“Anarchism never was the sort of closed totalitarian system that Marxism aspired to be.”
Update – EBD claims to have found the Youtube version.
I’m starting to get a little ticked off with the left’s habit of ruining perfectly good words – starting with “left”.
After the communists began racking up failed states and mass graves, the left appropriated “liberal”. Not content with that, they screwed over “progressive”. (And don’t get me started on “gay”.)
And “green” – for God’s sake, it’s a colour. Have they no shame?
Now, like water claiming ownership of “dry”, the crazier among them have declared themselves “anarchists”. Anarchists!
After all, these aren’t difficult concepts.
This is an anarchist.
You are not anarchists.
You know, for as troublesome as anarchy might be in practical application, it’s still preferable to Marxism. In a time of galloping nanny-statism, the prospect of a society purged of bureaucracy seems less threat than romance.
I agree with Joe and Vitruvius; pure anarchy cannot exist for any period of time because it is the lack of order; existence requires organization of matter.
Molly’s definitions are specious and contradictory. If it’s anarchy, then it cannot include her requirement of ‘principles at the basis of anarchism’. And her term of ‘anarcho-capitalism’ implies that capitalism has no basic principles – when, of course, it rests on a free market exchange by conscious agents who evaluate the exchange – not a random blind exchange.
I also think she doesn’t understand evolutionary biology if she thinks it has anything to do with anarchy, for all biological systems are organized; and adapative capacities are not random and accidental but informational.
Anarchy is preferable to Marxism because anarchy, as the non-existence of order, can only be a short-term revolutionary phase that deconstructs the old rules and permits new ones to self-organize.
sasquatch,
As long as you are smoking in enclosed location and do not insist that I re-inhale the smoke you just exhaled, I agree that you have a right. But you don’t have a right to get me involved in your self-destructing habits. Can we agree on that?
Similarly, if you would like to eat processed foods laced with MSG, I wholeheartedly agree that you have full rights. However because it is legal to poison everyone with MSG, there are no foods w/o it. Further, food industry refuses to properly label foods containing the additive.
What motivates you to insist others have to be poisoned into pain and suffering?
I’ll give you another example, sasq: you have a right to commit suicide by shooting yourself in the head, but if the bullet exits your skull and kills or injures someone else, it will be too late to punish you. So do you have a right to kill yourself and drag others with you?
My guess is aron wants total government control over every move we make. I think my answer wont get through the filter, but he can do the same as the hrc.
I really dont know squat about anarchy, its philosophy, practionteurs or wannabees. When I think anarchist (small a) I conceive of only one person.
Those of you who are older may recall the greatest character and literary series ever producer by a CANADIAN ( yes I’ve heard of Lucy Maud), perhaps the greatest epitome of “Events” vs “Joyful Bloodymindedness” as I’ve come across. Donald Jacks’ Bartholomew Bandy. For those who dont know ( Jack was very slightly aside from the CanLit crowd but glad to take accolades or cash when offered and is therefore not in the Pantheon), the Bandy Papers are the memoir of a callow youth early innoculated against hypocrisy who goes off to serve God, King and Bureaucracy in WW1. ” Three Cheers For Me”, ” Thats Me in the Middle” ” Its Me Again”; hmmm… a possible theme for Anarchists?
Its in your local library: read em’ and pee yourself laughing; myself I think I will try to find a new Hardcover royalty paying copy.
Happy New Year
Robert Albin
Calgary
I agree with you, Aaron. It’s like saying that I have the right to dump chemicals into anyone’s drinking water that I please. If you are going to smoke, keep it out of my airspace. It’s the polite thing to do – you’re free to poison yourself but keep the poison away from me.
So, her socialist anarchy is an egalitarian individualistic direct democracy. Where everyone is free to do anything.*
*Provided the mob likes you.
The cognitive dissonance must be painful.
PS. I do not regard McDonald Frazers “Flashman” as an Anarchist.
Anarchy has a very small half-life.
Posted by: Vitruvius at December 30, 2009 11:17 PM
Ever heard of Somalia Vit?
> My guess is aron wants total government control over every move we make.
Where did I state that, FREE?
Free,
I’ll give you another example, which hopefully will not go over your hand. I believe that everyone has a right to keep and bear arms, but I also believe that people do not have a right to shoot clays in their backyard if shot can hit their neighbours. Understand?
The perennial fascination of young people with socialism something that I’ve been been pondering for decade
Posted by: loki at December 31, 2009 1:15 AM
To me, it’s simply the last point of maturation of the child: the last stage before acceptance of personal responsibility.
Like any child who will fuss, tantrum, cajole, negotiate, any way possible to get out of responsibility and/or work, looking for a utopia where personal responsibility is diffused and material needs largely accommodated, all while minimizing work – I think it the natural state for anyone during the process of maturation.
Those who mature successfully recognize the molecular nature of the individual. Those who refuse and deny individuality in exchange for less think remain selfish, and by extension, immature, underdeveloped citizens who desire to impose their will upon others for their own benefit.
typo: over your head.
hardboiled – good definition of a Hippy !
hardboiled – I wouldn’t consider Somalia an anarchy; its devolved into numerous clans and tribes, each with their own turf and rules which are probably based in old pre-modern tribal customs.
A genuine anarchy is a random ‘mob’ without order. Once order emerges, that’s the end of anarchy, and the reality of our material world is that randomness can’t last for long; the ‘need to organize’ is a basic fact of matter.
Somalia, a country of illiterate people, vaguely familiar with quran. What could be scarier?
Aaron, I take it you don’t operate a motor vehicle of any kind? Don’t operate any vehicle (including a lawnmower) with an internal combustion engine? Don’t have a fireplace or oil-fueled furnace?
All of those things produce airborne contaminants that poison other people.
Why pick on smoking?
Don’t get me wrong…I don’t like second-hand smoke either…but really, at what point do we draw the line? I suspect that if you were to (literally) “draw the line” between what you consider to be acceptable restrictions on a person’s freedom and unacceptable restrictions, your line would be VERY crooked.
Smoking is, in my opinion, a self-inflicted injury (the extent of the injury or damage varies)…health care services provided to address damage to your health from smoking should be paid for by the smoker, NOT the rest of society. The smoker should also be held liable for the damages that second-hand smoke cause to others…the smoke is THEIR doing and therefore should be THEIR responsibility.
I would argue that the exhaust from internal combustion engines (ICE’s) should be considered as similar to cigarette smoke…we are all poisoning each other. Do we outlaw engines or not cover health expenses related to the exhaust from ICE’s?
Of course, obesity can be viewed as a self-inflicted injury, too(unless, I would argue, the obesity is the result of a disease/condition that is not readily controllable by the individual)…should we force fat people to pay for obesity-related health care?
Where do we draw the line? I can’t give you a good answer…I suspect you would have difficulties, too.
Paraphrasing a favourite quote…”The difference between wise men and fools is that fools are always so sure of themselves”.
ella @ 2:52 says “Anarchy is as bad as Marxism and neither is “good for you” because the later wants to regulate your life completely and the former rejects any rules.” Without going into detail, my wife’s gpa during the years 1918-20 would have agreed with ella.
The only difference between the anarchists and the Marxists was that Marxism was an ever tightening strangulation, a constant looking for “enemies of the people”, whereas the anarchists sometimes were drunk enough, had raped enough or stolen enough, to be satiated for a while.
Aaron said, “However because it is legal to poison everyone with MSG, there are no foods w/o it. Further, food industry refuses to properly label foods containing the additive.”
Aaron, smarten up. Grow a garden, can your foods, hunt your meat, buy it from a farmer, and stop eating processed food.
No food w/out MSG, indeed.
Somalia isn’t anarchy, it is tribal and gangster. War loads lord it over ethnic groups and, I expect, provide “protection”.
“Ok, people, let’s get organized here. All left-handed anarchists form up on the right, you righties go to the left…”
Kate @ 9:06 “Take that.” I agree. You can’t have it both ways, you either believe in people’s freedoms or the slippery slope of evermore control of your life. Each new control becomes easier to implement.
Ken, you are comparing apples and oranges.
Agent Smart and Agent 99 should be dispatched immediately to investigate.
> Aaron, smarten up. Grow a garden, can your foods, hunt your meat, buy it from a farmer, and stop eating processed food.
While I have to quit my job according to you, will you be agreeable to support my family, only because it is legal to make food cheaper by poisoning it?
Organization is a way of applying a diverse set of skills to the challenge of surviving. A collection of anarchists ceases to be a collection of anarchists. So I have to agree, the half life is quite small.
Then what remains is the nature of organization. No matter the system of organization – capitalist, tribal, Marxist, Liberal Party of Canada – there seems never to be a shortage of others driven by the need to control others. It is this control which I reject. Rejecting attempts to control through coercion, corruption, tyranny, imprisonment, slavery, indenture are not co-operative, and not mutually rewarding. Rejecting these types of controls is not ‘anarchy’.
The day the left stops attempting to place me in a cage is the day I become a leftist.
Anyone know where the number of the local anarchist’s support group? Is there a government-funded 800 anarchist’s crisis line available?
Yes, Aaron, I completely agree. Everyone must be prohibited from committing any action that could have any real or perceived negative impact on any aspect of my existence.
“It would not matter to you that for example for me enjoyment of life is completely ruined by use of MSG in food industry. I can no longer eat foods I love since I was a child.”
May I pass on the wisdom of the ancients?
Suck it up.
Oh, and learn to cook from scratch. Compared to wheat, MSG is merely a nuisance. Be thankful you aren’t celiac. If you can no longer enjoy life because your favorite yummies are off limits, then you have problems deeper than the purely culinary.
Currently, an anarchist is some disaffected youth who hates his parents. As a political system, anarchy is disastrous.
The stunning thing is that people are too proud to get a clue. Communism and socialism are abysmal failures and there is nothing “progressive” about screaming misogynistic anti-Semites who can’t spell and still have trouble locating Canada on a map. This whole reluctance to embrace systems that DO work isn’t just sad; it’s immoral.
No, Tenebris, you don’t understand.
You don’t know what it is like to be in excruciating pain for weeks just because something you ate had MSG added or was soaked in MSG solution (like they do with fresh green vegetables, strawberries, grapes and nuts).
I keep asking what your motivation is for advocating MSG in food and I hear crickets.
As for your definition of yummies, include all sauces, all canned food, everything which is produced by fermentation (hard and soft cheezes, feta, sour cream, kefir, yogurt), sourdough bread, most pastas, most beans and lots of other foods.
You just have no idea what it is like to be MSG sensitive – AND FOR WHAT SAKE IS MY SUFFERING? So that food industry can make world fat to double their income.
What does that have to do with individual freedoms? Whose freedom is it? Answer the questions finally, all your insults I have already heard.
My system can’t stand MSG either, but I do not want it legislated.
Some group here in Saskatchewan wants everybody to put a helmet on when they leave the house. Where does it end?
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do with the approval of their own conscience.”
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Eerdmans)
If our food is so bad, why are we living longer than ever?
Some of the most toxic poisons out there are natures product, thanks to Gaia.
[ Naturally Occurring Toxins in Foods
Plants have developed more than 10,000 natural compounds that protect them against threats to their existence. A plant’s natural toxins are intended to guard against specific threats by predators or disease, such as hungry insects or damaging fungus.
Some of these toxins, produced naturally by plants, could cause illness in humans if they were concentrated at high levels and were consumed in large quantities. For example, potato plants contain the chemical solanine.
Another example of a natural toxicant is a poison called aflatoxin. It is produced by a mold that grows on grains, corn, peanuts and other nuts. If ingested in large amounts it is a potent liver toxin; it has been shown to be a liver carcinogen. Most American food processors have established rigorous programs to monitor the presence of aflatoxin. The FDA has set a maximum permissible level for aflatoxin at 20 parts per billion.] perdue ed
Ken, I keep asking, what do poisons in food (and air) have to do with individual freedoms?
Aaron – I think you’d have to provide some proof that MSG is used only as a wealth-producing additive. Your linking of the acid to wealth is questionable.
To my knowledge it can occur naturally in foods, e.g. in cheese, tomatoes, and as an additive is pervasive because of its enhancement of the flavours. I presume you are unable to eat those foods in which the acid occurs naturally.
But other people live their lives with severe allergies – to animals; to nuts; to various foods, eg, milk products, wheat; to synthetic fabrics; to various metals (eg, they can’t purchase cheap watches or jewellery because they are allergic to nickel etc)…and it is unreasonable to legislate a common repression of these materials/animals/foods…because of the allergies of some individuals.
Living longer is interesting issue. It has to do with paying taxes and insurance premiums. But no one is worried what is the quality of that life.
OT
Personally I hate how rap haters have tried to usurp the term Hip Hop. They are one and the same, Hip Hop is rap and rap is Hip Hop. Hip Hop is not dance music or R&B.
ET, please educate yourself, I can’t lecture you in this format.
Read any book that takes place a hundred or two hundred years ago and you will quickly realize that life was brutal back then.
Food quality was abysmal. Dysentery was common. Food poisoning occurred regularly.
Not only are we living longer, our quality of life, at ANY given age, is higher than it has ever been. Period. (thanks to science, not to [sic]latte liberal intellectuals)
But the Suzuki hyppie crowd wants the masses (not them) to forget our so-called “consumer lifestyle” and go backwards to those good old ‘Utopian cave dweller days.
Aaron – I know this sounds harsh, but stop navel gazing. You are not the first person on the planet to suffer. Educate yourself on what is safe for you to eat and move on. It is difficult, but not impossible.
As for why you must suffer, it’s preferable to others starving. And no, I am not being facetious. If you object to agribusinesses, such as Emerald BioAgriculture, providing farmers with means to enhance yield and quality, then you need to come up with more than “it hurts me” arguments. Effectively, it requires that everyone’s misery must be equal.
Your belief that I advocate MSG in foods derives entirely from your imagination.
Tenebris, I am glad you finally came up with collectivist point. One after another you folks are showing your true colours.
Next, MSG use in agriculture is quite limited, if I am not mistaken it is sprayed on strawberries and grapes in some areas. What it has to with discussion is really not clear.
I did not even mention agribusiness anywhere here. It’s food industry that I have beef with. Is it clear now?
Still waiting for reasoning why MSG must be forced into everyone’s food instead of being sold like any other spice for the true connoisseurs, and what does it have to do with individual freedoms.
Aaron
As far as I can see it you are grossly exaggerating. You are not being “poisoned” by some dude smoking in the evening. You are simply inconvenienced and decided to conveniently play the “second hand smoke” card brought to you by you friendly neighbourhood socialists. Grow-up and be a man and admit YOU JUST DON’T LIKE IT, and quit trying to make yours an ethical or a moral high ground argument; it’s not, it\s whining.
I like to burn tires in the front yard. Not like starting huge fire, but small pieces, in controlled environment.
The eternal problem…
Proverbs, third chapter, verses 4 and 5.
Sigh.
Aaron, you pixilated primate, you do not even have the benefit of consistency, and your difficulties in comprehension would stun a Democrat.
OK, rewind: Are most fresh, unprocessed, foods a problem for you, yes or no? If no, then your problem is with processed foods.
You can live a very enjoyable and fulfilling life even if you have to avoid processed foods.
Now, put down that can-opener before you hurt yourself.
Tenebris, I’ll repeat the question that I asked earlier and had not heard an answer to:
While I am tending to the garden and cooking for the family all day long, are you going to support us financially?
If you can’t answer that question, try this one: what makes you insist MSG is added to the processed foods?
MSG sucks as a food additive, it keeps me up all night, and I despise any restaurant that puts it in their food without telling me first.
Related to this discussion, one thing I have observed today is that too many people have too much money, and most of these people don’t give a damn if their actions make someone else miserable.
So when a tattooed grease ball with no brains pulls up beside me in a $20k Harley at a red light, and his motor is so loud that my kids have to cover their ears even with the car windows shut, what can one do but hope that the government regulates the noise?
And I wonder too if I will have to pay for said idiot’s hearing aid when he is older.
Raising the standard of living for everyone in society will inevitably lead to more nanny state intervention simply because many people are stupid inconsiderate asses.
As the old saying goes, it only takes a few to wreck things for many.
Oops! that should be Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5…
…verse 3 too.
Aaron, MSG is a flavour-enhancer…this “poison” is put in food to add flavour. That’s one of your questions answered.
According to Wikipedia, the health concerns are apparently minimal to non-existant for the vast majority of the population. You are apparently one of the very few who are, essentially, allergic to MSG. Speaking as one with two life-threatening/life-shortening conditions, sucks to be you (and me).
Unfortunately for you, the flavour-enhancement of the very many outweigh the allergies of the very few.
Stop being a collectivist, nanny-stater and demanding that SOMEONE do SOMETHING about this. Be a stoic, self-reliant conservative kinda guy and either “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles”. That is, either:
– suck it up and quite whining; or
– start a petition and campaign for its control.
I (and other SDAers) might even support you and sign the petition.
Now, I imagine that THAT is quite enough for the topic of MSG (on Kate’s dime).
Eeyore: I’ll repeat the question, left unanswered by your colleagues. Why do you insist everyone has to eat taste-enhanced foods? Do those people know what it is doing to them, i.e. why they are obese, why they have muscle and joint pain, why they have rashes and lesions, why their kids are hyper and ADD?
I don’t blame you – I too was thinking the same thing: they are krazy kooks, until it crippled me.
The real question, Aaron, is scientific.
Is there any non-disputable scientific proof that MSG, which is a ‘taste enhancer’, is a cause of those ailments which you cite: obesity, muscle/joint problems; ADD, rashes and lesions?
To my understanding, Asian cultures have used it extensively for many years; do they have these effects? Are all such symptoms as noted above, due to and only to MSG?
I certainly accept that people can have allergic reactions to it, just as many people cannot tolerate other foodstuffs. I would also agree that such people require careful labelling of packaged foods and must move to a diet that uses less processed and packaged foods. This is valid for many people with dietary restrictions, and this is met by those individuals – not by requiring the govt to ban all such foods.
Vote for the QOTW by Aaron @ 2PM..”ET please educate yourself, I can’t lecture you in this format.” Leave yer lecturin’ to yerself Aaron and just try to engage in fair and balanced debate with a minimum of cussin.
Dear Kate,
Call us when the shuttle lands, you moron.
Sincerely,
Planet Earth