The concentration camps in Xiangjiang province and the condition of Uighurs and Kazakhs is an outright example of atheist persecution of a religious community right now as we approach the year 2019.
Now of course the atheists here in North America tend to be humanists or at least liberal and committed to religious liberty. But they have to acknowledge the illiberal atheists across the Atlantic and the Pacific are harming the cause of religious liberty in the name of the state.

Yet another common and commonly flawed grievance.  No one is persecuting anyone on account of how no god told them to.  This is just something that the religious have become fond of saying..and ofc, it's a repetition of US Cold War propaganda, so good job on carrying that line.  You got a bit of that right, at least..yes..atheists here in north america are commonly humanists and commonly aligned with religious liberty.  The religious, however, are not..lol. The religious overseas are no more inclined to humanism or liberty...and the far right populists to which you're referring are a massively religious lot themselves. Your boogeymen..themselves, Russia and China...simply privilege their own traditional and collaborating religions against those of the detested Other™.

Atheism is intrinsically prone to politically authoritarian and collectivist ideologies. That is because atheism is colorless, it doesn’t understand the human condition as religion does, particularly Semitic religions, and it is from the latter that we get concept like civil disobedience and the morality of defying the state and the law when the state or law is unjust and tyrannical.

I don't know where to begin on how wrong the above is, or that it would even be worthwhile to do so.

[Rev. Rye]

I feel there should be an option for individuals and groups to withdraw from a social contract that we have all been born into and had no other alternative but to live with. This simply means withdrawing from the present social contract and forming new ones.
Furthermore, my political philosophy is based on the idea that human beings are fundamentally good and do not arbitrarily inflict violence on one another. Violence, however, is inherent to the state. A human individual will generally become violent if he finds himself in very desperate circumstances, and especially if he has no appreciation for individual liberty.
I am contemptuous of the state and its institutions, but feel that it is a design flaw, and the solution is to have a less omnipresent state with very limited functions. Though this ideal is conceivable in societies that fundamentally cherish individual freedom and possess the nerve to fight for it, even if that entails considerable inconvenience.

---

It depends where you are. Throughout most of this planet religious liberty is severely curtailed. Just look at the largest nation in the world (communist China). They are literally forcing millions of Uighurs in “re-education camps”, where they are forced to sing praises to the Communist Party, forbidden from speaking their mother tongue, coerced to denounce their religion, force fed pork, and so on. Now admittedly this is an extreme example. In China, the Buddhist monks of Tibet and the Christian community are likewise severely repressed. Churches and religious groups require permission from the government to operate and are under close surveillance. But even in supposedly secular and liberal Europe you have restrictions on religious liberty, such as religious articles of clothing. The rise of far right populism is extremely alarming for religious minorities around the world.

Humans don't willingly inflict harm on each other Thomas Hobbes would like a word with you

Yeah, the funny thing about politics is there's really two aspects to political theory: theory and practice. It's not hard to see the appeal in anarchism; its critique of the oppressive power structures is often dead on (then again, I think the same of Hobbes' "war of all against all"); I suppose, if it just boiled down to that, I'd consider myself an anarchist, too. However, the thing is, the assumptions that most forms of anarchism hinge on (especially for their planned solutions, and particularly the claim that it's reasonable to expect that, in the absence of power structures, humans can just sit down and sing Kumbaya) simply cannot be applied to planet Earth (in the interest of fairness, Hobbes' defense of absolutist government falls apart just as quickly; after all, said monarch is still one of the same men who are wolves to men, and, at best, they can just redirect the brutality to particular targets).

Also, Massive text sizes are to be used sparingly. They just make whatever you have to say look like an eyesore. Just use the default text size.

[Cherub786]

Yet another common and commonly flawed grievance.  No one is persecuting anyone on account of how no god told them to.  This is just something that the religious have become fond of saying..and ofc, it's a repetition of US Cold War propaganda, so good job on carrying that line.  You got a bit of that right, at least..yes..atheists here in north america are commonly humanists and commonly aligned with religious liberty.  The religious, however, are not..lol.  The religious overseas are no more inclined to humanism or liberty...and the far right populists to which you're referring are a massively religious lot themselves.  Your boogeymen..themselves, Russia and China...simply privilege their own traditional and collaborating religions against those of the detested Other™.  

“No one is persecuting anyone on account of how no god told them to” surely you can see the logical fallacy in that statement. Does persecution require that the persecutor persecute in the name of a deity?

Persecution is the treatment itself, regardless of whose name it is being done in. The modern states like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Ho Chi Minh’s China, Castro’s Cuba, etc., persecute in the name of the state. In other words, the state itself is their substitute for any deity. I don’t think anyone here can compare the medieval inquisitions and witch trials to the 20th century holocaust, gulags, and “purges”, not to mention the ethnic genocides and autogenocides. In terms of scope there is simply no comparison.
Far-Right populism is essentially a non-religious phenomenon. There may be invocation of Christendom, but not really Christianity. I happen to regularly listen to far-right and alt-right discourse from their podcasts and they are unmistakably not motivated by religion at all, but rather by notions of race and racial identity. They want to preserve “Western civilization” feeling that the latter is a racially European civilization and without the racial component, Western civilization ceases to exist. What do they have to do with religion?
Listen to their spokespeople like Richard Spencer, himself a “tragic atheist”. The greatest influence on him is Nietzche not Jesus of Nazareth.

[Minimalist]

Religious liberty is specifically on a steep decline.

I wish that were true.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yet another common and commonly flawed grievance.  No one is persecuting anyone on account of how no god told them to.  This is just something that the religious have become fond of saying..and ofc, it's a repetition of US Cold War propaganda, so good job on carrying that line.  You got a bit of that right, at least..yes..atheists here in north america are commonly humanists and commonly aligned with religious liberty.  The religious, however, are not..lol.  The religious overseas are no more inclined to humanism or liberty...and the far right populists to which you're referring are a massively religious lot themselves.  Your boogeymen..themselves, Russia and China...simply privilege their own traditional and collaborating religions against those of the detested Other™.  

“No one is persecuting anyone on account of how no god told them to” surely you can see the logical fallacy in that statement. Does persecution require that the persecutor persecute in the name of a deity?

Further confirmation that I'm likely wasting my time.  Meh..whatevs, I'll try to help you out anyway.

Perhaps -you- should see how that statement applies to the notion of "atheistic persecution" of the religious.  Consider the statement "God wills it" alongside the statement "No God wills it!".  Perhaps it'll jump out at you, this time.  

Persecution is the treatment itself, regardless of whose name it is being done in. The modern states like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Ho Chi Minh’s China, Castro’s Cuba, etc., persecute in the name of the state. In other words, the state itself is their substitute for any deity. I don’t think anyone here can compare the medieval inquisitions and witch trials to the 20th century holocaust, gulags, and “purges”, not to mention the ethnic genocides and autogenocides. In terms of scope there is simply no comparison.

Earlier inquisitors simply lacked the tools.  They had all the necessary zeal and did impressive work for their time..but here you are, excusing them anyway.  For reasons™.  Directly after having tried to tie atheism to pretty much any dumb thing you thought you could float, lol.

Far-Right populism is essentially a non-religious phenomenon. There may be invocation of Christendom, but not really Christianity.

LOL, stop.

I happen to regularly listen to far-right and alt-right discourse from their podcasts and they are unmistakably not motivated by religion at all, but rather by notions of race and racial identity. They want to preserve “Western civilization” feeling that the latter is a racially European civilization and without the racial component, Western civilization ceases to exist. What do they have to do with religion?
Listen to their spokespeople like Richard Spencer, himself a “tragic atheist”. The greatest influence on him is Nietzche not Jesus of Nazareth.

I bet you do regularly listen to alt right trash, lol.  Perhaps you might have noticed that euro jesus is a blond man with blue eyes?  Religion and racial identity long ago coalesced into the same thing for rightwing nutballs. That jesus is too jewy for a nazi is unsurprising, but it didn't stop nazis from pandering or catholics from goosestepping. God was with them..but, you know, maybe, like, thor or somesuch. In truth, that biut of unpleasantness was entirely built out of explicitly religious pogroms spanning centuries. The muslims are still screaming about killing off the jews. Christians have largely moved on to bitching about how they're funding Killary Klinton.

: shrugs :

[Cherub786]

Further confirmation that I'm likely wasting my time.  Meh..whatevs, I'll try to help you out anyway.

Perhaps -you- should see how that statement applies to the notion of "atheistic persecution" of the religious.  Consider the statement "God wills it" alongside the statement "No God wills it!".  Perhaps it'll jump out at you, this time.  

Earlier inquisitors simply lacked the tools.  They had all the necessary zeal and did impressive work for their time..but here you are, excusing them anyway.  For reasons™.  Directly after having tried to tie atheism to pretty much any dumb thing you thought you could float, lol.


LOL, stop.


I bet you do regularly listen to alt right trash, lol.  Perhaps you might have noticed that euro jesus is a blond man with blue eyes?  Religion and racial identity long ago coalesced into the same thing for rightwing nutballs.  That jesus is too jewy for a nazi is unsurprising, but it didn't stop nazis from pandering or catholics from goosestepping.  God was with them..but, you know, maybe, like, thor or somesuch.  In truth, that biut of unpleasantness was entirely built out of explicitly religious pogroms spanning centuries.  The muslims are still screaming about killing off the jews.  Christians have largely moved on to bitching about how they're funding Killary Klinton.

:  shrugs :

Like I said, when atheists persecute the religious it may not be in the name of a deity (obviously) but why does it have to be in the name of anything? Persecution is persecution regardless of motivation. When atheists persecute the religious it is simply because the atheists don't like religion and having contempt for the religious.

You say that the medieval inquisitions and examples of religious violence were proportionately as bad if not worse than the 20th century wars, purges and ethnic cleansing in the context of their time and means available to them. I beg to differ.

The truth is that if you look at the Spanish Inquisition, only about 1% of the total people who were tried were executed. That pales in comparison to the number of people that have been killed unjustly by 20th century authoritarian states with atheism as their official ideology, even if you want to compare proportionately.

And if you say that the atrocities committed by atheist states really had nothing to do with atheism but was about power and politics, the same is certainly true for the old religious wars. Religion was only used as a pretext for underlying motivations of wanting power.

As for me listening to alt-right material...it's simple "know thy enemy". As a racial and religious minority I'm probably more at risk from the rise of the Far-Right than you are. Of course I have a greater interest in understanding them than a white atheist who can afford to ignore them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Like I said, when atheists persecute the religious it may not be in the name of a deity (obviously) but why does it have to be in the name of anything? Persecution is persecution regardless of motivation. When atheists persecute the religious it is simply because the atheists don't like religion and having contempt for the religious.

You're still trying to sell snake oil, lol.  None of your boogeymen were "atheists persecuting religion because they didn't like religion".  They were despots persecuting dissidents.  They fucking -love- their own pet religions.  

I get that you've had this line of garbage jammed into you head, but you have to stop listening to whomever is doing that to you.  

You say that the medieval inquisitions and examples of religious violence were proportionately as bad if not worse than the 20th century wars, purges and ethnic cleansing in the context of their time and means available to them. I beg to differ.

OFC you would, you have religions to excuse and paint as victims, and you'll certainly need to find some way to ambulate around the fact that their victimizers were also religious by brute force of demographics.  

The truth is that if you look at the Spanish Inquisition, only about 1% of the total people who were tried were executed. That pales in comparison to the number of people that have been killed unjustly by 20th century authoritarian states with atheism as their official ideology, even if you want to compare proportionately.

-and again you shit the bed.

And if you say that the atrocities committed by atheist states really had nothing to do with atheism but was about power and politics, the same is certainly true for the old religious wars. Religion was only used as a pretext for underlying motivations of wanting power.

-and again.

As for me listening to alt-right material...it's simple "know thy enemy". As a racial and religious minority I'm probably more at risk from the rise of the Far-Right than you are. Of course I have a greater interest in understanding them than a white atheist who can afford to ignore them.

You're more at risk of picking up their nonsense by contact, as well....which you have.  I notice that you still don't realize that you're parroting rightwing american christer propaganda from the cold war.  More than a little bit of irony there, considering the OPQ, don't you think?

I'm immune, through long exposure, lol.  I can't actually ignore them..though, because they're fucking up my country and have been for some time, just as they've been fucking everything up since time immemorial...not that you see any of that....ofc.

[Cherub786]

Now look, I’m not here to bash atheism or atheists. I’m only pointing out that in today’s world religious liberty is increasingly being curtailed. Atheists tend to be well off and privileged people. They either live in parts of the world that are relatively free (North America, Europe) or in other parts of the world where atheism is promoted by the state (China). Where exactly are they being mistreated on account of their atheism?

Coming back to the subject of libertarianism and individualism vs authoritarianism and collectivism, I feel that all of us, despite our religious and cultural differences, should unite in favor of libertarian and anarchist tendencies. A snake handler from Appalachia and a Haredi Jew in Brooklyn are culturally very different, but both of their religious liberty is threatened by rising political trends. Even atheists should support religious liberty for all and not just for themselves.
We have to start by smashing the foundation of the modern nation state, i.e., the concept of a single nationhood. We need to reject that we are a single nation but instead we are multiple nations coexisting in a single polity, and each of us need our own space and freedom to pursue our own destiny. We are all integrated into a single economic and political system, but that doesn’t mean we have to be forced to think of ourselves as a single nation. Let’s call for limiting the state and allow communities and populations greater autonomy to live the life they want.

---

Humans don't willingly inflict harm on each other Thomas Hobbes would like a word with you

Yeah, the funny thing about politics is there's really two aspects to political theory: theory and practice. It's not hard to see the appeal in anarchism; its critique of the oppressive power structures is often dead on (then again, I think the same of Hobbes' "war of all against all"); I suppose, if it just boiled down to that, I'd consider myself an anarchist, too. However, the thing is, the assumptions that most forms of anarchism hinge on (especially for their planned solutions, and particularly the claim that it's reasonable to expect that, in the absence of power structures, humans can just sit down and sing Kumbaya) simply cannot be applied to planet Earth (in the interest of fairness, Hobbes' defense of absolutist government falls apart just as quickly; after all, said monarch is still one of the same men who are wolves to men, and, at best, they can just redirect the brutality to particular targets).  

Also, Massive text sizes are to be used sparingly. They just make whatever you have to say look like an eyesore. Just use the default text size.

I basically agree with everything you wrote. And apologies for the text size, I rectified the situation.
Hobbes's political philosophy is essentially based on the idea that people are trash and need to be controlled. That is the fundamental difference.
I agree that practically in today's world you need a state given the massive amount of population and how complex we have become.
I appreciate law and the intricacies of the legal system. However, I do feel that the laws need to be simplified and streamlined.
The problem is you have legislatures which each year keep on adding more and more laws to the books as opposed to eliminating superfluous and needless laws.
My philosophy is the more laws there are the less free a society is. The ideal is that there should be the minimum amount of basic and essential laws and people should generally be free to do what they want to do.

---

Like I said, when atheists persecute the religious it may not be in the name of a deity (obviously) but why does it have to be in the name of anything? Persecution is persecution regardless of motivation. When atheists persecute the religious it is simply because the atheists don't like religion and having contempt for the religious.

You're still trying to sell snake oil, lol.  None of your boogeymen were "atheists persecuting religion because they didn't like religion".  They were despots persecuting dissidents.  They fucking -love- their own pet religions.  

I get that you've had this line of garbage jammed into you head, but you have to stop listening to whomever is doing that to you.  

You say that the medieval inquisitions and examples of religious violence were proportionately as bad if not worse than the 20th century wars, purges and ethnic cleansing in the context of their time and means available to them. I beg to differ.

OFC you would, you have religions to excuse and paint as victims, and you'll certainly need to find some way to ambulate around the fact that their victimizers were also religious by brute force of demographics.  

The truth is that if you look at the Spanish Inquisition, only about 1% of the total people who were tried were executed. That pales in comparison to the number of people that have been killed unjustly by 20th century authoritarian states with atheism as their official ideology, even if you want to compare proportionately.

-and again you shit the bed.

And if you say that the atrocities committed by atheist states really had nothing to do with atheism but was about power and politics, the same is certainly true for the old religious wars. Religion was only used as a pretext for underlying motivations of wanting power.

-and again.

As for me listening to alt-right material...it's simple "know thy enemy". As a racial and religious minority I'm probably more at risk from the rise of the Far-Right than you are. Of course I have a greater interest in understanding them than a white atheist who can afford to ignore them.

You're more at risk of picking up their nonsense by contact, as well....which you have.  I notice that you still don't realize that you're parroting rightwing american christer propaganda from the cold war.  More than a little bit of irony there, considering the OPQ, don't you think?

I'm immune, through long exposure, lol.  I can't actually ignore them..though, because they're fucking up my country and have been for some time, just as they've been fucking everything up since time immemorial...not that you see any of that....ofc.

Pardon me, but you've go to limit the acronyms so I can understand what you're talking about.

I admit what you call "Cold War propaganda" does appeal to me and influence me a lot. But I've studied just how bad communism and collectivism are. As a religious person, I am naturally allergic to communism and Marxism.
There is a reason why the US prevailed and ultimately won the Cold War. The other side was indeed an evil empire, an Orwellian state whose vision was a boot permanently stomping on the human face.

I feel that humanists need to focus more on railing against authoritarianism and statism and less on religion. Religion isn't the threat to human liberty, but statism certainly is the greatest threat and always has been. If humanist are so concerned about humanity they should realize this before anything else.

[The Grand Nudger]

Now look, I’m not here to bash atheism or atheists. I’m only pointing out that in today’s world religious liberty is increasingly being curtailed. Atheists tend to be well off and privileged people. They either live in parts of the world that are relatively free (North America, Europe) or in other parts of the world where atheism is promoted by the state (China). Where exactly are they being mistreated on account of their atheism?

Yeah, gonna call shenanigans on that one.  That's exactly why you're here, lol.  I mean..it's okay, we get it all the time, this is only the billionth time we've heard your every complaint.

Coming back to the subject of libertarianism and individualism vs authoritarianism and collectivism, I feel that all of us, despite our religious and cultural differences, should unite in favor of libertarian and anarchist tendencies. A snake handler from Appalachia and a Haredi Jew in Brooklyn are culturally very different, but both of their religious liberty is threatened by rising political trends. Even atheists should support religious liberty for all and not just for themselves.

I'm not interested in supporting the "religious liberties" of people who think that their "religious liberty" is curtailing the liberties, religious and otherwise, of others. 

We have to start by smashing the foundation of the modern nation state, i.e., the concept of a single nationhood. We need to reject that we are a single nation but instead we are multiple nations coexisting in a single polity, and each of us need our own space and freedom to pursue our own destiny. We are all integrated into a single economic and political system, but that doesn’t mean we have to be forced to think of ourselves as a single nation. Let’s call for limiting the state and allow communities and populations greater autonomy to live the life they want.

You're talking to the wrong guy on that one.  I'm a patriot, and uninterested in weakening my country just because some nutbar thinks the religious have it tough somewhere else.  I'll note that my state has made it possible for greater numbers of people all ove the world to enjoy the freedom to pursue their own destinies than any other country and most definitely any religion in the history of the same.  It's not called the american century for nothin.  

You benefit from that framework, and now bite the hand that feeds... imagining that somalia is, somehow, freedom..because, something something something, hurr durr atheists china and russia...and the violence inherent in the system!  Why not try some murrican libertarianism?  A strong state wholly committed to preserving our individual liberty.  After all, in the absence of such a state, you only have as much liberty as I might allow you at the tip of my rifle..which won't be much.   You know, what with my inherent tendencies as an atheist, and all?

Your idea of why we "won" the cold war is as amatuerish as the rest of your remarks, but you be you, and be a good little boy for the state, of 1950's america, lol. Meanwhile, I think that you should probably leave humanism up to the humanists, like anything else, you seem to know fuck all about it.

[Rev. Rye]

Yeah, the funny thing about politics is there's really two aspects to political theory: theory and practice. It's not hard to see the appeal in anarchism; its critique of the oppressive power structures is often dead on (then again, I think the same of Hobbes' "war of all against all"); I suppose, if it just boiled down to that, I'd consider myself an anarchist, too. However, the thing is, the assumptions that most forms of anarchism hinge on (especially for their planned solutions, and particularly the claim that it's reasonable to expect that, in the absence of power structures, humans can just sit down and sing Kumbaya) simply cannot be applied to planet Earth (in the interest of fairness, Hobbes' defense of absolutist government falls apart just as quickly; after all, said monarch is still one of the same men who are wolves to men, and, at best, they can just redirect the brutality to particular targets).  

Also, Massive text sizes are to be used sparingly. They just make whatever you have to say look like an eyesore. Just use the default text size.

I basically agree with everything you wrote. And apologies for the text size, I rectified the situation.
Hobbes's political philosophy is essentially based on the idea that people are trash and need to be controlled. That is the fundamental difference.
I agree that practically in today's world you need a state given the massive amount of population and how complex we have become.
I appreciate law and the intricacies of the legal system. However, I do feel that the laws need to be simplified and streamlined.
The problem is you have legislatures which each year keep on adding more and more laws to the books as opposed to eliminating superfluous and needless laws.
My philosophy is the more laws there are the less free a society is. The ideal is that there should be the minimum amount of basic and essential laws and people should generally be free to do what they want to do.

Yeah, there is a lot of chaff that can potentially be cut, from both the legislature and the legal code [our draconian drug laws that give America an alarmingly high incarceration rate being among them], but the crucial thing should be to find a proper golden mean where society is actually working properly. It could mean significantly fewer laws, it could even mean significantly more laws (naturally removing several old and obsolete laws and creating more that actually fix problems.)