[Impaler]

Oppressive government is more desirable than no government.

I'm mildly curious about what some of you think, on a political philosophy level. Is it better to have governmental oppression or no government at all?

[Vesuvius]

no gov, anarchy can work. local communes and trade, with protection in local groups etc. is better than a gov that actively kills/censors/banishes/tortures/allows sexual abuse by those in power/taxes horribly/prevents aid from reaching ppl/etc.

[social drone]

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safty
-Benjamin Franklin


government does not have to be oppressive

[HawkOne]

Yet another overly excessive post from me I’m afraid ...

I'd have to say that oppression would probably be better than nothing, at least until there is a viable option. Although oppression does kill off good things (peoples votes, freedom of speech, equality, education), it also tends to take out many bad things including a general anarchy (hooliganism, petty crime, MTV & VH1 & Channel V, peoples obsession with trends, brand names and fashion)

Although sometimes it might be necessary to go through a bit of reforms, and thereby possibly having a transitional period when there is nothing ... People will always strive to be as free/happy as possible, especially when they know what the people of other countries enjoy. Oppressive governments will only last until people have been pushed so far that they will stand up and do something about their situation, or if they are unable to do so themselves, wait for someone to come to their aid. I think this is why overly restrictive governments and religions will all eventually die with a bang, or slowly fade away, unless they change with the peoples will.

I'd say that 90%-95% of the peoples of the world, needs to be controlled, especially in the developing world, where things seems to go haywire very easily ... even WITH strict control. In other parts, say Monaco ... or Iceland, Scandinavia, Canada (?), I very much doubt that there would be much of an insurrection or anarchy with no control whatsoever ...

... However ... Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, Africa, shows what happens when a large majority of uneducated poor wackos gets a chance to do as they please ... major mayhem ... Afghanistan is probably another good example...

In the end I think it has to do with the level of education, common courtesy, and upbringing ... now the question would probably be where do these values come from ?? Why are they present in the developed world ... and much less so in the developing world ... ??

Could it be religion ? Is it money(resources) and therefore education ? All these things and a general prosperity have a lot to do with it I think. Miserable people are much more likely to do drastic and possibly irrational actions than a (reasonably)happy person in a well managed country ...

One might argue what the point would be if it is so changeable. I would say that the point would be to evolve, get rid of unnecessary rules and restrictions, keeping the good stuff. The best example I can come up with is European governments, and the different flavors of the Christian Church usually present in those countries. A thousand years ago, people were burned at the stakes for speaking their mind about pretty much everything, but as time has gone by, the Church has gotten less and less power and influence. After realizing that it was loosing the followers and its influence, changes were made over and over again as time past, until what we have today, a disarmed religion, without much power at all, especially in northern Europe. The religion has been stripped of its teeth so to speak.

(One fun example is that many countries churches now accept homosexuality, whereas not to long ago, it was considered a horrendous crime. When I came here to Malaysia, an Islamic country, one of the first things I read in the newspaper, was a government official quite seriously discussing homosexuality as a mental disease ... HAHAH ... that was hilarious )

What remains is mostly a good foundation for what can be considered common sense and courtesy. But even this last bastion of the Christian Church is under attack by the Humanist movement, which keeps all the essentials of the ten commandments and the rest of the stuff instilled by bible teachings, and chucks out the entire Middle East headache with the religions of Abraham (Judaism 2000BC(?), Christianity 0 and Islam 1400 AD) Out goes the unnecessary fiction, walking on water, waking up from the dead, blind can see and all that nonsense which might have impressed people 2000-1000 years ago, but as people becomes more educated and less superstitious, it gets less and less attention.

The same happened with European governments as they developed along with the people. Gradually changing and refining itself until what we have today. Although not perfect, it works pretty well, and people from all over the world can see this, and are either jealous and scared by its progress, or attracted by its possibilities being eager to have similar systems. The critical thing is time though, we can learn from history that a smooth change, if at all possible, takes a LOT of time, and that is something that is rarely accepted or understood.

Unfortunately there are still a lot of people clinging to their antiquated ways for the safety and security of knowing that there will be an afterlife, that people have souls and spirits and all that poppycock. A professor of genetics was asked recently on TechTV about what he thought about peoples vehemently defended views on the spiritual and ethical issues regarding cloning, and their resistance to the process. His answer was beautifully refined and to the point, he just said: “Troglodytes”. You may already have cleverly deduced that I share his view. The scary part is that the power of these “Troglodytes” still has a lot of influence of politicians and sadly large amounts of people, even in the so-called developed world. It seems that “In God We Trust” still hasn’t lost its hold over people. It seems it will take a many more generations before the fanatic brainwashed followers of a whole host of branches of faiths will wither and die along with the cavemen who invented religion, probably as a way of controlling their subjects.

Imagine the power Uri Geller or David Copperfield would have had if they had lived at that time a bit of magic would have turned them in to masters of the planet in no time.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Vesuvius, has anarchy ever worked anywhere, at any time in history? I probably don't understand the finer points of how anarchy should work (maybe you have a link about it). At the moment, all I know is communism also sounded great on paper, provided you turned a blind eye on human nature... and I just have this feeling that human nature would screw up anarchy too.

Social drone, these are nice words that work very well for people being oppressed by a foreign power... But the American revolution is the only one in history that panned out well. Look what happened to the French and Russian ones.
Ben's fancy and sweeping statement won't mean much when an armed gang of thugs or militia is breaking down your front door to do whatever they feel like with you and your family...
or when starvation has you eating dirt or thirst has you drinking contaminated water...
or you have to sit helpless and watch your kids die one by one.


If the whole world did turn to anarchy overnight, we'd first see huge refugee camps all over the place, with terrible fighting, disease, starvation, dying... then finally, maybe a few decades later, small farming communities, marauded by roving packs of bandits - something like Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" I suppose.

edit: HawkOne, hehe, good job, this thread is called "Debate" and you're pulling religion into it, that should get it heated up I think.

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[aquamire]

History shows that extremism in government, whether it be anarchy or high oppression, never lasts very long. Anarchy always turns to a dictatorship. Whos to prevent one from gaining power with fear? One can make an army easily if they promise those who join it a bit of power. Man is weak to greed.

Governments of high oppression are usually overthrown if the people are pushed to far, as said above. About the only oppressive government that has somewhat worked, is Chinas, and even that is showing signs of decay as time goes on and their forced to open a bit in order to compete.

People need laws, or we annihilate eachother. The succesfull government is the one that rules with a balance of firmness and suppleness. A government is for the people, and should help a people in their needs, whether it be to control chaos, provide medical care, or provide defense. That means the most succesful govenrment is the dynamic one and adjusts to the peoples needs at the time being. The drawback, is that a government being for the people, is ruled by a group of people, and a government is only as good as the group of people in control.

[Vesuvius]

anarchy has worked in the form of feudal city-states. local governments organized around large communities. some worked, some failed, but there was a freedom to determine government around community needs, and I feel that over time it could develop into something good. it has an opportunity to become good, oppressive gov will always be that and will always kill all change. I would rather have uncertainty than certain suffering.
FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW (not you stahlberg) anarchy is defined as no centralized government, not no government or no order.

[social drone]

Steven Stahlberg:

take a look around you, you just described the u.s.a. tell me that the fbi, cia, nsa, atf...ect are not the "armed gang of thugs or militia" you speak of who "...do whatever they feel like with you and your family..."

"when starvation has you eating dirt or thirst has you drinking contaminated water..." ...youve never been to a homeless shelter, or seen someone eat a half rotting slice of pizza out of a dumpster. have you?

you either have the money for hospital bills, expensive medical coverage, doctors, drugs, health plans, ect "or you have to sit helpless and watch your kids die one by one." not to mention the fact that the government is trying to destroy free clinics and other health care for the poor.
example: planned parenthood

im speaking in the context of a national election being corupted, the will of the people ignored, and the ideals and principles the u.s.a. was founded on being passed up for an oil pipeline through afghanistan.

[S4Sb]

The Internet is anarchy... and it works just fine. Although there are hacker and viruses and stneils etc. Everything is compensated. Every movement has an anti-movement. Things that suck will lose in the end. At least here. The real world is pretty different =)

[Vesuvius]

there is an anti stneil movement?

[Akolyte]

Show us a world based upon the aspects of anarchy, and I will show you a world that is plagued with the ignorance of man.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Vesuvius, interesting.

Social drone:
Yes, I've seen homeless people. Most of them here in Austin are male, healthy-looking and relatively well-fed, none of them the walking skeletons of a refugee camp, around 20 - 40, and talk coherently, like they had some basic education, or at least no serious brain damage or other disabilities. Especially coherently when they want me to give them money. They're not starving or dying. I've seen much worse on the streets of Hong Kong (though surprisingly few out of 6 million people), and even they were living infinitely better than a person in a third world country where infrastructure has broken down.

You're kidding yourself if you think old pizza is as bad as dirt. But I'm not kdding, hunger does get bad enough that some people will literally stuff earth into their mouths, even knowing it will kill them very painfully. And when I say contaminated water, I'm talking about people shitting upstream because they're overcrowded, and no other water around, and no organisation to keep them from doing so, or to bring in fresh water or food or antibiotics or blankets... I'm talking epidemics, pandemics of cholera and dysenteri. And all the other diseases you get in a large mass of people living close together without the basic necessities. (And most people will tend to huddle together in these circumstances, as we've seen.)

The key word here is large masses - we would ALL be living worse than those homeless if you got your way and got rid of all government.

The FBI and CIA and NSA and ATF do whatever they feel like with anybody in this country? Right... I know you know what a riot is like. Do I have to remind you? Rape, pillage, mass-murder, summary execution, torture... Imagine life constantly like that, for EVERYBODY. Now tell me that's better than what we have today.

Medical care. There's a place here in Austin dedicated to those who can't pay for it, and they're planning to build another, I'm sure there are similar places in many other cities in the US. There are drives and collections and charities to get food, medicine, overcoats for kids, to get christmas presents for the poorest ones each year, etc etc. What you're saying is take all that away too? because it sure as hell won't still be here if you remove the government, and everybody's fighting for basic day-to-day survival.

The example I gave of children dying is a common happenstance - ongoing and COMMON - in many parts of the world where government has failed, where the poorest mothers often must refuse food to the weakest child, if there isn't enough to go around, and either take it herself, or give it to the stronger children.
How many babies starve to death in the USA each year? Every few seconds a child dies across the world, and most of it is caused by lack of infrastructure and organisation... which is dependent on government.

What if your tapwater stopped flowing tomorrow? And shortly after that, no more electricity? Then the gas runs out. In a few short days or hours (as panic and looting sets in), all food and supplies would be gone - if you were courageous enough to join the looting, you'd be lucky to grab some bandaids and batteries, a can of beans and some Dr. Pepper, and escape with your life. Especially since the shop owners are out in force picking the looters off left and right with hunting rifles (and the wounded are left to die).
If gas and power never came back again, how would you cope? How would your older and underage relatives manage?

edit: And as for Afghanistan and your presumed oil pipe line,

edit again: oh, ok, thanks Vesuvius, in that case never mind, I misunderstood that part.

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Vesuvius]

he's talking about how we (US) gave money to the taliban so we could build an oil pipe there and make big bucks. we gave them a lot and also agreed to limit our investigations of al queda the spring prior to sept 11, just so we could push this through.
big money is once more victorious over human rights and justice.

[edible snowman]

an�ar�chy (nr-k)
n. pl. an�ar�chies
1.Absence of any form of political authority.
2.Political disorder and confusion.
3.Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

what dictionary are you looking in?

[Vesuvius]

an�ar�chism
Pronunciation: 'a-n&r-"ki-z&m, -"n�r-
Function: noun
Date: 1642
1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups

maybe not local gov like city-states, but communes like in early russia.

[Anthony]

Let's see...do I want a sharp stick in my eye or a hot poker up my ass? Besides, no Govt. is an impossibility-anywhere there's a vacuum of power someone or some group will fill the void and command others. There's your Govt.

[Awetopsy]

every political system that has ever been may have been a good idea in and of themselves but were ultimately doomed to fail because of excessiveness and misinterpretation and misrepresentation by zealots who followed it.

I, for one, sorta lean towards soveriegnty.

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Awetopsy ]

[xXxPZxXx]

Yes communism did look good on paper and yes so does Anarchy (as an actual political philosophy not as some dictionary definition) Imagine a world where people did things not to be recognized or to work their way up the totem pole, or even for money. but worked and lived for the purpose of helping their fellow human and taking care of themselves. A world where everyone was looking out for each other and didn't need any sort of government regulating them. Those are the ideals of an Anarchist society. All these little fucks with their anarchy t-shirts don't know what they are talking about. neither do the corporate drones that think it is based on chaos and disorder.

But again that sort of thing only looks good on paper. Humans are too corrupt to be able to live like that. it could be done on an extremely small scale but the second someone untrusting enters the scene its all over.

here are some quotes about anarchism by Howard Zinn from his book "The Zinn Reader" (an amazing book that everyone should pick up it deals with Race issues, War, Class, Laws, and a ton of other stuff. He writes for the "little man" easy stuff to relate to.

"Anarchists believe the riches of the earth belong equally to all and should be distributed according to need, not through the intricate, inhuman system of money and contracts which have so far channeled most of these riches into a small group of wealthy people, and into a few countries."

"Anarchists believe the phrase "law and order" is one of the great deceptions of our age, Law does not bring order, certainly not the harmonious order of a cooperative society, which is the best meaning of that word. It brings, if anyhthing, the order of the totalitarian state, or the prison, or the army, where fear and threat keep people in their assigned places. All law can do is artificially restrain people who are moved to acts of violence or theftor disobedience by a bad society."

"Laws cannot, by their nature, create a good society; that will come from great numbers of people arranging resources and theselves voluntarily as to promote cooperation and happiness. And that will be the best order, when people do what they must, not because of law, but on their own."

I find it hard to believe that anyone could say that they don't think this is something to strive for. If only people could be trusted enough that the above system could work. And if you remember ANYTHING from this... Anarchy is based on peace and natural order not chaos and corruptedness.

Anyone want to add to this? (or castrate me?)

-PZ-

[aquamire]

Good points xXxPZxXx, but as you said it yourself, people are just to corrupt in the first place. The anarchy you speak of would require people to act selflessly. Thats basically impossible, as most of the time, even when we do something generous for another person, we are doing it for ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Thats not selfless. The only truly selfless act there is, is dying for someone so that they may live.

[Vesuvius]

if the choice is an oppressive government, or a POSSIBILITY of freedoms, I would rather have the ability to create, than to follow and die and be abused on whims. at the worst I can choose how these things occur with no gov, at the best they will not.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Vesuvius, I would agree, if I see the possibility of freedom. I just disagree when some people start equating the US government with an oppressive one.

xXxPZxXx, I agree with you, it sounds very good, and also that humans would probably ruin it sooner or later.
But don't put the human race down too much, yes it's true we're animals just recently crawled up from the mud, and it's true that civilizaton and civility and civic duty etc are all just a thin varnish covering a morass of animal desires and emotions. Many would say that the competitive instinct is the basis for all this evil, it drives men (and women, but mostly men) insane with the lust for power and money and fame.

But I've been thinking about this lately - how far would we have got without this instinct to compete? I say we'd still be in the aforementioned mud, or extinct long ago, non-starters in the evolutionary race.

Think about it, it pervades every activity of ours. Sex - we compete for the affections of our chosen ones. Not pleasant but necessary for evolution to work at all. Work - how much excellence would there be in this world if nobody got to take credit for anything they did? Sports - without competing?
Science - how many would devote their lives to excel in academia, to bust their nuts studying, and slowly advancing up the ladder of peer recognition, if there was no peer recognition? You may not know this, but the scientific community is one of the most fiercely territorial and competitive on earth.
Industry - where would all the Fords and Gates and Steve Jobs be? Say what you want about tycoons, make it illegal to be rich and you sign the death-warrant of the human race.
Hobbies - people gather together and sooner or later a competition is announced, in any activity humans are involved in. Pinewood Derbies for instance, seemingly innocent, supposedly for the kids, but fiercely competitive between the adults, all in good fun of course but the winner gets a rush better than any drug, and the loosers all vow to do better next year.
It's in our genes, it can't be helped and if it could we would be doomed, so embrace it and enjoy the ride.

[Queezy]

Anarchy is one of those ideas that might sound pretty enticing on paper, but if you give it the light of day you'd be pretty much shooting yourself in the foot. The idea has potential, but us humans are too big of an x factor to somehow make anarchy work. Just look at some mid-east countries, they're as close to anarchy as you'll probably get; and as we all know...

[HawkOne]

Anarchy in Utopia would probably work, but we all know why Utopia will never exist. It has many of the same reasons as above.

There are just no ways of stopping human nature, or if you will the very survival instinct that has brought us so far ahead of our fellow planet dwellers.

Things like jealousy, ignorance, desperation and envy will remain until the day when everyone can have everything he or she would like to have. I don't think you have to be a pessimist to say that that day will probably never come.

Let's make up a little story about how it all went wrong ...

I imagine some cave dwellers sitting around a fire in a cave. Grunt#1 is looking very pleased because he has the fattest woman with the saggiest tits in the whole clan, who will surely bring him enough offspring to take over power of the clan and quite possibly the whole valley in another 20 years or so ...

Another guy, Grunt#2, across the fire does not look so happy. In fact he looks like he would like to get rid of Grunt#1 so he can grab that woman and prospects of power himself. And what do you know ... during the next big hunt, Grunt#1 magically falls off a cliff and to his premature death, and Grunt#2 gets the woman of his dreams. Grunt#3 however, has made some plans too ...

To be continued ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Human nature is just not ready for every man/woman for him-herself, and it probably never will be ...

Steven: Thank you for noticing, I always try to add a little fuel to the fire when I can ... heheh ... nobody other than you seemed to notice though, even the part about fags in Malaysia didn’t spark a bit of reactions ... I was sure that one would trigger someone... sigh ... what must I do ??? Heheh ...

[MoleculeMan]

My friends dad used to be into anarchy (till he sold out to the man and what not) and he had some left over propaganda and leaflets and stuff. After reading it, i realized that Anarchy and communism are bunk. Again both choices are terrible ones. I would prolly choose the first choice, as there is a chance that there could be a revolution. In anarchy, what would happen in real life is that you would live in a city statish thing until someone formed a centralized government and whipped up an army and conquered everyone. Did anyone see/read the postman, or learn what happened to greece (a city state country with no real centralized government), or the native americans, or so on.

jake

[edraket]

It is kind of funny how people come up with these cases of how people killed each other. Like the native americans and stuff. Sure go back in history and everyone was killing each other. But in those times the world was bigger, so to speak. The people that lived 90 miles from you were a different people. Thus you made war on them on occasion.
Right now the US is bombing the hell out of afghanistan. Is there any difference accept for the distance?
People in the western world felt safe in their nice civilised countries. But on sept 11 the US still lost thousands of lives because a small group of people did not agree with their idea's.
So tell me... Don't we still live in an anarchy?

[Dan Webb]

An oppressive government and anarchy are two extremes. Like good and evil, black and white. So ideally one would try and maintain a balance. Europe, Austria, and Japan have been able to maintain some sense of balance by allowing social reforms to take place. Where we find Afghanistan and Argentina collapsing into political anarchy. China, Indonesia, Guatemala, Iraq, and sadly the US moving toward social oppression, but there is something far MORE powerful, and profound brewing that might be impossible to stop. Its that MASSIVE corporation authors like writing about in cyberpunk novels. The global economic empire. Its so large, that neither goverment oppression or anarchy can effect it. So then you ask your self ...."...corporation, or no corporation..?" In this world material world, money rules, not lives and happiness...

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: Dan Webb ]

[OpenCL]

I think that an oppressive government doesn't work with our society. Although I think that our government should control more of the country, I think right now it is appropriate, but as long as it doesn't go too far, we'll be ok.

[lalPOOO]

personally I think anrchisim is not to good, because it deffinitly wouldn't be benifical to children and also because if "bill" had a tool I needed, why not just go to his house kill him and take his tool and his house, are all the villagers going to go against me, considering bill owned a massive gun collection which I now I have?
like what good does it do them?

I'm not saying I like this form of government but it's not the worset thing that could happen, but i wuold deffinitly make some changes like the fact that theres still a ton of bastard adults who think that people youunger then them don't deserve respect, or deserve less, and don't belive in the whole "you put in you get out" they just want total respect for elders and want to follow their dying ways all the time, and ignore everyone else. The worst part is these ignorant fools are everywhere, in our schools teaching kids to act like them, in our media supressing things about risky topics like rape (not rap ) and how you don' have to pay for the news on the internet so buying the paper is a waste of damn money and other stuff like that. My personaly opinion is that thats not going to change until they're all dead, we just have to let the dinosaurs die off.

It's not like we can start a revolution against our own kind, "o you look kind of old..how do you feel on abortion? alright into the fire with you old man." as much as it sucks to wait these things to happen, it's better because it insures improvement to our species and culture. What you do may not make a big differnce now, but think of 100 years from now, what can you do to make somthing better in 100 years?


"changing the world is all the justification I need" -Hitokiri Battousai

[HawkOne]

lalPOOO,

Let’s pretend for just one moment that your very obviously frustrated comment: ” theres still a ton of bastard adults who think that people youunger then them don't deserve respect” was not directed at a particular individual here, and focus for a second on the thinly camouflaged point of your post instead even though 70% of your incoherent post has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

I will again insist that respect, when it comes to most skills, artistry included, is not something most people just hand out haphazardly. It is NOT a human right. It is something that has to be earned. Now, how would you earn it ... performance, knowledge, usually acquired in some sort of education and training I would say (formal or not!), but that is a different question, belonging in a different post. (Maybe in this one right here, which seems to have triggered you http://www.sijun.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=002306 )

Excessive spelling and grammar mistakes in posts might also kill off much respect among people who read your postings. I assume (hope) French is your mother tongue, but that is not really a valid excuse if you ask me, I’m Norwegian, and I’m doing pretty well with if I may say so myself, so why shouldn’t you? The general lack of well conceived/argumented points in your post will probably not help your “cause” either. And I thought I was rambling....

Now, attempting to connect this post to the topic at hand, instead of lalPOOOs feeble attempt to raise votes for the case of dilettantes rightfully claiming respect as artists before putting in the necessary work and proper training that is needed.

In an anarchy, in it’s dictionary definition, respect for various things would probably have a hard time prevailing, since no one exists to make sure that the weaker elements, smaller tribes, children women etc. get what they deserve.

Respect for peoples human rights, in the fight to kill racism, punishment/jailing without trial, different forms of abuse, freedom of speech and so on, is of course something that everyone should get automatically, although it is often not the case, especially in developing countries. Social rights (terminology?) could be things like, education, health service, again often lacking in developing countries.

Well, since these various forms of respect may or may not be in place in either an anarchy NOR an oppressive government, I’m pretty sure this valiant attempt at linking this post to the current topic went rather badly.

Oh well, at least I tried ... consider it a flame-guard ...

[fshock]

Vesuvius, I`m curious, in your profile it says you are a student. Are you in college or high school? And no I`m not being a smart ass.

Me, I`m in college and if it was not for my government I would not have that opportunity as would be the case for many people.
How would no centralized government deal with education, higher education, welfare, social security, and crime?