Myth of the consent of the governed

[Bono]

http://anti-state.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=14925

Q:  Doesn't an anarchistic society depend on human beings evolving
first to a state of moral development such that everyone behaves
with civility and restraint? How could such a society exist as
long as there are people who refuse to respect others?

A: As for myself, I did not become an anarchist by accepting the
practicality or likely success of a stateless society. I became an
anarchist by realizing that 'government' is a provable impossibility.
The problem is not that it is impossible for 'government' to work;
it is impossible for 'government' to exist. Upon realizing this, I
sort of got flung into the practical side of it. How can Oz function
without its wizard? When you find out there IS no wizard, what choice
do we have?

Here is a brief hint at the three easiest disproofs of 'authority':

1)  What circumstances can obligate someone to ignore his own judgment?
2)  What criteria makes a legitimate 'government' (voting, Constitution,
    etc.)?
3)  Can legislation alter morality, i.e. change what behavior is good
    or bad?"

Q:  What makes "government" legitimate? Is it the consent of the
    governed?

A:  For starters, the only 'consent' that matters at all to ruling
me is my consent.  There is no consent by 'society' to do anything.
Society is not sentient, and it doesn't own me anyway (and therefore
cannot consent for me).

Now, there is an interesting question about an individual giving
consent to be ruled. First, only a colossal idiot would give
permission to someone else to rule him in an unspecified way,
i.e. 'Whatever law you write, I give you permission to force me
to obey.'  It is somewhat less idiotic (though not by much) to
give permission to be ruled in a specified way (e.g. 'You can
force me to give you $50 a month').

And one of the disproofs of "authority" pretty much smashes the whole
notion. That is the inevitability of free will.

I won't explore the benefits of keeping your word, since I think
we all know them. Instead, imagine you made a promise that in
retrospect you decide was a bonehead idea. Imagine in your foolish
youth that you decided to enlist in the Obedient Thugs Association
(a.k.a. 'military') of the United States.  Then one day you find
yourself shooting at people you don't know, for a reason you don't
understand, in a place that generally sucks.  And it dawns on you,
'This bites.' If your judgment at that moment says that shooting
anyone else would be immoral and a generally bad idea, can you be
obligated by promise to do (what in your mind is) the wrong thing?
No.  The only reason the promise means anything to you is because
your judgment gives it weight.  Which means your judgment can
overrule it.

Now imagine you have 'consented' to be ruled.  At any time when
your judgment says that you should not obey your ruler, and your
promise of obedience (in your judgment) does not outweigh that,
the only sane action is to break your promise.  Therefore, even
if you consented to be oppressed, 'taxed,' etc. by some god-complex
psychopath politician, that still cannot give you an obligation to
forego your own judgment in favor of his.  Which is nice, since it
is impossible to forego your own judgment in favor of anything.

This is the truth that pro-government arguments along these lines
fail to account for -- that things can't possibly get better under
government, because nothing in the basic equation changes, except
that hired mercenaries are substituted for the actual players.  (Why
shouldn't the cops be arrested and charged with impersonating
police officers?)

However, one important ingredient does change. The belief in
'government' (for almost everyone) means an exemption from
morality for the 'government' thugs. For example, people believe
that pressing buttons in booths can give politicians the right to
take your stuff by force, the right to tell you who you can hire
and fire, the right to force you to go fight a war for them,
etc., etc. And this religious belief in the ability of the
political process to overrule right and wrong has horrendously
evil results.

So they aren't just mercenaries, in the eyes of the believers
in the Grand Delusion.  According to the cult, they are
inherently righteous mercenaries, and that is why the delusion
should be flushed.  It is also why there is the oppression that
there is.  Can you imagine a group of thugs, without the guise
of legitimacy (a.k.a. 'legality') just saying to 280 million
people (with as many guns) 'Give us $2.5 trillion a year, or
else'?  That would last about five minutes.  There is nothing
real in the equation that needs changing.  The only thing that
needs changing is for the authoritarian sheep to see what the
equation is.  People.  Lots of them.  If a society of mere
mortals leads to chaos and destruction, then we are doomed.
There is no trick people can perform which will cause a
super-human entity ('authority') to appear to save us all from
ourselves.

[Speed of Sound]

Monkeys.

[Bono]

Monkeys.

What?

[Gabu]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.  A consequence of this fact is that, in a situation with no government, people will naturally gravitate towards the creation of some form of government, whether it's a pack of the strongest and cruelest people brutally oppressing the rest or a democratically elected government to serve the people.  This simple fact is easily observed through the fact that basically every single nation on Earth established a government of one form or another at some time in history.

I say that the beliefs held by anarchists are ironic, therefore, because the only way for an anarchist to keep his or her ideal world once it's established is to be brutally heavy-handed towards any attempt by the people to establish any semblance of governing body - hardly a laissez-faire approach to the matter.  If, on the other hand, an anarchist did take a laissez-faire approach towards the people, it would then be only inevitable that a new form of government would be established in the future, due to the nature of human beings as described above.

Of course, anarchists can try their hardest to deny or subvert reality by attempting to say that government isn't really a legitimate "government" because they don't want it to be as such, or that we already live in an anarchy because they'd like to think that we did, but meanwhile, the rest of the world goes on as usual, oblivious to their attempts to keep their eyes closed and their fingers firmly planted in their ears.

[Bono]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.  A consequence of this fact is that, in a situation with no government, people will naturally gravitate towards the creation of some form of government, whether it's a pack of the strongest and cruelest people brutally oppressing the rest or a democratically elected government to serve the people.  This simple fact is easily observed through the fact that basically every single nation on Earth established a government of one form or another at some time in history.

I say that the beliefs held by anarchists are ironic, therefore, because the only way for an anarchist to keep his or her ideal world once it's established is to be brutally heavy-handed towards any attempt by the people to establish any semblance of governing body - hardly a laissez-faire approach to the matter.  If, on the other hand, an anarchist did take a laissez-faire approach towards the people, it would then be only inevitable that a new form of government would be established in the future, due to the nature of human beings as described above.

Of course, anarchists can try their hardest to deny or subvert reality by attempting to say that government isn't really a legitimate "government" because they don't want it to be as such, or that we already live in an anarchy because they'd like to think that we did, but meanwhile, the rest of the world goes on as usual, oblivious to their attempts to keep their eyes closed and their fingers firmly planted in their ears.

There are quite a good number of anarchist experiences through history.
Medievel Iceland, Ireland before the brits took over, Israel before King Saul,  Pennsylvania before 1667, modern day Somalia, and quite a bit more possibly.

[Speed of Sound]

Monkeys.

What?

i dunno. I wanted to respond, but didnt want to read the whole post, so i chose to post monkeys instead

[Giant Saguaro]

The most basic thing about life and people that anarchists do not understand is that someone must be in charge, we can't have a system, especially in the free world, where no one is in charge. The liberty of the governed must be protected and the interests of the free world must be protected by some stable entity that is in charge.

I'd like to know the brand of glue the person who wrote this article has been sniffing.

[Alcon]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.  A consequence of this fact is that, in a situation with no government, people will naturally gravitate towards the creation of some form of government, whether it's a pack of the strongest and cruelest people brutally oppressing the rest or a democratically elected government to serve the people.  This simple fact is easily observed through the fact that basically every single nation on Earth established a government of one form or another at some time in history.

I say that the beliefs held by anarchists are ironic, therefore, because the only way for an anarchist to keep his or her ideal world once it's established is to be brutally heavy-handed towards any attempt by the people to establish any semblance of governing body - hardly a laissez-faire approach to the matter.  If, on the other hand, an anarchist did take a laissez-faire approach towards the people, it would then be only inevitable that a new form of government would be established in the future, due to the nature of human beings as described above.

Of course, anarchists can try their hardest to deny or subvert reality by attempting to say that government isn't really a legitimate "government" because they don't want it to be as such, or that we already live in an anarchy because they'd like to think that we did, but meanwhile, the rest of the world goes on as usual, oblivious to their attempts to keep their eyes closed and their fingers firmly planted in their ears.

There are quite a good number of anarchist experiences through history.
Medievel Iceland, Ireland before the brits took over, Israel before King Saul,  Pennsylvania before 1667, modern day Somalia, and quite a bit more possibly.

Of course, it's much easier to maintain anarchy in an agricultural society.  But the problem is, we are no longer such a society.

[opebo]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills. 

Hah, 'stronger and weaker wills'?  What rot.  The heirarchy is a social phenomenon created by the communal actions of society as a whole, and has nothing to do with individual 'will'.   Those persons at the top of the heirarchy are not better, worse, or stronger willed than those at the bottom, they merely occupy a position in the structure that is higher.  Will and other individual characteristics have nothing to do with it, and to believe so is to indulge in fantasy and not recognize the structural rather than individual nature of inequality and social heirarchy.

[Gabu]

There are quite a good number of anarchist experiences through history.
Medievel Iceland, Ireland before the brits took over, Israel before King Saul,  Pennsylvania before 1667, modern day Somalia, and quite a bit more possibly.

Yes, and all of those eventually trended towards a government.  I didn't say that all nations immediately established a government, but all of them got there eventually.

[Gabu]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.

Hah, 'stronger and weaker wills'?  What rot.  The heirarchy is a social phenomenon created by the communal actions of society as a whole, and has nothing to do with individual 'will'.   Those persons at the top of the heirarchy are not better, worse, or stronger willed than those at the bottom, they merely occupy a position in the structure that is higher.  Will and other individual characteristics have nothing to do with it, and to believe so is to indulge in fantasy and not recognize the structural rather than individual nature of inequality and social heirarchy.

If you took a group of human beings and placed them all together in a group in which none of them had anything more than anyone else, eventually leaders and followers would emerge based on how relatively strong or weak the people were.  That's just a fact.  It's been observed countless times.

[opebo]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.

Hah, 'stronger and weaker wills'?  What rot.  The heirarchy is a social phenomenon created by the communal actions of society as a whole, and has nothing to do with individual 'will'.   Those persons at the top of the heirarchy are not better, worse, or stronger willed than those at the bottom, they merely occupy a position in the structure that is higher.  Will and other individual characteristics have nothing to do with it, and to believe so is to indulge in fantasy and not recognize the structural rather than individual nature of inequality and social heirarchy.

If you took a group of human beings and placed them all together in a group in which none of them had anything more than anyone else, eventually leaders and followers would emerge based on how relatively strong or weak the people were.  That's just a fact.  It's been observed countless times.

At that level I assume you're talking about physical strength.

In any case, the interesting thing about the primitive situation you describe is that no doubt the descendants of those first 'leaders' are now still in the upper classes, and conversely.  Class lasts, well, forever, barring something like the Norman conquest or the American meddling in Iraq.

[muon2]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.

Hah, 'stronger and weaker wills'?  What rot.  The heirarchy is a social phenomenon created by the communal actions of society as a whole, and has nothing to do with individual 'will'.   Those persons at the top of the heirarchy are not better, worse, or stronger willed than those at the bottom, they merely occupy a position in the structure that is higher.  Will and other individual characteristics have nothing to do with it, and to believe so is to indulge in fantasy and not recognize the structural rather than individual nature of inequality and social heirarchy.

If you took a group of human beings and placed them all together in a group in which none of them had anything more than anyone else, eventually leaders and followers would emerge based on how relatively strong or weak the people were.  That's just a fact.  It's been observed countless times.

At that level I assume you're talking about physical strength.

In any case, the interesting thing about the primitive situation you describe is that no doubt the descendants of those first 'leaders' are now still in the upper classes, and conversely.  Class lasts, well, forever, barring something like the Norman conquest or the American meddling in Iraq.

This line of resaoning implies an overwhelming stasis in society. I think it is important to separate social structures from the individuals in those structures. Opebo might make some case for the overall social structures holding relatively fixed over long periods of time, and perhaps for most individuals remining within those structres. I see no evidence to make it an absolute, and in fact there are plenty of counterexamples. Individuals do make class shifts in all directions.

[muon2]

Mordac's quoted article is equally absolutist without justification. The leading questions seek an absolute claim in favor of government, and when none exists, claims the absolute opposite.

There are individual actions and social structures that are in continuous interplay. Goverment's function cannot be quantified absolutely because the variety of individuals resists a uniform response from the government. In the article the author looks at government as a form of mandated control over the individual, yet there is always a real trade where one can resist the mandate at some other cost.

Consder the given example of Somalia as an anarchy. Modern day Somalia is not a true utopic anarchy, but reflects the lack of any central organizing structure at the national level. There are definitely local "governments", in that there is a social hierarchy where individuals are not completely free to withdraw from the demands of that hierarchy.

[opebo]

The irony of the beliefs of anarchists is that the natural tendency of human beings, like it or not, is to form a social heirarchy with people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.  This is inherent in the fact that there are those with weaker wills and those with stronger wills.

Hah, 'stronger and weaker wills'?  What rot.  The heirarchy is a social phenomenon created by the communal actions of society as a whole, and has nothing to do with individual 'will'.   Those persons at the top of the heirarchy are not better, worse, or stronger willed than those at the bottom, they merely occupy a position in the structure that is higher.  Will and other individual characteristics have nothing to do with it, and to believe so is to indulge in fantasy and not recognize the structural rather than individual nature of inequality and social heirarchy.

If you took a group of human beings and placed them all together in a group in which none of them had anything more than anyone else, eventually leaders and followers would emerge based on how relatively strong or weak the people were.  That's just a fact.  It's been observed countless times.

At that level I assume you're talking about physical strength.

In any case, the interesting thing about the primitive situation you describe is that no doubt the descendants of those first 'leaders' are now still in the upper classes, and conversely.  Class lasts, well, forever, barring something like the Norman conquest or the American meddling in Iraq.

This line of resaoning implies an overwhelming stasis in society. I think it is important to separate social structures from the individuals in those structures. Opebo might make some case for the overall social structures holding relatively fixed over long periods of time, and perhaps for most individuals remining within those structres. I see no evidence to make it an absolute, and in fact there are plenty of counterexamples. Individuals do make class shifts in all directions.

Certainly, but it is very much a rarity.

[A18]

No, actually it happens all the time.

[muon2]

Both opebo and A18 share some truth.

If I suggest that it happens to only one in a thousand people, then I would seem to support opebo, since 0.1% seems rare. If I suggest that it happens to hundreds of thousands of Americans in their lives, then I would seem to support A18, as that means it would occur thousands of times per year in this country.

The two suggestions above are completely consistent with each other given the large population. There is always this problem with statistics in a large population. I can look at the frequency of the event as a fraction of apopulation, or in absolute terms. Both numbers are accurate, but portray very different views of the subject.

Since I happen to be one of the statistics who has made the transistion, I am biased towards A18's view. But I can admit that the majority will not make significant moves from their starting point. The fact that there is movement gives me hope, because it implies a potential for those individuals willing and able to make a change.

[opebo]

Both opebo and A18 share some truth.

If I suggest that it happens to only one in a thousand people, then I would seem to support opebo, since 0.1% seems rare. If I suggest that it happens to hundreds of thousands of Americans in their lives, then I would seem to support A18, as that means it would occur thousands of times per year in this country.

The two suggestions above are completely consistent with each other given the large population. There is always this problem with statistics in a large population. I can look at the frequency of the event as a fraction of apopulation, or in absolute terms. Both numbers are accurate, but portray very different views of the subject.

Since I happen to be one of the statistics who has made the transistion, I am biased towards A18's view. But I can admit that the majority will not make significant moves from their starting point. The fact that there is movement gives me hope, because it implies a potential for those individuals willing and able to make a change.

However ameliorating the class system with redistribution would make such moves less rare, and result in more of a 'meritocracy' as much as I cringe when I hear that term.

[John Dibble]

Both opebo and A18 share some truth.

If I suggest that it happens to only one in a thousand people, then I would seem to support opebo, since 0.1% seems rare. If I suggest that it happens to hundreds of thousands of Americans in their lives, then I would seem to support A18, as that means it would occur thousands of times per year in this country.

The two suggestions above are completely consistent with each other given the large population. There is always this problem with statistics in a large population. I can look at the frequency of the event as a fraction of apopulation, or in absolute terms. Both numbers are accurate, but portray very different views of the subject.

Since I happen to be one of the statistics who has made the transistion, I am biased towards A18's view. But I can admit that the majority will not make significant moves from their starting point. The fact that there is movement gives me hope, because it implies a potential for those individuals willing and able to make a change.

However ameliorating the class system with redistribution would make such moves less rare, and result in more of a 'meritocracy' as much as I cringe when I hear that term.

Meritocracy.