what political ideology makes most sense to you?

[Drengor]

I disagree with you about rights. I think there are natural individual rights. By having a voice, one has the right to use it. By having a life, one has the right to defend it.

I don't need a state to uphold or guarantee my rights.

Maybe what you mean is you have the 'ability' to use your voice, which you do. I love to use my voice, and I love it when others use theirs, sometimes even when I don't like the words they're using if only as a reminder that I'm not the same as them! I expect everyone to want to use their voice when they feel like it, but I'd hope that they'd understand situations in which using their voice will cause them harm. Since one of the only ways to get people to not harm others when they want to speak is to threaten them with the same or worse harm, the State sells us that service for the measly cost of our obedience*.

* There's a lot of fine print to 'obedience'

The dream is a world where nobody needs or wants to hurt people for what they say. A great way to achieve that would be a mutual understanding of your neighbours needs and desires, but the only way you can do your part is to offer what you have, ask for what you want, take what you need, and not harm people who aren't stopping you from doing the first three.

 

[dumpster harpy]

That's kind of what I'm saying. As I understand it, a right is something of which it would be wrong to deprive people, as opposed to a privilege, which is granted by a supposed authority.

Which for me, means the right to exist peacefully in the way one chooses, and to defend that existence.

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

The question is - what makes a thing "wrong"?

 

[dumpster harpy]

Coercion.

Any nonconsensual act toward another human being (outside of self-defense) is wrong.

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

And why is that?

 

[black]

coercion constitutes wrongness because it has the potential to stunt the evolution of the human animal. humans exist to evolve like any other creature, and have evolved to a point where competition is obsolete (it occurs, but due to the nature of homo sapiens it no longer promotes evolution), and cooperation is the linchpin(sp?) of that evolution. every real advancement to date has been a result of our ability to cooperate. coercion and force directly hinder cooperation.

 

[black]

read some Kropotkin

 

[black]

funny eh? since you like suggesting reading so much I figured I'd give it a go. but that's just you stroking your ego isn't it?

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

I think you fail to understand my position - I've read Kropotkin, nearly all of his work. I once gave myself entirely to the collectivist anarchist position, and spoke like a religious missionary about politics. I now reject his position.
Use the Socratic method on all of this stuff and you find you cannot find a bottom to these arguments that is not rooted in mere dogmatism and pure belief. Again, why is "evolution" inherently meaningful? You have chosen it to be meaningful, and the fact that you can choose this to mean something means you can as surely choose anything else to mean anything on the question of morality. There is no empirical, concrete basis for moral "truth".
If you punch me in the throat, it hurts. Maybe I can make that hurt mean what I want it to mean - hatred, kinky sex, saving me from choking, etc - but I cannot change the fact that such a punch hurts.
If humans fail to "evolve", I am not affected in a bodily sense. If it affects me at all, it is because I have chosen to either prioritize or actively rail against human evolution, and whatever suffering or joy it causes me is of my own creation entirely.

Yet somehow, moralists speak as though "the immoral" would strike the moralist as surely as a punch to the throat would. They are not conscious of the fictive nature of their beliefs - they treat them as natural laws, and these laws eventually control them and deny the bodily experience of self by demanding sacrifice. Whatever use exists in evolution being "our reason for existence" is far, far more abstract than that which is felt in the body of the self. If I am going to speak with certainty, it is going to be about things that are absolute - not abstract.

Also fuck off with the "stroking my ego" quip, man, I'm not trying to be an asshole. We disagree, and I think it's funny you're telling me to read Kropotkin, because I used to be so into him. Like I said, I've totally been on the part of the political journey that you're on. Maybe you've found a home there, but I think the foundation of that home will not be strong if it cannot withstand the arguments of Stirner.

 

[black]

that bit about stroking your ego was reactionary. I thought by implying that what I said was funny you were attempting to be demeaning. it just kinda came off that way. if it wasn't your intention, then my bad.

I don't quite have the energy to argue for collectivist thought. whether the arguments would stand up in your point of view is questionable anyway. I myself do not even consciously call myself a collectivist. I simply have beliefs in certain ways of accomplishing growth in the human world.

 

[black]

I just don't buy into arguments that are just boiled down into existential questions. sure, theres some scientific validity to questioning "morals" and whether or not the tiny little brain that I have and its many firing synapses maintains some kind of inherent authority on how the world should work, when really I am an ant, tickling the ass of the Earth that Woden so gracefully wanders. but I am grounded in the human world. my society, my people, my gods. and I don't really feel the need to question the existential nature of my moral truth

 

[black]

and don't get me wrong! question! question away! inhabit the cosmos and pull apart those who fail to justify their motives. I don't want to imply that I am immune to these questions. I simply don't think its relevant and I, as a simple man, a grunt, a peon, a worker, cannon fodder for leftism, cannot let those questions smudge my "zeal".

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

I simply don't think its relevant and I, as a simple man, a grunt, a peon, a worker, cannon fodder for leftism, cannot let those questions smudge my "zeal".

Not even trying to be a dick - I respect how consistent you are. I do not think it is anarchistic to render oneself "cannon fodder" for a cause that is only your own by abstraction - too much to Mao's liking for me, I must say - but certainly no one can say you are inconsistent.

 

[black]

Not even trying to be a dick - I respect how consistent you are. I do not think it is anarchistic to render oneself "cannon fodder" for a cause that is only your own by abstraction - too much to Mao's liking for me, I must say - but certainly no one can say you are inconsistent.

did you just call me a maoist? excuse me while I jump off a bridge. maybe I need to rethink my life lol

 

[black]

yeah the "cannon fodder" thing was more tongue and cheek in my head than it reads.

 

[blumerang]

Communism is ceding my rights to another. In principle, it seems perfect but like any ideology, it's not that simple. And no, I haven't seen a commune. Jst heard the propaganda of USA public school.

What are your thoughts on communism man?

It's good to disagree. Thanks for the response guys.

 

[A New Name]

@Hillbilly Castro & @black Of course the only thing you can be certain is the 'I am' and everything else is open to scrutiny but the purpose of all of "this", it seems to me, is to give ourselves and our descendants the best, healthiest and most beautiful life possible and you don't need, and indeed can't have, certainties to go on about it. I agree that one should dismantle all possible "certainties" that actually aren't such but one should not let the absence of such be something that impedes us on this quest. Why? Because it seems like the best thing to do for said beautiful life. And why is said beautiful life desirable? Well, because I said so of course.

 

[Odin]

I voted yes, now we can have some anarchy... ::drinkingbuddy::


That is... I wonder if any society can truly be free... perhaps only individuals and group families.... sooner or later some kinda of natural order imposes itself... even most nature seems random until you take the time to study observe and classify it.

maybe its just us human beans.

 

[black]

I voted yes, now we can have some anarchy... ::drinkingbuddy::


That is... I wonder if any society can truly be free... perhaps only individuals and group families.... sooner or later some kinda of natural order imposes itself... even most nature seems random until you take the time to study observe and classify it.

maybe its just us human beans.

depends on what you by free. anarchism does not inherently imply disorder unless said anarchist is one of those "Up the Punx" idiot teenagers (god bless em). in fact if you were to ask Peter Kropotkin or Rudolph Rocker, anarchism is all about organization. just non-hierarchal, anti-state organization. can we ever be free? in what sense? my definition, an anarcho-communist society, free association of citizen committees, labor unions, and yada yada yada you've heard it before, I do not think that we, as in the United States of America, can ever be free in that sense. maybe we, as in, my family or a commune we hypothetically associate with, sure. but this country? no. this planet? probably not. I wish I could say differently but no.

 

[maracasan]

Sorry for jumping in late, but I truly dig this an-com stuff you started.

Only one thing.. I agree that communism is a form of government that could stymie the spread of a globalizing economy and thereby strengthen a country from within by creating an influx of localized, relevant jobs. I'm with it. But what about the time humans would need to make such a transition?

I know this is a step beyond the theoretical.. but given our crises of the day, either the planet or civilization may not have the patience for us to finish a new project. And this isn't a thread about which power ranger we understand the most.

Before this looks too much like an overstated "end of days" speech, I believe the sciences will save our species. If we were to switch to communism and decentralize our scientific organizations, would that affect scientific progress adversely enough to doom the planet? The earth is pretty pissed with us after all. And if you guys can see where I'm going with this, we as citizens (in America, at least) don't really have control of our political process.

All this to say that capitalism has fucked us by allowing a capacity for greed to exist in a free market, which became our ethics of governance, and here we are still answering to Dudley dipshit and his pussy grabbing fingers way too close to the button.

Not to sound trite, but a revolutionary form of government would make the most sense to me. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? Excise old world corporate monopolies and political corruption, keep the good pieces, then have the the formerly oppressed populace worry about the rules along the way. To stand up, coordinate non-compliance marches, stage strikes, boycott, and generally exercise our "right" (I like to think those come natural) to protest the unjust in unison might do the trick. Just please save the science.. I've never been on a spaceship.

Welp- butt in, butt out. I hope at least one of you proletarians have some gears turning. Thank you stp for this convo, and good morning.