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[Paul Eres]

@mikademus - i think it's a common misunderstanding of anarchy that it means that there are no governments at all (and is why people believe that anarchy can't work). you're going to have small local governments in any anarchy, since power hates vacuums. the goal is just to keep them as small as possible, as numerous as possible, and as varied as possible, and in that sense ancient greek city-states were a great example of anarchy, as were the native american tribes, as were the feudalist japanese fiefs, and so on

if you want a 'purer' example of an anarchy that worked, where even the law was private rather than public, consider iceland from 930-1262: http://www.freenation.org/a/f13l1.html

In outline, the system's main features were these: Legislative power was vested in the General Assembly (althingi); the legislators were Chieftains (godhar; singular, godhi) representing their Assemblymen (thingmenn; singular, thingmadhr). Every Icelander was attached to a Chieftain, either directly, by being an Assemblyman, or indirectly, by belonging to a household headed by an Assemblyman. A Chieftaincy (godhordh) was private property, which could be bought and sold. Representation was determined by choice rather than by place of residence; an Assemblyman could transfer his allegiance (and attendant fees) at will from one Chieftain to another without moving to a new district. Hence competition among Chieftains served to keep them in line.

The General Assembly passed laws, but had no executive authority; law enforcement was up to the individual, with the help of his friends, family, and Chieftain. Disputes were resolved either through private arbitration or through the court system administered by the General Assembly. Wrongdoers were required to pay financial restitution to their victims; those who refused were denied all legal protection in the future (and thus, e.g., could be killed with impunity). The claim to such compensation was itself a marketable commodity; a person too weak to enforce his claim could sell it to someone more powerful. This served to prevent the powerful from preying on the weak. Foreigners were scandalized by this "land without a king"; but Iceland's system appears to have kept the peace at least as well as those of its monarchical neighbors.

The success of the Icelandic Free Commonwealth's quasi-anarchistic legal institutions has been used by David Friedman, Bruce Benson, and others as evidence against the Hobbesian argument that cooperation is impossible in the absence of central authority.

but regardless, the best response to the idea that anarchy doesn't work is to take a look at the world around you and ask if it's working

[Mikademus]

I think it would be good practice to state that definition up front in a discussion, because regardless of the theoretical correctness of a term or not, it will be misunderstood and the point of the argument or discussion will be side-laid, especially as in this case your usage of "anarchy" conflicts with the orthodox, or at least popular, understanding of it.

[Paul Eres]

that's the normal understanding of anarchism as expressed in most anarchist classic literature. it's true that it contradicts the public's perception of what anarchy means, but that's what it means to most anarchists, and in anarchist writings

in other news, ron paul is now second, nationally among republicans, in a new poll:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-usa-campaign-poll-idUSTRE81514720120207

Romney was backed by 29 percent of Republican voters in the telephone poll conducted February 2-6, down from 30 percent in a survey in early January. [...] Texas Congressman Ron Paul's support grew by 5 percentage points to 21 percent, moving him into second place and ahead of former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support slipped to 19 percent from 20 percent. Support for former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum also rose by 5 points to reach 18 percent, putting him just behind Gingrich, according to the poll.

he's doing better than i expected. probably just a fluke and he'll go back to third soon, but it's interesting to see anyway. it's a pretty spectacular rise, i remember back when his name was unknown even to libertarians

[Capntastic]

"I said that someone who is in a position to help someone that requires it and chooses not to, lacks empathy.  Somehow you turned this into me saying that someone 'forcing' them to help is inherently anti-pacifist." -- you said that ron paul lacked empathy, despite serving the poor, as a doctor, for free, for many years, simply because he does not believe that other doctors should be forced to serve the poor for free. i asked if that would mean that anyone who believes force should be avoided also lacks empathy. so you seem to be answering yes: that anyone who is not willing to force others, involuntarily, into doing good, lacks empathy, *even if* they help others voluntarily and encourage others to help others through voluntarily methods

I asked you to prove that under Ron Paul's nostalgic vision of the past people were cared for beyond the large amounts of elderly he saw being helped, or helped personally.  Just because you see people in a restaurant doesn't mean there aren't people starving.  I specifically said that I don't feel his system will help the most people.  Again, I've explained why enacting laws aren't 'force' as you see it.  I've also explained that creating a system of nationwide health care for citizens, in which doctors can receive compensation from the government to care for the people that need it, rather than force the burden onto the injured is more beneficial and empathic. 

You say it's me treating you like a baby, but if you'd stop playing semantics games of "well my definition of law and my definition of force and my definition of empathy and my definition of pacifism actually mean...", the state of discourse wouldn't be me having to suss out what you're talking about and making sure we're discussing the same things.

I've put it to you to explain why theoretical freedoms are more valuable than practical freedoms that, in practice, reduce suffering more.  By removing the constant threat of eviction, starvation, illness, coercion, the result is a person with more control over the choices they make.

[The Monster King]

if you'd stop playing semantics games

Capntastic, meet Paul Eres.

[Blademasterbobo]

Now he will reply with something about how there is no real discourse here, because he doesn't actually want to argue with anyone. Following this will be approximately two hundred pages on how he didn't mean what you thought he meant, and what he actually meant ensures that he cannot possibly be wrong about anything ever. Calling him out on this will not change how he replies in the slightest.

He has already spun his web of semantics, and even though you may realize it, it does not change the fact that you are now ensnared within the silken threads of Paul's alternative definitions. I would tell you to run, to save yourself - but there is no escape from this. It won't be long before he drains your innards and moves on to his next victim.

[Capntastic]

But since I had a choice to enter the web knowingly or not have a discussion at all, it's not really coercion,

[The Monster King]

it functions in many ways similarly to software end-user license agreements, only with more essence-sucking fangs

[Capntastic]

Hey, let's not get too harsh with the ad-hominems.

[John Sandoval]

paul's new avatar

[Chris Pavia]

Haha, I usually skip past all of Paul's posts that are more than a paragraph long exactly for the reasons stated here, but after seeing that pic I had to go back and read the last couple pages. Now I'm caught in the web too, dammit!

[Mikademus]

We did have this greasemonkey script here that changes all Paul Eres' posts to "I disagree", but it should probably be updated to say "That is not what I meant".

[Cow]

We did have this greasemonkey script here that changes all Paul Eres' posts to "I disagree", but it should probably be updated to say "That is not what I meant".

link

[Paul Eres]

I asked you to prove that under Ron Paul's nostalgic vision of the past people were cared for beyond the large amounts of elderly he saw being helped, or helped personally.  Just because you see people in a restaurant doesn't mean there aren't people starving.  I specifically said that I don't feel his system will help the most people.  Again, I've explained why enacting laws aren't 'force' as you see it.  I've also explained that creating a system of nationwide health care for citizens, in which doctors can receive compensation from the government to care for the people that need it, rather than force the burden onto the injured is more beneficial and empathic.

i'm unsure that i'd want to prove that, even if i believed in convincing others (which as i mentioned don't). i don't claim to believe that in RP's ideal america more people would get free health care than get it now, but i do think health care would be less expensive. i agree that it's probably not the system that would help the most people. there are always going to be compromises, there are different values. some people hate force more than they hate people dying due to poverty, some feel the opposite. but that's all irrelevant to whether RP has empathy or not (that was what i was addressing, i wasn't saying his system would work better than ours)

You say it's me treating you like a baby, but if you'd stop playing semantics games of "well my definition of law and my definition of force and my definition of empathy and my definition of pacifism actually mean...", the state of discourse wouldn't be me having to suss out what you're talking about and making sure we're discussing the same things.

you probably have to consider this from my pov. to me, you are the one trying to "redefine" law so that it isn't the same thing as force/violence, for instance. so the same issue goes two-ways: to me, i have to suss out what you're talking about to make sure we're discussing the same things. i was only objecting to you explaining basic things as if i never read them before and quoting rousseau as if i hadn't already read through his works, which i think is a fair objection?

I've put it to you to explain why theoretical freedoms are more valuable than practical freedoms that, in practice, reduce suffering more.  By removing the constant threat of eviction, starvation, illness, coercion, the result is a person with more control over the choices they make.

i am not saying they are more valuable, i'm not sure why you are asking this? as i said, this depends on one's own value system. i'm not saying you should value x more than y, just that i do. i even said earlier on that i think that if you believe health care is a right, you should vote for people who also believe that, and that's perfectly self-consistent, principled, and fine by me. by saying that i value y over x, that does not mean that i believe you should also value y over x

but to narrow this down to specifics, and to explain why i see it differently, consider this: you are basically asking someone to force people to do good that they would not voluntarily do unless forced. the most important issue about that to me is: is it really still "good" if you are forced to do it? can involuntary things be good or bad? isn't using violence to solve a problem just replacing one bad with another? even granting you'd be replacing a larger bad for a smaller bad, you're still replacing it with a smaller bad, you're still using evil means to fight evils. and if videogames ever taught us anything, it's that you can't beat evil using evil

[Capntastic]

Phantasy Star teaches us that it's better to seal up Dark Force and only have to deal with him every thousand years than it is to let him kill everything.  Until such time that we can literally destroy the root cause of evils in the world, it's clearly the way to go.