Anarchy Makes me Panicky

[MilitancyFetish]

Look, I don't like this "militancy" thing or this sick "fetish" of yours. As a proud upholder of middleclass morality and values both of these terms have a high "yuck" factor.

I don't really care. You are nobody to me. Therefore, I couldn't really give a shit about making you uncomfortable. If you don't like it, either leave or suck it up.

[Middle Class Values]

Nobody to you, indeed. I and millions of my middle class fellows are the moral background of the developed world. Our strength of character and fortitude allows lay-abouts like yourself to pass your time planning the destruction of the very society which nourishes you and permits you to go about your political perversions.

You may think it's "cool" to say there is no right and wrong, and all morality is a construct. This is just a justification for your own immoral antics, and a sel-deceiving mask for your secret acceptance of the inherent correctness of middle class values.

[MilitancyFetish]

Nobody to you, indeed. I and millions of my middle class fellows are the moral background of the developed world. Our strength of character and fortitude allows lay-abouts like yourself to pass your time planning the destruction of the very society which nourishes you and permits you to go about your political perversions.

You may think it's "cool" to say there is no right and wrong, and all morality is a construct. This is just a justification for your own immoral antics, and a sel-deceiving mask for your secret acceptance of the inherent correctness of middle class values.

Oh. Ok then.

[Nexonic]

You can't be a nationalistic statist and claim to have consistent morals.

[Guest]

lol
gettin' chiggy wid it.

cmon dude... all of the 'i am a this/that' stuff is just silliness. you're an inept child of an options company owner, unable to pass the simplest class in the most inane of subjects. one day a kid in a black hoodie and mask delayed you from your work for 10 minutes, and you've spent a good part of your life angry about it ever since.

[Middle Class Values]

It's simple for the immoral and slothful to point the finger at people who believe in standards and personal duty. My morals and behavior are exemplary. You object to the fact you know I a better person than you and my values system is superior. Anarchists stand for nothing but profiting from the labours of their superiors.

[K=x'uksami]

You know, if you're really serious about critiquing anarchism, you are not doing a very good job. All this silliness will accomplish is making anarchists less likely to take visitors seriously (the boy who cried "wolf" story, remember). If you aren't serious about it, I have to wonder why you insist on spending so much time fooling around. Lastly, I should note that the personal moral quality of individual anarchists proves little about the viability of the theory itself. Just because someone is bad doesn't mean everything they say is false.

[Nexonic]

It's simple for the immoral and slothful to point the finger at people who believe in standards and personal duty. My morals and behavior are exemplary. You object to the fact you know I a better person than you and my values system is superior. Anarchists stand for nothing but profiting from the labours of their superiors.

What makes your value system so good?

The core tenant of anarchist morality is not initiating violence. How is this opposed to your value system?

[Guest]

gettin chiggy wid it

[|Y|]

Have you guys looked up the word "chigger"? I'm just saying.

[skullcap]

If you aren't serious about it, I have to wonder why you insist on spending so much time fooling around.

if you feed the troll, he keeps coming back for more. if you only want to answer serious questions, then only answer serious questions.

[Guest]

Alright, folks, first of all I want to say that a 'criticisms of anarchy' section for the forums is a great idea. That's an ideal tool for developing a theory (or discarding it if it proves impractical, which is unlikely with Anarchism, if you really consider it's significance historically, and the reasons why it has/has not had success in the past), but I think most of the people responding to criticism need a break... the way they react to criticism doesn't appear very thought out.

Take, for instance, this thread. "Middle Class Values" doesn't even seem like someone who really dislikes anarchism! It's certainly not someone who wholeheartedly believes what they're saying; they've created an obvious caricature. To me, it appears to be someone taking the position of 'Middle Class America" to see how you can make anarchism appeal to them. They're either doing it out of an intellectual curiousity, to discover if anarchism actually holds significance to them, or they're doing it to Help You (!) figure out how to appeal to the middle class.

Instead of attacking the caricature posed by "Middle Class Values" (a futile effort; the character itself is a mockery, the person posing this character doesn't actually believe themselves to be the character they speak for) by calling it hypocritical and all that, play with it; Can you actually make anarchism appeal to the middle class?

I would start by framing anarchism the way that I (a member of the middle class) see it. I'd debunk the idea of anarchy as a dirty, chaotic, destructive society. What is anarchy really? A society of close community, direct democracy, and mutual aid. Hello! Those Are middle class values! In truth, anarchism is far less hypocritical with those values than the actual middle class, who have isolated individuals, alienated from community, no real direct control over their lives, and live in competition with each other rather than mutual aid.

Anarchists believe in equality; cooperation is better than domination, submission, or competition. Middle Class Values, have you considered that if economic equality existed, most of the motivation for crime would be gone? In fact, it's a drastic inequality, protected by the state, police forces, etc, that keep crime at a boiling point.

Anarchism is what you, Middle Class Values, practice whenever you have a neighborhood barbecue, or start a community project, such as helping a neighbor build onto his house. There are no bosses and no employees; in fact, I'd imagine one of you declaring he's the 'boss' of the barbecue would make things a bit awkward, eh? Anarchism proposes that as much as our lives as possible should be organized in these cooperative ways. Have you ever had a good idea that your boss rejected? Have you ever felt like you and your fellow employees could run a business better together rather than under the control of one person?

Of course, anarchism takes this a step further. Without bosses, you can't very well get people to do the work they wouldn't want to do. In this 'capitalist' economy, people sometimes must do work they dislike because the alternative is poverty and starvation. In anarchism, communities would choose to support each other rather than work on a basis of money. Rather than let your neighbor starve, you give him food from your garden. He can fish, and he can share the fish he catches with you, if he desires. And who wouldn't? Well, some people might not want to share. Chances are, they'd end up in a heap of trouble when nobody wanted to support them. That'd be pretty big motivation to do *Something* for your neighbors, huh?

[|Y|]

Guest,

I think most of the people responding to criticism need a break... the way they react to criticism doesn't appear very thought out.

What do you think we're doing in this thread for the most part? You have not seen my responses to these trolls. I truly have spent hours debating the idiots. Many times they never even respond to my points. I think that the responses here, the "chigs" and whatnot are examples of people not caring about the trolls.

Sometimes I'll come out against that because I think that the trolls are a tool and can be used for practice (and winning feels so good). But I don't care so much if people call others out for being trolls.

Read more thread here, you'll be surprised with how thoughtful our responses have been.

[skullcap]

i think guest here made some fine points. if you (in the general sense) feel that a poster is a troll, try not responding rather than having yelling matches over stupid stuff. otherwise, debating in a cogent manner is better than just saying "because anarchy is better" or whatever.

[Guest, Anarchist Farm Worker]

It's simple for the immoral and slothful to point the finger at people who believe in standards and personal duty. My morals and behavior are exemplary. You object to the fact you know I a better person than you and my values system is superior. Anarchists stand for nothing but profiting from the labours of their superiors.

What is morality? Is not your morality dictated to you by a God or by a State? They threaten you into obedience by means of coercion. If you do not obey your God, he sends you to hell. If you do not obey your State, they place you in jail. Their 'morality' is based on the use of violence and intimidation to cow you into compliance. Moreover, they themselves break this morality constantly. Their laws against theft exist to protect their own theft- the establishment of their ownership of property in the first place, and their further use of their monopoly of violence to take away what property you have managed to gain from them in exchange for your labor. Their laws against you killing are daily broken by their own police and military.

They justify this by claiming the government is a social contract, but I must ask you if you ever agreed to such a contract. A contract made involuntarily is no contract. A real social contract is one made voluntarily, that one knowingly agrees to, and that is generally fair and equal to all members. The State is not such a contract, as the social stratification it creates and maintains demonstrates. What is the State, really? It is a hierarchal system of coercion that monopolizes power and violence into the hands of the few, for the purpose of protecting the property of those few- property that is theirs only by virtue of their claiming it and forming the State to maintain it. The only social contract here is the contract made by the upper class to protect themselves. The slow inclusion of suffrage for all has not changed this.

Anarchists do believe in standards and personal duty. We believe in non-coercion, autonomy, and freedom with equality. We believe in a personal duty to oppose the coercion and structural daily violence of the police, military, and

Are your morals and behavior exemplary? Really and truly? Look harder at yourself. Most people fail to meet their own moral standards, especially Statists. Do your tax dollars go to supporting violence? Do you supply labor and money to businesses that fund state terror? You probably do.

I do not believe you are a better person than me at all, or that your morals are superior.

Anarchists stand against profiting from anyone's labor but their own, unless such a profit is derived from voluntary support. This is why we don't support the private ownership of capital, which allows the owner, whose ownership is the product of violence, to profit from the labor of others.