Wikileaks and government power

[varrin]

After a barrage of linguistic assault against liberals and the Obama administration, the closing paragraphs of Justin Raimondo's article about about liberal disdain for Wikileaks forwards this astute observation:

"This is blowback, guys: the very spying and surveillance you wanted as weapons in the "war on terrorism" are now being turned on

Comments

[maineshark]

"For a political government to exist morally, it must first not initiate force against individuals, and second go no further than protecting individuals' rights against such aggression from others (usually known as criminals)."

Which, of course, requires that it be an anarchic form of government. Because only anarchic government fails to initiate force.

Once there's some exception declared, the place crumbles under its own weight and tyranny results.

[madfilkentist]

"Anarchic government" is a contradiction in terms -- literally, no-government government.

[maineshark]

False. Anarchy means "no rulers," not "no rules."

If a dozen folks get together and voluntarily agree to certain rules and an arbitration system of some sort in case a rule is broken, they've created a government. However, since they all voluntarily joined, no one is ruling anyone else.

[madfilkentist]

For a dozen people, this can work. For a million, unanimity is impossible. How does an "anarchic government" deal with those who don't want to participate?

Those who are clearly known to have committed acts of force (say, robbing someone) are pretty easy to deal with; they've initiated force, so proportionate force can be used against them in return whether they've consented or not. But it's typical to have people who are merely suspected of having done so, and a trial is necessary to establish guilt or innocent. If a person is suspected of a robbery, based on strong but not yet conclusive evidence, can a government such as you conceive arrest him and bring him to trial against his will? If not, how would it proceed?

[varrin]

That depends on your definition of "anarchic". Unfortunately, there are a lot of definitions to it. If by anarchic you mean one which does not initiate force, then yes. If you mean any of a number of other things associated with various definitions of anarchy, then I might not agree. For example, I wouldn't say government cannot use force at all, nor that government cannot be hierarchical (probably the most correct opposite of anarchy), nor that government must not have geographic boundaries (be a 'state'), nor that there should/would be no 'rules', and so on. Unfortunately, the word anarchy is tainted with many definitions, some etymologically correct, but not descriptive of a government that abides by the zero aggression principle.

But yes, a moral government, whatever form it takes, would not initiate force (or fraud). If your semantic paradigm for that is "anarchy" then anarchy would be the model of a moral government.

V-

[maineshark]

See my reply, above.

[varrin]

Looks like we're relatively on the same wavelength. That said, technically, a system combining rules and arbitration would have rulers of a sort. Their rulings would be agreed to ahead of time (as in many contract situations), but they (the people who settle those disputes) would, indeed, rule. Obviously I'm nit picking here, though...

[maineshark]

They would administer the rules set forth by the contractual members of that organization.

Administration and ruling are two different things.

More poetical-like, ruling is something you do to someone, while administration is something you do for someone.

Bad Precedent

[tlekas]

You use the term blow back and in a way it is apt but I would use the phrase "Bad Precedent". Anyone who advocates using government power to do anything is setting a precedent that others may take advantage of. Once you start doing that you lose any moral, or practical argument you may have had against someone else using government for what they want.

Blow Back makes me think of a particular action that has bad unintended consequences. What we have is a growing body of bad precedents that has gotten to the point where people can not imagine how society could function without government coercion. If you argue for no government coercion they think that you are crazy.

Re: Bad Precedent

[varrin]

Yeah, I think I would have worded it differently, but I was carrying on the author's usage from the article I quoted. If you go by the Wikipedia definition, though, it almost fits... ;)

V-