Fun fact: Lysander Spooner, the author of No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, called himself a socialist.

here is a kick for you…

lenin, stalin, et al… call themselves socialists.. not communists. communism is a state that has yet to exist, and requires a complete socialist world.

the problem is that you cant resolve the problems. socialism is antithesis to freedom. and communists understand hegel and application than westerners do.

the students in chavez state thing as you do joshua, and in case you actually havent read chavez stuff… he is one of those new socialists too.

there are a few reaasons why it eventually degrades to a dictatorial state.

the first is that in order to build it, the sociliast side has to be constructed around a set of people who will implement a political system against the majority peoples will. in other words, they have to be willing to not listen to the people, cause the people wouldnt choose what they have to offer. so, ergo, ipso facto… dictatorship is enevitable because once in power that particular nature does not dry up and go away, it rises to full flower in dictating what they think is the right course of actoin. any pain the public feels is considered whining to maintain the status quo, and preventing the work from getting done.

another reason is that in order to take property away from people who work hard to obtain it (marxist fantasies of “fat cats” and such not being that true – in fact fascists, which are socialists do this much more, as socialist and fascists can not be productive – and fascism is leftist, though to the right of communism. democratic socialism is fascist light)

A state empowered to do anything for you, is also empowered to do anything to you.

this is an old fellow traveler argument given to the useful idiots… that they are not going to build the same thign. that somehow, their socialism will not be punitive, etc. that its a new breed, etc… that acorns will grow up to be kangaroos.

however, those same people are not selling socialism on its real points… they NEVER do… since its purpose is to trade the leaders in meritocracy, to the despotic leaders and sociopathic control freaks.

[historically speaking the anarchists have always been the dupes of the revolutoinary and transformational socialists]

anyway… what you and most others dont get is that your personal versions and your concepts taken from people like spooner mean nothing.

to communists, your movement and siding count for everything. through the process of dialoguing to consensus, your giving an inch to socialism, is as good as moving all the way to dictatorships of one sort of another.

they dont need you to sign on for the whole program, they only need a group to sign on for each piece. so the first peice they sell the first 200 vote for… but the second piece they sell, the 200 are disillusioned, and another 200 vote for… and so on and so on.

it matters not what these papers say or they promise… a person who reads lysander should realize this even more…

but their light didnt come on. that the ideas in the constitution arent a contract, and are fluff, is just as valid an argument about the socialists and any other ism that is used to vault a group into power over a meritocritous group (by definition they cant beat them through merit, but need trickery)

so if the constitution is fluff, and you believe that, then how can you also not notice the dissonance as you try to state your ideas are not fluff? think about it…

anarchists dont seem to good at thinking… they tend to organize… but they shouldnt… they tend to do things totally against the ideology that they profess… (under the excuse that they have to till they get world anarchism.. which is akin to the excuse of the socialists that say they have to till there is also peace, defined as world socialism… two sides of the same coin)

and using emma goldman you miss the crucial point in the whole story as you look at one leaf.

she helped create the soviet union a socialist monster… her tract, points out that she discovered its real nature. however, you and other anarchists never get the point that by the time she wrote that… it was too late. she had already been a profoundly useful idiot. and still is!

it was too late…

none of her letters, writings, reversals, etc… meant anyting… her usefulness being over and her inability to actually do anything is why she found out she was a dupe… but her being duped didnt allow her to say… no no… give me a do over…

and because of people like her realizing AFTER the glass was broken what it meant…

more than 100 million people have been basically tortured to death by their own kind..

eventually, it gets more punitive… if you compare america from the 1960s… when heavy socialism started in a ‘revolution’ and the slow march through the institutions was seen…

to today… we are more dictatorial…

and more and more dictatorial… because as you take more and more from people, you need more and more force to make sure they comply…

and as far as helping poor… well we dont have a constitutional aportioned tax.. which woudl accomplish much of what socialist wealth redistribution would… but wouldnt have the huge infrastructure and state power base. (take 10% from everyone, rich, poor, etc.. divide what you get by the number of people in the country, and give it back. do the math, the middle stays the middle, the poor get a lot, and the wealthy get less… but ther ewould be no power base from that! so its about power NOT about social benifit)

i could go on, but i wont. as leftists dont have large attention spans and tend to abuse the length of an argumetn as a menas of validity…

the sad part is that despite millions who can tell such people that this doesnt work, and such… people like josua will have to try on a wool coat everyone says feels like silk… and when he tries to remvoe the itchy thing, find out that he is permently sewn into it.

each state that takes this path finds the same end result… some walk the road fast… revolution is the outcome… some walk the path slow… and they vote them in.. like chavez AND hitler… both socialists..

either way… the people find out the truth when its too late because they dont want to accept the truth without it jammed down their throat while contemplating their situation in some state machine that grinds them up.

when america falls… there will be no place to run.. and a heel pressing the face to the floor will be the final state of all mankind.

and they intend to seal it by genetic manipulation through selection.. the elite will breed better… and the poor will be subjected to laws (like we hasve today and like they first crated in 1917), that will confound their aiblity to be with and find good partners… and the eloi and such will be born…

Only if you’re looking for a dictatorship of the proletariat, which libertarian socialists do not. Check out Emma Goldman’s My Disillusionment in Russia. Or the argument between libertarian socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and state socialist Karl Marx. Or read up on the anarchist-statist split at the First International.

Fun fact: Lysander Spooner, the author of No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, called himself a socialist.

You might be correct there as far as philosophy is concerned, but the catch about socialism is, as great as it sounds *on paper*, in order to make it work in the real world, it’s necessary to have absolute state control. So depending on how you want to look at it, state ownership could be argued as the defining characteristic of socialism.

No, that would be the defining characteristic of state ownership. State ownership is not the defining characteristic of socialism, however.

Anarchy only works if all parties choose to forego violence in their interactions. Otherwise someone always tries to seize power by violent or coercive means. And if humans have demonstrated anything in their history, it’s that they have never been able to successfully remove violence from the equation.

Government is a necessary evil but it is necessary. Ideally, a government exists to protect the individual’s rights of life, liberty, and property. I think John Locke’s philosophy on government is mostly right.

As far as regular contributors to “The Liberty Papers” go, it would be incorrect; I am the only anarchist in this group.

You’re right, what we are practicing now is basically democracy. And I think that it’s wishful thinking and naive to believe that in any form of human government there won’t be moves towards tyranny. Unfortunately, I think that this is also true of anarcho-capitalism (or free market anarchy, if you prefer). In a constitutional republic, however, we have a tool (a Constitution) by which it’s possible to slow the growth of government and occasionally move it back.

- Yes. I am opposed to all forms of theft and extortion, including the existence of gangs that call themselves “Democratic Governments”

UCrawford

- Son, a republic is basically a democracy wearing a ball and chain and a lockpick. Eventually the chain comes off, and everything goes down the tubes. Is there any functional difference between the U.S. today and that which we would get with a democracy? I consider claims that we “live in a Republic” to be meaningless.

We’re not a democracy, we’re a constitutional republic. Or at least we’re supposed to be, according to our Constitution.

I live in a free state now. It may be damn hot here, but at least I have less coercive redistribution of my wealth and limitation of my liberty.