From: matta@lclark.edu (Matt Alexander)
Subject: Re: Rebuttal of Brief Comments on ``The Anarchy Paradox''
Keywords: Nazis, cows, yams.
Organization: Sacajawea's Voice
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 02:00:41 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.184029.8736@ll.mit.edu> rael@ll.mit.edu writes:
>In article <cannon.25.718136828@scs.unt.edu> cannon@scs.unt.edu (Dustin Cannon (Lab 3460)) speaketh thus:
>>
>>What makes you think they are going to agree on a 'good'?  If it is so easy 
>>to agree on what is 'good', then why haven't we done it before?  This 
>>is the point I attempted to make when I first posted this paradox?  Perhaps 
>>I should not have couched it in a scenario.  Utopian idealists always have 
>>this naive view of man.  They seem to feel that as soon as you get rid of 
>>goverment and religion everyone across the world will join hands and 
>>sing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and ....."  This just won't 
>>happen. Governments don't make Nazi's, Nazi's make goverments.  You are not 
>>dealing with darker sides of humanity.  Wars are not just waged by 
>>governments, they are also waged by individuals.  Why do you think the 
>>individual wars will stop, just because you took everybodys flags away?
>
>Are  you implying that I am a ``Utopian idealist''? If so, I can assure you
>that  I have no illusions about human nature being composed of only virtue,
>honesty,  benevolence, etc. I recognize fully that humans are quite capable
>of  horrendous acts. However, as a starting point, I might suggest you take
>a  look  at  some  of  the  more  recent readings on native American Indian
>culture  before  contact  with  the Europeans. I'm not trying to imply that
>they  had  a  ``perfect'' culture, but they had modes of social cooperation
>that  were not based on massive coercion and they had many elements of what
>I  would consider to be a much more just and humane society. As I have said
>before,  I  can  only  give  you  my  belief that humans are more likely to
>cooperate   with  others  rather  than  engage  in  genocide  and  violence
>generally.  I  offer  no  evidence  for this, nor can anyone offer any real
>counter evidence. That is, I can no more ``prove'' my assertion that humans
>were  ``born  to be free'' than can anyone else who asserts that humans are
>``inherently evil.'' It's mostly a question of hope, not fact.
>
Yeah, I agree with Bill. Seems to me that most of the crap that blocks our
way to True Freedom comes from the skewered memes modern societies have been
brainwashing us with from birth; Heirarchy, consumer fetishism, "traditional
familiy values(tm)", Us vs. Them, the sanctity of Private Property, "you're
the boss sir", ect. all these things are socially shared illusions. They
can be dispelled as such.

>[...]
>It  is irrelevant to the question of human freedom. And unfortunately, I do
>value human life over animal life. To test this, if I were forced to make a
>choice  (perhaps  by  a Nazi) to kill either a person (say, yourself) and a
>cow, I would not hesitate to kill the cow. Perhaps you might think---as you

Bzzz. The correct answer is... Shoot the Nazi.
(In the knee of course, all life is sacred :^)

>>
>>Simple, are not the rich simply people achieving thier maximum potential?  
>
>Yes,  perhaps,  but  at  the  expense  of others---a principle which I find
>insupportable.  I  see  no  connection  between the efficacy of the rich in
>carrying  out  their  wishes  and  the  right  of people to be uncoerced by
>others. You seem to be missing the point here.
>
>>They are good at their business and rewarded justly.  Why do you have the 
>>right to come along and tell them thier not doing it right?  Why aren't the 
>>rich 'free' in your society?
>
 I dunno, would you say Bush and Qualye, sons of rich folk, have been
rewarded over-justly? What about lawyers and other parasites? Have you ever
seen "Roger and me"?

>Bill Lear (rael@ll.mit.edu)

--- Matt "Boober" Alexander ----------------------------

    "Boy, they were big on crematoriums, weren't they?"
        -- George Herbert Walker Bush, during a tour of Auschwitz, 28-SEP-87
Newsgroups: alt.society.anarchy