America, we love
you, how many of you are proud to be citizens of this beautiful Country of
ours? The stripes and the stars for the rights that men have died for to
protect, the women and men who have broken their neck's for the freedom of
speech the United States Government has sworn to uphold, or so we're told…[1]
Anarchism. What is it good
for? A radical philosophy
and an approach to social organization that arose coinciding with other grand
“–isms,” anarchism, perhaps more than any other idea and practice, has been
condensed down by its critics and Nay-Sayers into a vague set of contradictory
caricatures. Is anarchism characterized by bohemian communities of rebels,
their uprising culturally innovative but politically ineffective, book-ended by
Johnny Rotten? Or is
anarchism defined by individualist libertarians who walk in the ideological
footsteps of David Friedman? Or is anarchism defined by the collectivist
anti-capitalists who walk the paths blazed by Mikhail Bakunin and Peter
Kropotkin? Or, more infamously, is anarchism a murky underworld of
conspiratorial bomb throwers, held together not by bonds of solidarity but by a
commitment to violence?
Well
you see anarchism advocates stateless societies based on non-hierarchical free
associations. Anarchists (also known as libertarians or libertarian socialists,
in the original sense of socialism) oppose illegitimate authority and
hierarchy, and therefore oppose capitalism and the state. However a common
misconception is that all anarchists oppose all organization. This is false,
anarchists do not oppose all organization: in reality anarchists favor
voluntary, non-hierarchical, self-organization. Anarchists do not oppose all
rules and laws; anarchists oppose rules and laws imposed involuntarily by
illegitimate authorities, such as the state, and favor voluntarily-agreed upon
rules and laws. I believe that anarchism is far better than any other form of
government due to its definitions and applications.
There are a lot of laws I don’t agree with, for example New Yorkers cannot dissolve a marriage due to irreconcilable differences, unless they both agree to it. Or the law that states the use of handcuffs or leg-irons is prohibited to all but law enforcement. So I guess I’ll think twice if I get hustled and then decide to make a citizen’s arrest because then I’ll get in trouble for making a citizen’s arrest with handcuffs or leg irons due to the afore mentioned law. Now remind me who is it making these laws that are completely ridiculous? Oh right, the government. Without the government, you’d have complete freedom; the only repercussions would be your own.
As anarchist Allen Thornton
observes, "Police aren't in the protection business; they're in the
revenge business." Forget about Spider-Man interrupting crimes in
progress. Police patrol does not prevent crime or catch criminals. Think about
it, cops don’t actually prevent crime; they just get revenge on the people who
commit crimes. If cops truly prevented all crime the entire idea of a law
enforcement officer would be obsolete. When police patrol was discontinued
secretly in Kansas City neighborhoods, the crime rate stayed the same as
before. Other research likewise finds that detective work, crime labs, etc.
have no effect on the crime rate. But when neighbors get together to watch over
each other and warn off would-be criminals, criminals try another neighborhood
that is protected only by the police because the criminals know that they face
little danger there.
Chances are some of you are thinking “well aren’t anarchist’s bomb
throwers? The answer is no. At least not compared to, say the United States
Government, which drops more bombs every day on Iraq than anarchists have
thrown in the years they have been a political movement. The total number of nuclear
missiles built by the United States, from 1951 to the present: 67,500. That is
approximately 1009 bombs a year. Does it really make a difference if bombs are
delivered horizontally by anarchists rather than vertically by the government?
Anarchists have been in action for many years and in many countries, under many
different types of governments. Sometimes, especially under conditions of
severe repression, some anarchists have thrown bombs. But that has been the
exception. The "bomb-throwing anarchist" stereotype was concocted by
politicians and journalists in the late 19th century, and they still won't let
go of it, but even back then it was a gross exaggeration.
America is the land of the free,
right? Well no, not really. In the years since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has
painstakingly diminished civil liberties in the name of increased security. The
government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections
based on its sole discretion. A recent example of this was the National Defense
Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31 2012, which allows for the indefinite
detention of citizens. However we also continue to scorn countries like
Cambodia who have a “prolonged detention” laws. An authoritarian nation is
defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use
them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his or her own
authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to
executive desire.
Speaking
of 9/11, it could have been potentially prevented if warning signs had been
heeded. George W. Bush was president at the time having been in office for
eight months when the attacks occurred. Good ol’ George Dubya (George W.)
blatantly ignored warnings about the possibility of an Al-Qaeda attack, which
began on May 1st. Which, gave Bush approximately one hundred and thirty three
days and multiple warnings in between to do something, anything in an attempt
to prevent 2,996 deaths that were the result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
You see it is my belief (along with
many others) that the government had ample warning that something bad was going
to go down, but did anybody listen? No, not until it was too late.
The whole point of 9/11 from the
terrorist’s perspective was to obliterate a financial center of New York and to
inspire fear into the heart of an entire nation of 281,421,906 people
(approximately 29 million people.) But if we were all separate communities of
free grouping individuals, we wouldn’t have people trying to take out large
masses, but rather a small group of people trying to take out another small
group of people.
“Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the
human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from
the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of
government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of
individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will
guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of
the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and
inclinations[3]”
P.S. I am saying this with the freest of speech this Divided States of Embarrassment will allow me to have. Also the views expressed in this essay do not necessarily represent the views of the author.
Hey, Buddy so your saying that when writing an essay based upon belief and facts you use an Eminem quote? Genius.
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