Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Genetic engineering? (wtf?)

And you're being disingenuous. Nobody's looking for "angels." That's exactly the point. Maybe Taylor could have written "more open, transparent, effective government" and you just might not have jumped all over it. But, really, you know better. It's implicit in what he's always said here.

Genetic engineering seems to be the anarchist strawman of the week. Did you know that when FDR proposed Freedom from Want, he intended to modify human genetics so people don't want as much?

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Genetic engineering? (wtf?)

Well, I wanted to say that an orange flying unicorn was impossible... But, honestly speaking, I don't see that being the case for very much longer. So I ended up being a bit wordy in my response.

And you're being disingenuous. Nobody's looking for "angels."

Then they're deluding themselves. Because the system they want can only work if they assume angels. Power of humans over humans, by its nature, is neither transparent, nor effective (except, of course, at perpetuating itself -- but I'm certain that's not what Tyler was talking about).
And just saying 'more' of those things, as if that were what was actually being talked about, is itself disingenuous. 'More' without quanta of some sort is meaningless. What is so earnestly wished-for is not 'better', but some vaguely-imagined 'good amount'.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

But you said you wanted "Good, trustworthy people earn[ing] the respect and deference of their fellows"

Do you really think that's what elections are or achieve? What planet do you live on?

I think Kurt put it well a bit ago -- just behaving as if a thing was the way you want it is no way to get it to actually be that way. You argue in favor of the model you have by describing the (quite different) system you want.

I proposed four specific reforms above: ending corporate personhood, instant run-offs, direct Presidential elections, and going back to paper ballots/open-source voting. Tell me why these would not help improve the quality of American elections.

Or go on pontificating. Your choice.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Well, I wanted to say that an orange flying unicorn was impossible... But, honestly speaking, I don't see that being the case for very much longer. So I ended up being a bit wordy in my response.
Then they're deluding themselves. Because the system they want can only work if they assume angels. Power of humans over humans, by its nature, is neither transparent, nor effective (except, of course, at perpetuating itself -- but I'm certain that's not what Tyler was talking about).
And just saying 'more' of those things, as if that were what was actually being talked about, is itself disingenuous. 'More' without quanta of some sort is meaningless. What is so earnestly wished-for is not 'better', but some vaguely-imagined 'good amount'.

All right.

I'm slow, but I get it eventually. Haymarket is right. You "win" the argument by changing the definitions to suit yourself, and then publicly giggle at your own cleverness.

Have fun with your orange flying unicorns.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

I do have some concrete ideas for moving away from the undesirable situation that the US finds itself in right now. They don't involve abolishing the state, but I do think they go in the right direction.

1) End the "war on drugs." It would save millions of dollars in law enforcement and incarceration, and would free up resources to help people who need treatment.

2) Go back to paper ballots, or at least some form of voting that is open-sourced and not run by private corporations like Diebold.

3) Stop acting like an empire in foreign affairs. Withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and give more humanitarian assistance where it's needed. Encourage, educate, but don't force other countries to embrace more democratic ways of governance.

4) Put the misguided idea of "corporate personhood" away for good. Corporations should not have the same rights as individuals.

5) Get rid of "No Child Left Behind" and go back to teaching subject matter rather than constantly preparing for standardized tests.

6) Single-payer health care. The system we have now is criminally wasteful and unreliable.

7) Instant run-off voting, and direct election of the President.

Fair enough as a first baby-step. Only #4 is the sort of structural change that is necessary to achieve a more responsive social environment (and #6, though likely better than what there is now, runs the risk of ossifying into something truly counterproductive -- I'd prefer seeing the field freed from the stifling under which it has labored, rather than merely being shifted to a different type of oppression), but there's nothing wrong with just stopping putting our hands in the blenders over and over again.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Well, I wanted to say that an orange flying unicorn was impossible... But, honestly speaking, I don't see that being the case for very much longer. So I ended up being a bit wordy in my response.
Then they're deluding themselves. Because the system they want can only work if they assume angels. Power of humans over humans, by its nature, is neither transparent, nor effective (except, of course, at perpetuating itself -- but I'm certain that's not what Tyler was talking about).
And just saying 'more' of those things, as if that were what was actually being talked about, is itself disingenuous. 'More' without quanta of some sort is meaningless. What is so earnestly wished-for is not 'better', but some vaguely-imagined 'good amount'.

The Merchant of Venice, among other things, shows how those who fight the power that constrains them can become just as corrupt as the power that constrained them. At least that's what I get from my reading of what Portia ends up doing. She began the play as a powerless figure, constrained under her dead father's will (in both senses of the word) and by the end of the play she has not only out Shylocked Shylock, but also extends her authority over her husband to become the true authority figure of Belmont using tactics that are in the same vein as the tactics that she was constrained in at the beginning of the play.

If I know anything, it is that power corrupts and assuming that angels won't or can't turn into demons is simple folly.

Also I'll believe that elections are a good "tool" when we're given more of a choice than Coke or diet-Coke.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Also I'll believe that elections are a good "tool" when we're given more of a choice than Coke or diet-Coke.

If you are relying on someone else to give you your choices, then you are already screwed.

One might improve the elections process to make it more 'transparent' and 'fair' (Kiff's ideas are at least steps in that direction). But anyone who imagines that better elections will make better governance is expecting changes in human nature. I would recommend at least an awareness of the Stanford Experiment and the Milgram Experiment for a clearer picture of what systems of power and authority do to human beings as they actually are (as opposed to how we wish they were).

Originally Posted by Justin '77

If you are relying on someone else to give you your choices, then you are already screwed.

One might improve the elections process to make it more 'transparent' and 'fair' (Kiff's ideas are at least steps in that direction). But anyone who imagines that better elections will make better governance is expecting changes in human nature. I would recommend at least an awareness of the Stanford Experiment and the Milgram Experiment for a clearer picture of what systems of power and authority do to human beings as they actually are (as opposed to how we wish they were).

Ah yes, one of the first things people learn when they take Psychology 101 nowadays. There also was a popular German film based on the Stanford Experiment called: Das Experiment.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Justin '77

One might improve the elections process to make it more 'transparent' and 'fair' (Kiff's ideas are at least steps in that direction). But anyone who imagines that better elections will make better governance is expecting changes in human nature. I would recommend at least an awareness of the Stanford Experiment and the Milgram Experiment for a clearer picture of what systems of power and authority do to human beings as they actually are (as opposed to how we wish they were).

Both experiments, while excellent object lessons that I learned when you were still in diapers, are not really illustrative of where I'm trying to go, and it's a real stretch for me to connect the dots without going through some pretty crazy gyrations.

But thank you for the thumbs up on the corporate personhood business.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

Matt - lets cut to the chase here and get down to the nitty-gritty.

What exactly do you see happening in the future that is going to make your hope and dream come true? By that I mean what is going to take the world from point A where we are today with organized government all the way to point Z - your dream of an anarchastic society?

Well, to put it succinctly, I don't know. I'm encouraged by certain things here and there and I think there's an off-chance of sustainable anarchy occurring within my lifetime, which would be really cool, but I really can't give you an exact answer.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Perhaps. But I simply don't see how a society based on a predominant philosophy of self-interest and unregulated freedoms can help but sow the seeds of its own destruction.

Indeed, but there isn't a single flavor of anarchism that advocates those sort of things. (It rather seems to be a defining feature of governments, to be honest.)

Even the most capitalistic, pro-hierarchy anarchists light up at the prospect of mutual aid and societal cooperation to achieve collective ends. I should know; I work and associate with them on a bi-weekly basis on various projects. The philosophy of self-interest (by which I assume you mean a vulgar sort of non-enlightened egoism) doesn't really infiltrate anarchist thought in the least bit, and it's usually scoffed at. And if by unregulated freedoms you mean that people can do anything they want without fear of force using against them, then I'm perfectly happy to consider anarchism a philosophy of "regulated" freedom.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Actually, the problem is that no criticisms have been all that damaging. The general idea held by most anarchists is that a stateless society is not going to last and be satisfactory until people actually want there to be no State. If you take a look at the brief periods of statelessness (or near-statelessness) throughout the world, they have been pretty successful (compared to the old order, that is--Somalia included) but didn't last particularly long.

That is part of what I mean by not stable, the other part being if that one area reverts to "statism" the whole utopian edifice will collapse like a house of cards.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Kind of a nasty strawman. We've all been indoctrinated by the U.S. government; that's what they do. The correct way to go about judging certain actions, in my opinion, is to use reason, and not surrender your moral autonomy to the State. (Of course, once can still come up with pro-state conclusions--but I suspect that state propaganda has a huge effect on forming political opinions.) You can call anarchism a pipe dream all you want; no one is going to surrender their claim to being an anarchist because of it. Even if anarchism is something that is realistically unattainable in the near-future; it does not follow that the State is legitimate or that a state of anarchy is undesirable. So, not many anarchists are really going to be affected by your assertions.

I don't surrender my moral autonomy to the state, for one thing.

I care about what is feasible, one should not make the perfect be the enemy of the good. Social policy should be aimed towards eliminating concrete social evils, what Karl Popper calls "piecemeal social engineering" not the implementation of ideological utopias.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Sounds good, but how do you get the medical profession to buy into it?

You could certainly promote it through nurses, who would stand to gain greatly from a more free system. Also, you're offering medical professionals freedom from insurance paperwork (and inevitable government paperwork from a single payer alternative). In other words, a lot of the same benefits pitched by advocates of state run systems with the benefit that non-liberal doctors wouldn't be skeptical.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

I think it basically comes down to the fact that democrats like Taylor and I (I prefer that term to the more cultish "statists") believe that transformation of the state is more desirable than its abolition. I see abolition as regression to lawlessness and survival of the (economically, mentally, physically, fill-in-the blank) fittest. I see transformation as progress toward a system that is simple, fair, inclusive, flexible enough to respond to outside changes but stable enough to maintain order -- in short, what the Founders were looking for plus what we've learned in the last two hundred years.

Ditto. I adhere to the concept of the Open Society as proposed by Karl Popper.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Genetic engineering seems to be the anarchist strawman of the week. Did you know that when FDR proposed Freedom from Want, he intended to modify human genetics so people don't want as much?

I suppose I should have responded to this before, since you missed the point. The "freedom from want" idea hints at a core principle, a description of a hypothetical future where scarcity isn't a problem because resources are fairly distributed. Similarly, the libertarian coercion-free future is also an ideal to strive for, not intended to be taken as some sort of now-and-forever decree.

Yes, my criticism of "freedom from want" unfairly paints FDR as utopian. That's the point. You don't hesitate in the slightest to depict libertarianism as utopian on the basis of the desire for a coercion-free society. Of course that's not happening anytime soon, but neither is freedom from want. Can we refrain from having double standards here?

Also, how exactly is "freedom from want" a specific policy proposal? I recall you complaining about "abstract technobabble" and here you are praising a slogan.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Not at all. I merely recognize that cooperation is not only possible, but a natural emergent property of personhood. I also recognize that ability-to-react is a critical feature in aiding system survival, and that the closer a thing is to a stimulus, the more reactive it will be to it. That (plus my admitted bias in favor of persons) leads me to see as desireable a maximum of distribution in social affairs. That means, by the way, not the 'ideal society' that statists are limited to arguing over, but a recognition that there can be no such thing. Your talk of such makes as much sense as telling an agnostic that he is claiming to speak for the "One True God" -- that is, it speaks of your own blinders, rather than of the subject of your criticism.

You have concocted a straw-man. My position is that: 1. The State is an emergent feature of a complex society, the result OF the cooperation that which you speak; and 2. that some degree of coercion is necessary for the survival and coherence of a complex society and that thinking one can have a complex society without coercion is a fantasy, freeloaders and immature jerks that like to be oppositional just for the sake of it need to be kept in line lest society fall apart.

My own bad experiences with not enough "hierarchy" and clear lines of authority makes me squirm at many of the proposals put forward by anarchists, it's a recipe for chaos.

Originally Posted by Odin

That is part of what I mean by not stable, the other part being if that one area reverts to "statism" the whole utopian edifice will collapse like a house of cards.

Well, if I understand the "open society" concept correctly, there has never been a truly open society, though some have come closer than others to the ideal. So why regard anarchism (which has *worked* in some places) as utopian, and not the open society? Of course, anarchism has been historically unstable. It hasn't lasted long in modern society because the forces of statism are way too powerful ATM. But suppose we get to a point in history in which people have the tools (be they technological, societal... it doesn't matter) to liberate themselves from state authority and keep it that way. Unlikely? Maybe, but I don't think it's a conceptual impossibility.

I don't surrender my moral autonomy to the state, for one thing.

FWIW, I was using it in the Kantian sense, and I specifically meant something like "rejecting Authority (with a capital A) over your person," to borrow from Wolff. To clarify, the State demands obedience because it is the supreme authority, and if you have moral autonomy, you should only be compliant with its demands if the demands are good by some other criteria. If you believe that you should obey the State's commands simply because they command it (and have chosen not to go through real moral reasoning), you have indeed surrendered your autonomy. You may not have done this Odin, but I suspect most pro-state people have.

I care about what is feasible, one should not make the perfect be the enemy of the good. Social policy should be aimed towards eliminating concrete social evils, what Karl Popper calls "piecemeal social engineering" not the implementation of ideological utopias.

Well this is merely a matter of short-term versus long-term strategy; it has nothing to do with refuting anarchism. In fact, some self-described anarchists like Noam Chomsky hope for a temporary move towards statism because they believe moving in the anarchistic direction (that is, reducing state power) would be disastrous (I disagree.). As for piecemeal social engineering, I have no problem arguing for making government leaner, more open, more equitable, more just, and more inefficient (ya). For me at least, social policy properly ideologically aimed will lead to eliminating these concrete social evils. I see no conflict in attempting to implement "ideological utopias" and creating short-term good.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

If you are relying on someone else to give you your choices, then you are already screwed.

One might improve the elections process to make it more 'transparent' and 'fair' (Kiff's ideas are at least steps in that direction). But anyone who imagines that better elections will make better governance is expecting changes in human nature. I would recommend at least an awareness of the Stanford Experiment and the Milgram Experiment for a clearer picture of what systems of power and authority do to human beings as they actually are (as opposed to how we wish they were).

I am, of course, as many of us are, familiar with the experiments. I am also familiar with the evolutionary behaviorism perspective, that humans are social animals bred to a hunter gatherer environment. As such, men have basic instincts or drives which lead them to form groups, select leaders, make up rules, enforce rules, defend territories, breed, protect the young, etc. I interpret Stanford and Milgram from the evolutionary behaviorist perspective. From there, the behaviors of the experimental subjects make sense. One can see how the seemingly shocking behaviors might once have been cost effective in the wild.

In the Stanford experiment, the subjects were divided into two groups, with the guards told to play a dominant role over the prisoners. The faculty member setting the scientific protocol had the authority of a shaman or war band leader. He set the rules of the temporary society. When he said the guards were to be dominant over the prisoners, he struck an ancient chord. It is natural for the guard group to obey the authority figure, follow the rules established, and really get into being dominant. This is an echo of the same sort of antagonism one might find between Israeli and Palestinian, or colonial and imperialist. Mankind is ready to divide into Us and Them and oppress Them.

In the Milgram experiment, again, the faculty member represent authority and sets the rules of artificial society. If one volunteers to participate in a scientific experiment, one follows protocol set by the authority figure. In this case, however, the subjects were introduced as peers, as equals. The primary subject thought he was pushing buttons rather than getting shocked only by luck of a coin toss. Thus, the person being shocked was not a hated member of a rival group, but a peer worthy of the same mercy and consideration one would expect among one's own group. The golden rule was put in play. The conflict was between following the rules of society and mercy towards one's peer. The rules of society won to a much greater extent than was expected.

I could make a projection for a combined experiment where a Milgram style experiment might be performed within a Stanford style experiment. The guards would be given opportunity to select and question prisoners, and shock prisoners if they answered incorrectly. In this case, the person giving the shock would be hurting a person from a hostile group. I would expect that the result would be much like Abu Ghraib. They prisoners would shock the guards with glee, with little remorse. Given anything resembling a blessing from an authority figure, the golden rule does not apply to those outside the society.

Mankind learns cultural rules. The basic instincts of the hunter gatherer have a role in shaping human behavior, but environment and tradition have shaped widely diverse cultures. While there are instincts to form groups, select leaders, obey rules, establish territory and dominate outsiders, these instincts have been shaped in very different ways in different times and different places.

But are the instincts of the hunter gatherer compatible with the daydream of benevolent anarchy? If there is no state, if there is no sense that we are all part of the same group, then there will be others outside the group to whom the golden rule does not apply. If anarchy has no laws and no leaders, is this compatible with how real humans really behave? If coercion and dominance over those outside the group is instinctive, how easy will it be to create a society without coercion? Will coercion really spontaneously disappear, or must the society create rules to forbid coercion. Must coercion be used to enforce the rules against coercion?

I am not convinced that the current concept of what a state is supposed to be is the best and final blueprint for human society. Our current situation is far from perfect. We need to make profound changes. Even if we do make such changes, the next generation of prophets will find many a fault with the best we can do during the current crisis.

But if we are setting a utopian goal, I believe this goal should be kept compatible with man as he really is. Man forms groups, selects leaders, establishes rules and defends territories from outside threats. If one wants to strive for any sort of utopian ideal, one almost has to make everyone a member of the One Great Peer Group. The golden rule has to apply to everyone. The rules have to protect everyone. There can be no guards and prisoners.

So, no, I do not believe the state will spontaneously fade away, with or without a revolution overthrowing the capitalist ruling class. Man is a social animal. While the anarchists have been suggesting that an improved state is impossible, that statists* must perform massive genetic engineering for the state to work, I believe the same thing about those who believe in benevolent anarchy. The ideas they propose seem highly incompatible with man as observed in the wild. States are not impossible without high degrees of genetic manipulation. States are the default and usual condition. It would be the lawless, leaderless, stateless, no territory society that is incompatible with what we know of mankind.

______________

*I note that others have objected to the word 'statist,' considering it to be an insult. I find a need for a word that suggests 'opposite-of-anarchist'. I'm open to suggestions for a politically correct word. Here, I am applying the word 'statist' primarily to myself, and do not intent to imply anyone else should wear the label. I do not consider it to be particularly insulting.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I suppose I should have responded to this before, since you missed the point. The "freedom from want" idea hints at a core principle, a description of a hypothetical future where scarcity isn't a problem because resources are fairly distributed. Similarly, the libertarian coercion-free future is also an ideal to strive for, not intended to be taken as some sort of now-and-forever decree.

Yes, my criticism of "freedom from want" unfairly paints FDR as utopian. That's the point. You don't hesitate in the slightest to depict libertarianism as utopian on the basis of the desire for a coercion-free society. Of course that's not happening anytime soon, but neither is freedom from want. Can we refrain from having double standards here?

Also, how exactly is "freedom from want" a specific policy proposal? I recall you complaining about "abstract technobabble" and here you are praising a slogan.

I'll suggest that many political systems might have utopian goals. FDR wanted his four freedoms, everywhere in the world. Marx wanted to get rid of the capitalist class. Many anarchists here seem to want worlds free of coercion, taxes and / or laws. Each system is focused on achieving different goals that they consider the most important. Each seems ready to think that if their primary set of goals is achieved, everything else might fall in place.

Democracy is a work in progress. Certainly, the four freedoms everywhere in the world have not been achieved. Communism never delivered on Marx's promises. Modern benevolent anarchy hasn't got a track record. One cannot point at a work in progress, suggest that successes be repeated and failures corrected. There is no real data available.

A natural right might be a high utopian ideal, especially when it is first proposed. When the first rabble rousers and philosophers advocate a right, it would often seem unachievable. Still, the rights of conscience eventually became reasonably well integrated into many societies. Rights are abstract, and might belong in a constitution.

But legislation enables abstract rights. If there is a right to property in a statist constitution, some legislature ought to have powers to write laws against theft, and some executive agency ought to have police forces to enforce said laws, with a judicial branch doing its thing as well.

FDR proclaimed his abstract utopian rights, and followed up proposing legislation to implement said rights. From FDR to LBJ, freedom from want was not just a utopian pie in the sky ideal. Solid practical (though not perfect) steps were taken to implements said rights.

That's the distinction and problem I'm having here. The anarchists are proclaiming some fine utopian ideals, but I've been getting all too little implementable practical proposals that might be implemented. I'd like to ask what legislation would people want to pass to get closer to the ideal, but using legislation to solve problems would bless the state. Legislation involves rules, taxes and coercion. Thus, the anarchist who really believes in a stateless society might have to shun solutions involving the state. There really aren't a lot of vital problems in this crisis that can be solved by private individuals working outside the structure of states, thus most of the anarchists are short on implementable ideas.

My concern is with this crisis. If we don't match resources to people, we get angry young unemployed men and failed states. The major powers are not going to maintain their monopoly on weapons of mass destruction. Freedom from want is not just an idealistic utopian centuries from hence daydream. It is an immediate security issue.

One argument I'm getting is that any idea that is implementable is incremental, that incremental solutions are not acceptable, that revolution is necessary, but revolution won't happen for the foreseeable future. Thus, one should spout high ideals while doing nothing to solve the problems before us.

This doesn't satisfy me as an approach to the current crisis.

Originally Posted by Odin

You have concocted a straw-man. My position is that: 1. The State is an emergent feature of a complex society, the result OF the cooperation that which you speak; and 2. that some degree of coercion is necessary for the survival and coherence of a complex society and that thinking one can have a complex society without coercion is a fantasy, freeloaders and immature jerks that like to be oppositional just for the sake of it need to be kept in line lest society fall apart.

My own bad experiences with not enough "hierarchy" and clear lines of authority makes me squirm at many of the proposals put forward by anarchists, it's a recipe for chaos.

I can second this basic model. I'd quibble that certain aspects of the state are hardwired into human genes, such as forming groups, competing for leadership positions, implementing rules and defending territory. Thus, even before increasingly complex societies led to the development of recognizable formal states, proto states were already there.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

FWIW, I was using it in the Kantian sense, and I specifically meant something like "rejecting Authority (with a capital A) over your person," to borrow from Wolff. To clarify, the State demands obedience because it is the supreme authority, and if you have moral autonomy, you should only be compliant with its demands if the demands are good by some other criteria. If you believe that you should obey the State's commands simply because they command it (and have chosen not to go through real moral reasoning), you have indeed surrendered your autonomy. You may not have done this Odin, but I suspect most pro-state people have.

People have differing opinions about what is moral and just and so there would be chaos if too many people ignored laws they disagreed with, that's how civil wars start. If you don't agree with a law you try to convince enough people (via civil disobedience, such as the Underground Railroad, or smoking a joint, or dumping tea into Boston Harbor, if necessary) to push through what you think is right, or at the very least force a compromise. Just because I obey a law doesn't mean I agree with it.

Originally Posted by Odin

People have differing opinions about what is moral and just and so there would be chaos if too many people ignored laws they disagreed with, that's how civil wars start. If you don't agree with a law you try to convince enough people (via civil disobedience, such as the Underground Railroad, or smoking a joint, or dumping tea into Boston Harbor, if necessary) to push through what you think is right, or at the very least force a compromise. Just because I obey a law doesn't mean I agree with it.

That is the very definition of "surrendering moral authority"

It also reflects a profound misunderstanding of human beings and society as a whole. People share -- even from shortly after birth, it is starting to be shown -- a vast commonality on the concepts of 'right' and 'wrong'. When one looks not at people in all, but at groups of people all raised in a similar social context, that commonality is even stronger. Accepting the justice of people ignoring rules they found wrong would (assuming they were not being insulated from the consequences of their actions in their society) hardly change the main of human interaction at all.
Think about it: would you, or anyone you personally know, simply jump right into murdering and pillaging if the laws against those were removed? If 'all' they had to suffer from injuring others was the hatred of the people around them, the possibility of one of their would-be victims taking action against them, and the awareness that society in the main would approve of what the victim did to them?

People are social creatures. That means that we are hard-wired (to the extent that that phrase has any meaning) to operate in society -- in fact, that social relations are a necessary resultant of us being together.

Originally Posted by Odin

People have differing opinions about what is moral and just and so there would be chaos if too many people ignored laws they disagreed with, that's how civil wars start. If you don't agree with a law you try to convince enough people (via civil disobedience, such as the Underground Railroad, or smoking a joint, or dumping tea into Boston Harbor, if necessary) to push through what you think is right, or at the very least force a compromise. Just because I obey a law doesn't mean I agree with it.

The classic moral position on disobeying laws on moral grounds is this: You do so in order to change a bad law, in full knowledge and acceptance of the penalties, in order to make a moral point, and you follow through with that. That is, the Selma marchers were quite prepared to go to jail for their beliefs, and Nelson Mandela accepted imprisonment for 28 years, even as he fought - from prison - to have the apartheid laws changed.

Nothing I have seen or heard either in person or in debate has persuaded me to change my mind on that subject.

Indeed, if I had to blame a professor for setting me on a libertarian path, it would be the English Lit 101 teacher who built a syllabus around letters and essays written from prison. Thoreau, Ghandi, MLK, Mandella: where would society be if every one behaved every law?

I believe the individual has a moral obligation to resist unjust laws. Its not just an individual right to accept punishment in lieu of obedience, it is a duty.

from Justin

Think about it: would you, or anyone you personally know, simply jump right into murdering and pillaging if the laws against those were removed?

I taught in the Detroit inner city for 34 years and I can say with complete honesty that there are plenty of people who would be more than willing to do all sorts of terrible things on a daily basis if there were no laws against them and all they had to do was overpower a victim. I can imagine the rejoicing in gang culture should such an anarcho/libertarian dream ever come to pass.

Its a society I would never want to live in. I do not want to become a living character in a Tennessee Williams story who depends on the kindness of strangers not to take advantage of me and my family.