@sword

"I am thankful for the medical treatment my Mother recieved during my birth, but I do not consider this a direct result of State intervention. "
Who else runs public hospitals in Canada?

"In any case, public education is generally a mixture of barely adequate basics and proto-subservience to the State training"
Yes i see how it works perfectly on you...

"Where else, says the patriarch, will the kiddies learn to 'respect ma authoritaay'?"
Southpark?

"More importantly though, where does it get the God damn right? This is question at hand, not my level of juvenility for having engaged in chemical's highs along with the majority of the North American populace."
The USA got it by the "War of independence", but you canadians stayed with the British. So borderpolice is their good rigth...

"what I mean is that human beings are inherently capable of causing harm to each other either individually or as groups. In order to prevent an existence which would inevitably result in tyrannical injustice, we need some form of a human-construct for collective decision making to alleviate those inevitable injustices that would arise outside of 'rules'."

But Babak,

A) How does a coercive mechanism provide a valid alternative to another coercive mechanism?

B) Why can't orgnisation occur consensually and without coercion? Why can't groups govern themselves? Why must some decide what is right for others? Why go beyond the Golden Rule?

@Conservative

Now the creepy ones come out of their caves:
"and kidnap (the prison system)" - Wow, no words for this...

"That is one of the funniest sentences I have heard in my life"
What a boring life, i feel pity for you.

"murder (war and death penalty)"
Not my country

"wouldn't steal (taxes)"
Uuuh bad taxes, used for health care, building roads, protecting people, education, consumer protection...

Just to get a feel from where you are coming from what country do you hail from Miro?

If your answer to the State's ills is 'it never happens here', where exactly is 'here' for you?

""Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement. That is to say, rights are normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. The concept of rights is often fundamental to civilized societies, and it is of vital importance in such disciplines as law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology""

That's your definition? Smartass comment about looking up definitions aside, this clashes with your own prior statement.

You said man's rights would disappear without the state. This implies that man's rights are dependent upon the state.

So how are ethical principles dependent upon the state? Take freedom of speech, for instance. In the absence of a state, am I suddenly not owed the right to say what I want? Am I no longer allowed to speak my mind? Or the right to religion: how does the state guarantee that I can practice what I want? Without a state, should I not be able to be even *freer* religiously, in the absence of any governing power that could restrict me?

Your definition seems to assert that rights are independent, existent concepts -- principles -- yet your claim that anarchy would lead to man losing his rights, implying that the rights are dependent upon something (the state's existence). Mind explaining the disconnect?

@sword

I am from a country where the state gets it legitimation by acting for its people.

-This is where a modern state gets its legitimation, by its doings.-

It is even written in our constitution, that you can act with force against the state if it grabs for more power than it is allowed.
Human dignity and several human rights are also garanteed by our constitution, something an anarchy can´t do. One could say my country learnd from its past.

I think he meant the name of your country, not a poignant description. I appreciate the image... but I can't guess where on Earth such a place might be.

@Friendly Sword
I suggest you read something of the greatest anarchist of our time, Noam Chomsky. You and he seem to share the same ideals but I think he presents a much more realistic idea for achieving them.

@Eden
"So how are ethical principles dependent upon the state?"
-Nobody enforces them without a state. You can have all rights you want in your mind, but if there is nobody who enforces them you got nothing.

"Take freedom of speech, for instance. In the absence of a state, am I suddenly not owed the right to say what I want? Am I no longer allowed to speak my mind?"
-Exactly! Nobody protects you if you where suppressed or punished for saying the "wrong thing" in somebodys opinion. The freedom of speech is a "negative right" protect by the state. Nobody is allowed to forbid your opinion.

"Without a state, should I not be able to be even *freer* religiously, in the absence of any governing power that could restrict me?"
-Same story, nobody protects you if somebody supresses or punishes you because of your religion. Nobody is allowed to forbid your religious practises.

Some of this right were actually aimed at the state, the were created to protect everybody from disposal by the government.

What unrealistic ideas for bringing about change have I espoused SunZi?

I believe I mentioned supporting votes that go towards reducing the size (devolution or States rights) and scope (privtization, morality laws etc.) of the State, as well as refusal to engage in fundamentally immoral acts despite the State telling you to (informing on your neighbour, aquiesing to unreasonable Police demands, going to war etc.).

These do not seem particularly crazy to me.

Chomsky is too naive about the role of the State and the corporation for my tastes, but he is still one of my favourite contemporary thinkers. :)

Let's see.... who are the usual culprits for:

Limiting Rights?
-Why, I believe it is the government!! O:

Limiting freedom of speech?
-The government. Again!

Forbidding religious practices?
-The government!!!

Now sure, individuals, and smaller institutions have been guilty of the above in the past. But the work either with the State (ie. religious blasphemy laws) at the behest of the State (ie. Nationalists/racist thugs) or with the tacit approval of the State (ie. lynchings in the Southern USA).

Now, maybe the government is out to protect me, but frankly, I could use a whole lot less of that "enforcing" shit. If the State really cared it would just let me live my life unaccosted.

@sword

"or with the tacit approval of the State (ie. lynchings in the Southern USA)."
And that´s excactly what i mean! In this case no state was there to protect people. The wild west f.e. was no romatic place or time to life in. It was an anarchy the movie industry made a whole genre out of it, you should learn from that history of the USA :-)

"If the State really cared it would just let me live my life unaccosted"
Do you tell me the state messed up your life, do you want me to cry again? Damn you Canada! You uncivilised barbaric place of disposal!

@sword - "my level of juvenility for having engaged in chemical's highs along with the majority of the North American populace"

Do you *really* believe that load of bullshit you flung out there? You *really* think the nmajority of the North American populace gets chemically high? Can you please provide *any* evidence to back this statement up? No? I didn't think so.

And don't say alcohol, because you aren't high off one or two drinks (unless your a pantyweight pussy) and the majority of North Amercia doesn't get buzzed, much less drunk.

OK, lets look at a couple types of lynching and how they happened. First the Wild West;

"Contrary to the popular understanding, early territorial lynching did not flow from an absence or distance of law enforcement but rather from the social instability of early communities and their contest for property, status, and the definition of social order."

Goooo power and Capital!! :) Too bad everyone is in on it. :(


"Journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells wrote in the 1890s that black lynching victims were accused of rape or attempted rape only about one-third of the time. The most prevalent accusation was murder or attempted murder, followed by a list of infractions that included verbal and physical aggression, spirited business competition and independence of mind. White lynch mobs formed to restore the perceived social order. Lynch mob "policing" usually led to murder of the victims by white mobs. Law-enforcement authorities sometimes participated directly or held suspects in jail until a mob formed to carry out the murder."

If only there were Police huh?

"Lynchings both supported the power reversal and were public demonstrations of white power."

If only there mechanisms of coercive power to stop the lynchings huh?

Oh wait, there were already tons of courts and jails by 1900 putting hundreds and hundreds of black men in jail for violence! Surely they would deal with the lynchings!

"Fewer than one percent of lynch mob participants were ever convicted by local courts. By the late 19th century, trial juries in most of the southern United States were all white because African Americans had been disfranchised, and only registered voters could serve as jurors. Often juries never let the matter go past the inquest."

Oh damn. Looks like it was the State after all. :(

@sword

"If only there were Police huh?"

Are you blind? You said it right before that there was no police and the authorities paticipated with the lynchmob. There was no state that protected the black people!
No equaliy of people, no justice. It was anarchy and you even quoted it yourself.
Sorry but if you even now do not see that my argument fits on the wild west...nobody can help you understanding it.

"Oh damn. Looks like it was the State after all. :("

And again, there was no state that did his job, it was just disposal and unconstitutional.
The "state" you are blaming was a "de facto anarchy" and not existing.

Clint Eastwood was in a movie about exacly this issue. He survived a lynchmob by pure luck. As a "marshal?" he recovers from it and begins to hunt them and enforces law. Damn what´s the name of the movie...

Hellz yeah I'm talking about Alchohol Draugnar. It's a chemical, yo.


A majority don't drink? What? They don't get buzzed off of 2 drinks? (Have you met any teenage females Draug?)

According to the following (I trust these are at least roughly accurate)

Over 60% of Americans over 12 report that they drink on a regular basis (once a week or more). Only around 25% never do.
20.5% of Americans over 12 binge drink, with rates as high as 38-40% for 20 somethings.
7.4% of Americans qualify as alchoholics.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/01/health/webmd/main1857447.shtml
http://ncadistore.samhsa.gov/catalog/facts.aspx?topic=3

For Canadians, 77% regularly drink, less than 10% never do.

------

Now, lets take a look at other Chemicals. :)

For Canadians, almost 15% have gotten high from marijuana, and nearly 10% for other drugs. Another 15-30% have 'just experimented', adding up to almost half the population.

http://www.canadianencyclopedia.ca/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002402

For Americans, over 40% have tried Marijunana. Over 16% have tried Cocaine.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/researchreports/marijuana/marijuana2.html
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.html


This is not even to mention all of the other drugs that exist out there, but I am willing to admit that most of those users are already covered under the above.


I thus feel confident in stating that loads of people have gotten high at least once, and undoubtedly those people form more than half the populations of the US and Canada.

@Miro" "murder (war and death penalty)"
Not my country" Wow, your country has never fought a war or has had the death penalty. Where is this magical country of yours?

Miro!

Clearly you weren't paying attention. The lynchings happened with the collusion of the police. They happened with the collusion of the judiciary. They happened with the tacit consent of local and national government. Why? Because the white men who controlled the instruments of power wanted to continue controlling the instruments of power. Lynching represents a clear example of coercive power in it's prime.

The only reason that the KKK was cracked down on part way into reconstruction was because it wasn't serving the Democratic regimes interest anymore.

@ Draugnar: Caffeine

(Coincidentally, I don't do anything psychoactive - caffeine, alcohol, pot. None of it)

Miro better be from Monaco or something.

The 16% Cocaine are probably all part of the 40% Marijuana group as well. But I find it so inconceivable that 4 out of a random 9 other people I know (myself making up the 10th) have tried pot. I guess not getting buzzed off alcohol in over 25 years and not having ever tried pot or any illicit drug is putting me in a minority.

To get high off of caffieine would take a hell of a lot of it, rlumley. Sword said "gets chemically high". I drink caffeine as well (big tea drinker), but I don't get high off of it.

Well, strictly speaking you do, but I wasn't talking about simply a higher heart rate and extra blood to the brain.

As to your incredulity.... well I'm sad to say that the fact you haven't tried alchohol in 25 years means you are kind of old. Also you are from Kentucky, right? If you are also a conservative from a religious and low income background that makes you and your social group the least likely people in the world to use alchohol or drugs. ^^

Where you live the number is likely closer to 1-2 out of 9.

@sword

It´s ridiculous that even come up with the responsebility of the national goverment for lynchmobs. I am sure later on a conspiracy theory about the attacks on the world trade center comes up.
Monaco? What the hell are you talking about, there are dozends of countries without deathpenlaty and don´t begin wars wars...

-wars

Reread, please. I said, "I guess not getting buzzed off alcohol in over 25 years". I drink the occassional Vodka Martini or Scotch or, like last night, I tried a Hennesy Cognac VSOP. As in not even a full shot glass worth of it. Enough for three tastings. Tomorrow night I may have a Dos Equis or a Sam Adams Summer Ale. Singular. As in only one. These quantities do not get you high.

Although I have to admit that a few weekends back I did get buzzed at the wedding. A couple of beers (or three) and a scotch or vodka martini or seabreeze (or two) every night keeps you pretty buzzed through out the weekend. So in that regard, I fit in. But I don't do that regularly. In fact, if I have a beer Saturday combined with last night's cognac, that'll be more than I usually drink in a month.

Background, upper middle class (dad was an Engineer, I'm a software developer, so do quite well as well) from Virginia (born) raised in Ohio moved to Kentucky 4 years ago. The "religious" part sort of right, but not the typical Southern Baptist you see in Kentucky, I'm Lutheran which is much more tolerant of alcohol (not tea totalers). Conservative - arguable. Right-leaning centrist would be more my view. My social group is very similar to myself (obviously) and my experiences at places of business with a predominately younger demographic is that drinking to excess is the norm. In that group, I never did quite fit in socially.

It isn't a conspiracy theory Miro. Noticing that the southern courts failed to sentence lynchers even when they were arrested and noticing that the Police often helped the mobs of white people but prevented mobs of black people is not the same thing as believing in pseudoscientific theories to justify a deranged belief in what was a pretty clear act of violence by al Qaeda against the United States for it's foreign policy by crazed fundamentalists.

"In that group, I never did quite fit in socially" Well then, are you still as surprised about the statistics? ^^

Personal experience bias is very important to recognize when evaluating the harms or benefits of public policy to a huge group which is almost exclusively composed of people who are not you. :P