We have previously discussed how leaders in both the United States and Europe have focused on atheists and secularists as one of the greatest threats facing the free world. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) seemed to take this to a new level in arguing this week that if the nation did not reaffirm “In God We Trust” as our national motto, we are inviting anarchy and accepting that we are nothing but “worm food.”
Of course, the motto has only been embraced since 1956 and we seemed to do pretty well through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Moreover, not having a motto based on the recognition of faith does not mean that we are a country of faithless citizens. Indeed, there are plenty deeply religious secularists.
However, Franks went to the floor to say “Is God God? Or is man God? In God do we trust, or in man do we trust?” Otherwise, he warned “we should just let anarchy prevail because, after all, we are just worm food. So indeed we have the time to reaffirm that God is God and in God do we trust.”
Of course, no one was asking to rescind the motto, but the legislative debate is part of the increasing faith-based politics that remains the rage this year.
Source: Washington Post
Bdaman: ” Occupy Wall Street is a good example”
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And the Oakland Police are another.
Bravo, Gene!
Just because some individuals are capable of self-restraint and good behavior without the rule of law doesn’t mean that all individuals are capable of restraint and/or good behavior.
Wall Street is a better example.
Just because some individuals are capable of self-restraint and good behavior without the rule of law doesn’t mean that all individuals are capable of restraint and/or good behavior.
Occupy Wall Street is a good example
“No gene an interwoven fabric of social interactions that govern people’s behavior in a voluntary and peaceful manner is no way even close to demarchy where you pick your rulers by lottery instead of voting.”
No, it’s not exact, but a demarchist society is as close to your anarchist fantasy as possible and not be true anarchy. You seem to want a world where everyone follows the rules just because they should when the reality is it is not going to always be in an individual’s best interests to follow the rules. Your perception of human nature is fatally unrealistic.
“You really dont get the whole individual soveriegnty thing do you? Perhaps the problem is that you have such little faith in yourself and your own abilities that you assume everyone is in need of a ruler as much as you are.”
Perhaps the problem is that you simply don’t know what you’re talking about in your fantasy land where everyone acts with or is capable of uniform degrees of self-restraint, ekeyrah. Just because some individuals are capable of self-restraint and good behavior without the rule of law doesn’t mean that all individuals are capable of restraint and/or good behavior. Rules come with structure and enforcement mechanisms. Rules without structure and enforcement mechanisms are not rules, they are suggestions. Your understanding of human nature is almost as juvenile as your understanding of political forms and their necessity in a society of size.
No gene an interwoven fabric of social interactions that govern people’s behavior in a voluntary and peaceful manner is no way even close to demarchy where you pick your rulers by lottery instead of voting.
You really dont get the whole individual soveriegnty thing do you? Perhaps the problem is that you have such little faith in yourself and your own abilities that you assume everyone is in need of a ruler as much as you are.
ekeyra-
I didn’t get to the von Mises website today. I spent the morning blogging on Whigs Arise!.com.
ekeyrah,
What you’ve posted is a fantasy that plays to your confirmation bias based on your predilection for anarchy. Your articles idea would only work in a perfectly homogeneous small scale society possessing both a minimum of a plurality of common behaviors and common values. As humans as a species are not inherently homogeneous in behavior and even less so today as people move from society to society on a global scale, that idea will not work. The closest thing to what your article describes is the Demarchist form of government and it has never been deployed on the scale of nations. While it has worked for city-states such as Venice under the Venetian Republic, it runs into problems at larger scales due to factionalism and the increased competition of interests inherent with larger orders of operation. What you reference, however, is just another form of government that requires the rule of law. It’s not true anarchy. Also, if I (and indeed others) have gotten the idea that your position is that there should be no laws at all, you should consider your presentation first as the cause of the perception. Demarchy is the term you should consider for describing your position rather than talking in terms of abdication of formal government (which is simple anarchy). Even so, while there are some legitimately attractive features of Demarchy, there are some very real problems to applying it to scale in the real world.
I’ve also posted an article just today that describes the web of interweaving social behaviors that would be present in a voluntary peacefully cooperative society that would act as a de facto law.. At the very least read them and critique them instead of just asserting that my position is that there should be no law at all.
Gene,
Why restrict the conversation to only the last 2 murderers? We’ve had plenty.
“They need something to talk about until November, 2012.” (Noah V)
Yes, sir and it is all pandering nonsense.
ekeyra,
Slip, slidin’ away …
ekeyrah,
If you are arguing that the current and previous administration has caused the deaths of a lot of innocent people (in the name of profits by the way), then you are again arguing with the wrong person.
That does not mean you have a firm grasp on operational reality though.
Your premises are still underpinned by the twin fallacies that society can exist without laws and that the market can operate as a just mechanism to prevent and/or punish bad actors.
There’s a forest behind them thar trees.
“The article quotes the international human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith arguing that because Pakistan is not a war zone, these killings are “murder.” That’s an argument that — in the extremely unlikely event it were ever heard in America’s establishment media organs — would be treated with mockery and contempt. Everyone knows that the American President cannot commit “murder”; that’s only for common criminals and Muslim dictators (whom the West starts to dislike). But however one wants to define these acts, the fact is that we have spent a full decade bringing violence to multiple countries in that region and — in all sorts of ways — ending the lives of countless innocent people.”
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/02/the_human_toll_of_the_u_s_drone_campaign/singleton/
Yes gene, I have a firm grasp on its operational reality.
ekeyrah,
Legitimacy of government is a separate issue. I never said democracy was “special” although it is and is for the following reason: it recognizes that the true power in society resides with the many, not the few. In this respect, a democratic form of government is far more legitimate than a monarchy or a dictatorship. You should re-read the Churchill quote until you understand it. Democracy is not perfect, but it is far better than the alternatives, including the alternative of no government at all.
Also, I’m not sure what you are getting at in your last sentence, but if you’re arguing against the death penalty, you’re arguing with the wrong person.
Gene,
“The rulers only rule with the consent of the ruled in any system of government. ”
“Again with the false equivalences”
So which is it? Some governments do not rule with the consent of the governed so its ok to evade them or do they all operate under the same assumptions of legitimacy?
Democracy is not special. If it is wrong for one man to order the death an innocent person, what erases the guilt of that crime when millions order it?
ekeyrah,
“I think i have a much firmer grasp on its operational reality than you do.”
Said the person advocating a system that guarantees tyranny. You may think you do, but you only think you do as evidenced by your predilection for the worst form of government possible: none.
“So whats stopping them from getting the message right now?”
The same thing that stops people from getting the message before every revolution: arrogance and/or greed.
“And what would you alter to make that happen?”
Identifying the problem, knowing the solution and knowing how to reach it are separate things. The solution can only be reached, however, by the application of true democracy and heeding the call to punish the guilty instead of protecting them. How to overcome the aforementioned arrogance and greed in the ruling class is as problematic as it ever was, but ultimately the key rests in their intransigence. The message is being sent clearly. If they refuse to listen, then they will bear the cost ultimately.
“So it was ideaological clap-trap when someone escaped mao’s china? or cambodia under the khmer rouge? or stalin’s gulags? Oh well i guess those people should have turned right around and went back to the protection of their government. Good point, who wants to take that risk?”
Again with the false equivalences and illustrating that your grasp on operational reality isn’t as firm as you’ve led yourself to believe.
*************
Oro Lee,
“As far as the Aztecs and Mayans having “Monarch” — no, not really. The concept of a monarch or emperor was totally foreign to them. The person usually so depicted by the Europeans was more a spokesperson for the ruling elite. It was pretty much an aristocracy without the monarch. The aristocracy acted much like a democracy. Exceptions were made for times of disasters and emergencies — like smallpox epidemics and invasion by foreigners. Of course, those were types of rulers described by the conquerors.”
I beg to differ. What you’ve described is essentially how European court life operated as well. The monarch may have had a permanent title in European society, but the daily operation of court was much like a democracy in that it was based to a large degree upon consensus and allegiances among the aristocrats. It was usually (but not always – some monarchs were truly dicatators) in times of national emergency or war that the monarch proper acted unilaterally. That the Maya and the Aztec may not have had a full time title proper for their unilateral acting head of state doesn’t mean that they didn’t have one. I think they had monarchs if not in name, in function (although I’ll stipulate that the analogy is not perfect nor was Aztec and Maya society as rigidly defined as contemporaneous European society).
Gene:
Thank you for making clear the point I was trying to make — there is a big- time difference between no ruler and no rule of law. To the extent anarchists promote no rule of law, well, that’s no more than jungle law espoused by those with an inflated sense of ego.
With respect “no ruler,” the issue is actually how many rulers — a monarch, a ruling junta, an aristocracy, an party, each voter. With appropriate protections against mob rule, I vote for democracy. Each man for himself leaves each man at the mercy of the mob.
Then there’s the economies of scale in establishing and directing national, state, and local interests through organizations with national, state, and local authority. it requires more than disparate private contract — it requires a socil compact in order to make a more perfect union.
As far as the Aztecs and Mayans having “Monarch” — no, not really. The concept of a monarch or emperor was totally foreign to them. The person usually so depicted by the Europeans was more a spokesperson for the ruling elite. It was pretty much an aristocracy without the monarch. The aristocracy acted much like a democracy. Exceptions were made for times of disasters and emergencies — like smallpox epidemics and invasion by foreigners. Of course, those were types of rulers described by the conquerors.
Gene,
“Don’t you mean that you simply don’t understand how democracy in action works?”
I think i have a much firmer grasp on its operational reality than you do.
“Convince the very people that would have the most to lose if my law was passed to pass my law? You bet. By making sure they get the message that they could lose a lot more if they don’t comply with the will of the people.”
So whats stopping them from getting the message right now? And what would you alter to make that happen?
““[I]f even one individual escapes the clutches of the state that is success” is ideological clap-trap if that individual ” escapes the clutches of the state” only to enter in to a state of absolute tyranny of the strong over the weak with no safeguards and no recourse except what they themselves can carve out with a knife or get at gunpoint.”
So it was ideaological clap-trap when someone escaped mao’s china? or cambodia under the khmer rouge? or stalin’s gulags? Oh well i guess those people should have turned right around and went back to the protection of their government. Good point, who wants to take that risk?
ekeyrah,
“Dont you mean you would have to convince the very people that would have the most to lose if your law was passed, to pass your law? Or are we just assuming you are dictating laws as you see fit?”
Don’t you mean that you simply don’t understand how democracy in action works? The rulers only rule with the consent of the ruled in any system of government. If the masses tire of the abuses of leadership, said leadership is always brought to heel one way or another but always with some degree of populist support for their ouster. The difference in a democracy is that power rests in the people, not in the rulers. Convince the very people that would have the most to lose if my law was passed to pass my law? You bet. By making sure they get the message that they could lose a lot more if they don’t comply with the will of the people. It’s basic math. 99% is greater than 1%. There is no argument for anarchy that holds water. It is a inherently flawed premise and form. “[I]f even one individual escapes the clutches of the state that is success” is ideological clap-trap if that individual ” escapes the clutches of the state” only to enter in to a state of absolute tyranny of the strong over the weak with no safeguards and no recourse except what they themselves can carve out with a knife or get at gunpoint. Lawlessness provides exactly for that kind of environment without exception. It’s human nature without restraint. Seeing an argument coming doesn’t mean you know how to defeat it.
Oro Lee,
The Maya and the Aztec both had monarchs in pre-Columbian times. As to the use of the term anarchy, let’s stick to the modern usage to avoid the easily confused becoming more so. By the archaic usage, yes, the Iroquois had an anarchic state because they had no titular head of state, but they had laws and processes for both decision making and dispute resolution. The rule of law is what is necessary for stability in a society of any substantive size. The Iroquois may have had no central leader on a regular basis, but they did have the rule of law.