From: corun@access.digex.com (Corun MacAnndra)
Subject: Re: Libertarians, guns, etc. 
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 04:43:34 GMT

In article <717910203snx@hrnowl.lonestar.org> anwyn@hrnowl.lonestar.org (anwyn) writes:
>
>Self defense would be necessary violance. It is justified by the urge to
>survive imparted by billions of years of natural selection.

But violence is still violence, and haven't you been promoting a cessation
of violence? There is no such thing as necessary violence, and if natural
selection is to some into play, given the type of logic you have consistantly
displayed here, your genes would have been out of the pool long ago. Humans
no longer obey the law of survival of the fittest. You just have to look
at humanity today to see that. A prime example is the English nobility
with it's hereditary blood diseases. Humanity's bigotry, racism and supreme
arrogance have led to too much inbreeding, and not enough diversity in the
species.

>  > >I believe that all people should choose not to support violance. 
>  > 
>  > Are you also saying that people should choose to support violence if they 
>  > want it?
>
>No I did not say that.

No, but you imply it with your use of the word "choose." Otherwise you're
implying that you think all people should follow your example. And who are
you that we should allow you to tell us what to do?

>No, I have in no way promised that I will come to the aid of third parites,
>I mearly reseve the right to if I should choose to. Libertarians believe it
>is wrong to initiate force against a person.

Yet above you said that "necessary violence" was permissible. Any time you
make a violent response to a threat, you initiate force. You just can't have
it both ways.

>I am a concrete individual not an abstraction.

From my point of view you are blue phospors on a CRT. For all I know you
could be an incredibly clever person, leading us all on a merry goose chase
with this fruitless argument just to see how we'll react. I doubt it, but
it could be. Anything is possible. The horse might even learn to sing.

>That is right I don't. In this case I refer only to groups of people opearting
>under the same myth acting in concert together. That is all I meant.
>Incidentally, I note that you have not responded to my challenge 
>(in a previous post) that you prove the existance of "society".
>Since much of your previous arguements relied on the term "society"
>they collapse unless you can prove that "society" actually exists.

I don't have to prove it to you, you already believe it exists. Every time
you refer to organized groups of people acting together, you admit to the
existence of society. The Oxford English Dictionay defines society thus;

society, n. organized and interdependent community. The system and organization
of living in this.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, as long as you buy food from a grocer,
buy clothes in a store, work for a wage and pay taxes, you are living in a
society. You are dependent on other people, and they are dependent on you.
That is society. If you choose to live in the mountains alone, grow your
own food, make your own clothes, and do only that work which produces anything
other than money to help you survive, and never communicate with another
person for the rest of your life, then you are outside society. You're on
your own (YOYO). But even despite all that, there would still be other people
out in the world living and working and playing together in a society.

>When I refer to individual violance I meant violance that was not sanctioned
>by any of the various "state" myths. All violance is committed by individuals,
>but most violance is said to be sanctioned by someone's alleged "state".

You're the only one I know of who says this. Do you mean that the rapist is
going to blame the state for his assault on a woman? Most rapists blame the
woman. Is the bank robber going to blame his theft on the state? Some
terrorist group might rob a bank, but they'd more than likely be doing it
as an act against the state. Is the murderer going to blame his crime on
the state? I doubt it. Besides, there you go again talking out of both sides
of your mouth. First you say you refer to "individual" violence, then you
say violence is "sanctioned" by some state you insist doesn't exist. Get a
grip. You can't continue to blame violence on something you keep saying
doesn't exist.

>I have always been on the same side of the fence. The State does not exist.
>No one can produce any evidence for its existance. However, the State
>is so commonly assumed to exist that common usage assumes it exists. 
>Whenever I let myself slip into common usage, you have obtusely assumed
>that I have changed  my mind about the existance of the state. Therefore
>you have forced me to be pedantic.

Then if you're going to insist on taking a specific stance, stop slipping
into common usage. You can't defend your position if you keep contradicting
yourself. If you truly believe that there is no state and no society, then
you must stop citing them as examples. The minute you do, you admit to their
existence, and it blows your whole argument to hell.

>All violance is committed by individuals. One can classify violance by the 
>motivation. That is, if an individual commits violance because he belives
>that the violance is sanctioned by a "State" that the individual believes
>in, then that could be called "State motivated violance" even though
>states do not actually exist. Other violance would simply be individual
>violance.

I will grant you that it takes an individual to commit an act of violence.
However, there are two reasons that individuals do this (and I'm not saying
that they are the only two, just primary examples). One reason is that they
want to commit it. The other reason is that they are ordered to. Let's take
a look at the second reason, since the first is self evident, and often
accompanies the second.

I'll use the example of the Nazi atrocities. Here we had an organized
group of individuals (a society) who gained sufficient power over other
individuals such that they could order them to murder millions of people
in a variety of horrible ways. Many of the individuals who carried out
these orders did so for reason two alone. The others did so because of
both reason one and two. In all cases, however, there was a state (OED,
organized political community under one government) throughout that existed
and initiated the comission of these crimes. It was not a myth, it was
real.

>If in trying to address individual violance, we were to increase the
>power of the myth associated with our alleged "state" we could increase
>the probability of "State motivated violance", this would be counter
>productive.

But if a plan caused a cessation of violence, how could it be counter-
productive? If increasing one thing leads to a decrease in another, and
it's for the betterment of humanity, how can it be bad?

>What if a comet falls out of the sky and kills us all? Your assumption
>implies that Xtian's are the only people smart enough to earn money. If
>this were true, perhaps we should take another look at their beliefs.

No it doesn't. But you have to admit, the fundies have lots of money to
play with. And they are quite organized. They have easily gotten their
own people elected to government offices, and could easily take control
of the entire country is we're not careful.

>No, your assumption is wrong. All you need to afford education is to get
>your education tax money back. The private schools are much cheaper than
>the public schools and achieve better results. Another example of the
>"government" incompetance.

Show me stats on this. As a product of both parochial and private schooling,
I can assure you that private schools are much more expensive than public
ones. It wasn't until I was in the sixth grade that my parents could finally
afford the tuition for a private school, and that for only one year. After
that I went to public shools. Your naivete is incredible if you believe 
that a) anyone can get back any tax money the government's already got,
and b) private schools are cheaper than public.

>  >                Education is too important to be left *entirely* to any
>  > school system, state run or private. 
>Which is why if the public schools were abolished, a diversity of
>schools will form in response to market demand.

Leading to very expensive schools being unaffordable by the poorer section
of society, and poorer schools being unable, for lack of money, to provide
as good an education as the more expensive ones. All this leads us to a
worse condition than we are in with public schools. It's almost as bad,
but I believe that state funding can be more easily regulated than private
funding. Eventually we will come to our senses and start evening out the
money that goes to the public schools so that all the children get an eqaul
education.

>  >                                      Education starts with you, in the
>  > home. 
>True.

Shards and shell! We agree on something.

>I hesitate to tell other people how to manage the education of their children.
>Let us kill the monstrous "government" fiend (or rather the myth of the
>monstrous government fiend, since you insist that I be pedantic)
>and leave such questions to individuals. At least most parents love 
>their children, and you can be sure that the government bureaucrats don't.

Right. Anarchy forever. All for one, and all for one. Let me hear it for me.
I pray it doesn't happen in my lifetime. It must be wonderful to be as sure
of things as you.

Bb,
Corun


-- 
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    Corun MacAnndra    |
  Dark Horde by birth  |      Forewarned is a Hindu god.
    Moritu by choice   |
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