POLITICS Libertarian Anarchism (was protestors considered suspected terrorists)

[Guest guest]

>>> Why is King Josiah reckoned the greatest of all kings

>>> for some of his fairly un-libertarian actions (especially regarding

>>> the idolatrous priests), for example, if government compulsions is

>>> inherently and consistently eschewed?

>

>> Well first of all coercion and Christianity do not go together. Love

>> is not marked by coercion, and is in fact the very anti-thesis of

>> love. As one writer put it " it is a violation of free will and a

>> failure to acknowledge the image of God in the other person. This is

>> true whether or not the coercion is legally permitted, for the law of

>> man cannot contravene the Law of God. "

>

> I think that is largely true, but not completely.

It is true in regards to the **initiation** of aggression, which is

what a libertarian anarchist means by coercion.

> No one could

> seriously argue that a parent who loved their child would not forcibly

> prevent them from doing something that would put themselves in great

> danger,

No one is seriously arguing such a thing. This doesn't in any way

violate the law of love or the libertarian principle of

non-aggression. If you want me to explain in a later post I would be

happy to do so.

> and I don't think one could seriously argue that it would go

> against love to forcibly prevent someone from killing someone else.

No one has seriously argued such a thing. It is in no way a violation

of the law of love or the libertarian principle of non-aggression to

come to the **defense** of someone who is under initiatory aggression

by someone else.

> To take it a step further, if someone were to forcibly prevent someone

> from voluntarily and contractually submitting themselves into lifelong

> slavery, I think you'd have a difficult case trying to use that to

> prove one person didn't love the other.

If its voluntary it is not slavery, and the Mosaic code specifically

addresses this very situation. Slaves HAD to be released after the 7th

year (with money, to be able to start again) except if the slave

wished to stay with his owner, in which case the slave would become a

lifetime servant.

>> The entire Old Testament law is expressly summed up in the New

>> Testament as love God with everything you have and love your neighbor

>> as dearly as you love yourself. Given that, I wouldn't expect to find

>> any exceptions to the law of Love codified in the OT law.

>

> Ok.

>

>> Second, I don't find it anywhere stated that Josiah in regards to the

>> warnings gave Israel about getting a king, did anything

>> different. Whatever else he might have done, he was still engaging in

>> theft and slavery, although it was now a recognized " legitimate "

>> function of government.

>

> So, where does it ever call taxes theft and authority slavery?

I have already covered the tax issue in a previous post and I have no

idea what you mean by authority being slavery.

> Where

> does it call the kings criminal by virtue of their kingship alone?

Nowhere. That is a straw man of your own making

>> The Mosaic code forbade the forcible taking of

>> money (theft) and conscription (slavery), both which were routinely

>> violated after the rise of the Kings and I don't see anything that

>> suggests Josiah did otherwise.

>

> So why are the kings often criticized for criminal acts, but taxes are

> never described as criminal?

See previous post

>> That said, Josiah was a great King because he attempted to uphold the

>> Law and brought spiritual revival to Judah and what little was left of

>> Israel. Given this was freely done with the consent of the people,

>> there was nothing unlibertarian about his actions.

>

> This is only true if you refer to the people as a collective, but

> libertarianism doesn't do that.

Libertarianism recognizes voluntary societies, however organized.

Correction, libertarian **anarchists** recognize voluntary societies,

libertarian **minarchists** do not, as they think the state is a

necessary evil and will **impose** their will on others, like

libertarian **anarchists**, who think otherwise.

When I said with the consent of the people, I simply meant they had

agreed norms accepted by everyone. The priests had stepped outside of

those norms, and their particular crimes merited the death penalty

under the ritual aspect of the Mosaic code.

> He certainly didn't execute the

> priests of Baal with their own individual consent, did he?

Since when does anyone get executed by their own individual consent?

There are executable offenses in anarchical societies, though not all

of them.

> How does

> it not violate the non-aggression axiom to execute individuals in the

> name of the collective people?

Since no one is being executed in the name of the collective people,

this is another straw man argument.

>> When he began tearing down the high places and getting rid of the

>> idolatrous priests, where do you think those high places and priests

>> came from? If you read all the chapters previous to Josiah's reign, it

>> is pretty obvious it wasn't from the people but rather from previous

>> Kings! He was trampling on the people in some godawful unlibertarian

>> fashion, but simply clearing out all those un-Mosaic practices

>> **unlawfully** instituted by his predecessors!

>

> So anything done in the name of the people is libertarian? I thought

> that was democracy, mob rule, and whathaveyou?

My last sentence above should read, " He WASN'T trampling on the people

in some godawful unlibertarian fashion,... "

Having said that, I have no idea what you are talking about.

>> King Josiah didn't impose himself on the people. He brought them

>> together for the reading of the newly re-discovered book, the Old

>> Testament. They **voluntarily** committed themselves once again to

>> God's Law, and Josiah went about making things right in accordance

>> with the law, as freely submitted to by the people.

>

> But did he not impose the *law* on the idolatrous priests whom he executed?

What makes you think libertarian analysis opposes the imposition of

sanctions on someone who is found to have broken the law? I don't know

any society, anarchic or otherwise, that has ever done otherwise.

>> Now many anti-Christian modern libertarians would not want to live in

>> such a society. But since there was no or only minimal coercion

>> involved, they do recognize its libertarian nature, even under the

>> Kings, which was a very limited gov't compared to the modern state.

>

> Limited, yes, but also a state. And upholding the universal law that

> Israel had even without the kings.

If you say so. Obviously you and I understand the biblical definitions

of robbery/theft and kidnapping differently. And what I consider bad

behavior as exemplified in these passages...

_____

9 Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly

forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign

over them. "

11 And he said, " This will be the behavior of the king who will reign

over you: He will take....

13 He will take...

14 And he will take...

15 He will take...

16 And he will take...

17 He will take...

18 And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have

chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will ***not*** hear you in that day. "

I 8:9-16

______

What I consider to be bad, and what the text seems to be saying is

bad...you consider to be the upholding of the universal law of God.

--

" If you're not on somebody's watch list, you're not doing your job " -

Dave Von Kleist

[Guest guest]

,

>> States are not the only aggressors.

> But they are the only institution in society that has a legal right to

> large scale aggression.

It depends on how you define " aggression. " The Federal Reserve has a legal

right to theft and has the resultant ability to drive foreclosures that wipe out

people's homes, which I would call large-scale aggression.

In the absence of a state, you wouldn't have a central bank, but you can still

have large-scale aggression if you have large banks practicing fractional

reserve banking. They didn't practice fractional reserve banking because of

their alliance with the state; they did the former first, and then enhanced it

with the latter alliance.

In any case, in the absence of a state, there might not be large-scale

aggression committed by a single actor or collective, but aggression can often

be large in the aggreagte. For example, there are stateless tribal groups that

nearly wiped themselves out by countless murders as acts of revenge and

remuneration for other murders. One example is cited by Diamond in Guns,

Germs and Steel, which I mentioned last time we had this discussion a few years

ago.

>> But in any case, I agree that

>> there are downsides to having a state.

> Now that is one of the greatest understatements ever to appear on this list

> :-)

>

> According to R.J Rummel's _Death By Government_:

> http://snipurl.com/3g6jb, in the last century, apart from wars and

> " collateral " damage, 262,000,000 died at the hands of the state.

>

> Simply incomprehensible.

>

> " Just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if

> all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being

> 5', then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide

> murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign

> and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of

> the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such

> a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century. "

Like I said above, there are examples of tribal groups that have nearly

decimated themselves do to murders. The fact that states can produce these

large numbers is largely related to the fact that such large numbers of people

live under the state.

And then, the fact that the technology to produce such mass death has advanced

in societies and eras governed by states.

But, moreover, I think a central point here is that most of this blood lies on

the hands of bankers, and only on the hands of states in that they have been the

tools of bankers.

Before the rise of the banking class, tyranny was the province of governments.

The Rothschilds realized very quickly that to have a monopoly over a money

supply gives one far greater power than having a monopoly over the legislation

and enforcement of laws. Mayer Rothschild understood this in the 18th

century when he said " Let me control a nation's money, and I care not who writes

its laws. "

The control politicians have over government is largely whatever crumbs the

bankers feel comfortable leaving in their hands. They let them quibble over the

things they don't care about, while the central bankers construct

military-industrial complexes and pour millions or billions of dollars into

wicked regimes that they know will inevitably result in world coflict and war.

The military-industrial complex created by the bankers, has, in turn, generated

a pattern of investment that would never occur by market forces to develop a

pattern of technology that would never have developed in a free market, which

allows states to kill far more people in a far smaller amount of time and to do

so in a more horrific way.

Certainly governments still engage in tyranny, as do crime syndicates, mobs,

individuals, and so on. But we have entered into an era where governments are

owned by bankers, and bankers have been cloaked in government, such that nothing

ensues but confusion about who is in control of whom.

I'll repsond to the biblical discussion in a separate thread.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>>> States are not the only aggressors.

>

>> But they are the only institution in society that has a legal right to

>> large scale aggression.

>

> It depends on how you define " aggression. " The Federal Reserve has a legal

> right to theft and has the resultant ability to drive foreclosures that wipe

> out people's homes, which I would call large-scale aggression.

I don't see how this fits outside of what I said above. Theft is

aggression regardless of the results of the Fed actions. And being

that the Fed was authorized by the state there needs to be no other

dependent definition of aggression. Surely you know that under

libertarian analysis theft by the state is a part of what libertarians

mean when they say the state has a legal monopoly on aggression over a

given territory.

You are simply restating what I already said using specific characters

instead of a general statement.

> In the absence of a state, you wouldn't have a central bank, but you can

> still have large-scale aggression if you have large banks practicing

> fractional reserve banking. They didn't practice fractional reserve banking

> because of their alliance with the state; they did the former first, and

> then enhanced it with the latter alliance.

>

> In any case, in the absence of a state, there might not be large-scale

> aggression committed by a single actor or collective, but aggression can

> often be large in the aggreagte. For example, there are stateless tribal

> groups that nearly wiped themselves out by countless murders as acts of

> revenge and remuneration for other murders. One example is cited by

> Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel, which I mentioned last time we had this

> discussion a few years ago.

And this is relevant how? Diamond is so caught up with his

geography as destiny thesis that he badly misses the boat when it

comes to interpreting the case of Medieval Iceland. At any rate, there

have been states that have wiped out other states as well. I'm not

sure how the moves the argument one way or the other. Your specific

objection has been that outside of authoritarian imposition of law

there is no practical way to avoid chaos. This is demonstrably false.

But refuting that thesis doesn't mean anyone is suggesting anarchy is

a moral cure-all.

>> " Just to give perspective on this incredible murder by government, if

>> all these bodies were laid head to toe, with the average height being

>> 5', then they would circle the earth ten times. Also, this democide

>> murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign

>> and internal wars of the century. Finally, given popular estimates of

>> the dead in a major nuclear war, this total democide is as though such

>> a war did occur, but with its dead spread over a century. "

>

> Like I said above, there are examples of tribal groups that have nearly

> decimated themselves do to murders. The fact that states can produce these

> large numbers is largely related to the fact that such large numbers of

> people live under the state.

>

> And then, the fact that the technology to produce such mass death has

> advanced in societies and eras governed by states.

And so this is an argument in defense of the state how?? Unless you

can show this is a normal feature of stateless societies, instead of

assuming such because it doesn't seem feasible to you, then the point

has no merit. It simply is further evidence of the downside of the

state.

And how is this an argument against the evidence of the existence of

relatively peaceful societies who developed their own law codes

without the strong arm of the state?

> But, moreover, I think a central point here is that most of this blood lies

> on the hands of bankers, and only on the hands of states in that they have

> been the tools of bankers.

>

> Before the rise of the banking class, tyranny was the province of

> governments. The Rothschilds realized very quickly that to have a monopoly

> over a money supply gives one far greater power than having a monopoly over

> the legislation and enforcement of laws. Mayer Rothschild understood

> this in the 18th century when he said " Let me control a nation's money, and

> I care not who writes its laws. "

>

> The control politicians have over government is largely whatever crumbs the

> bankers feel comfortable leaving in their hands. They let them quibble over

> the things they don't care about, while the central bankers construct

> military-industrial complexes and pour millions or billions of dollars into

> wicked regimes that they know will inevitably result in world coflict and

> war.

>

> The military-industrial complex created by the bankers, has, in turn,

> generated a pattern of investment that would never occur by market forces to

> develop a pattern of technology that would never have developed in a free

> market, which allows states to kill far more people in a far smaller amount

> of time and to do so in a more horrific way.

>

> Certainly governments still engage in tyranny, as do crime syndicates, mobs,

> individuals, and so on. But we have entered into an era where governments

> are owned by bankers, and bankers have been cloaked in government, such that

> nothing ensues but confusion about who is in control of whom.

Are you suggesting we already have a one world government? That all

governments are already in the pocket of the bankers to do whatsoever

they wish?

At any rate, it seems to me your dichotomy is a false one. If the

bankers are running the show then they are the government, cloaked or

not. I don't think it necessary to shoehorn anyone with a particular

title in order to recognize them for what they are.

As it is would be despots of both the political and banking class need

each other, as each, with their particular tools and resources at

hand, can only accomplish certain things in their own sphere. History

has long had a succession of money/power brokers behind the scenes of

some of the greatest empires the world has ever known who, while not

transparent, for all intents and purposes where a part of the

governing class of that particular empire.

In the end, if today's Nimrods, Nebuchadnezzars, and Caesars think

their outcome for world domination will be any different than their

power hungry forbears, they are in for a huge surprise.

Honestly, I would suggest reading Dr. North's book on conspiracies

whenever you get the time.

--

" If you're not on somebody's watch list, you're not doing your job " -

Dave Von Kleist