Snowden on the Twitters

[Zenaan Harkness]

On 10/3/15, Juan <juan.g71 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Oct 2015 04:36:06 +0000
> Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
>
>> On 10/2/15, Juan <juan.g71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > 	You know, the first requirement to win an argument is to
>> > pick the right side. And statism isn't the right side of the
>> > 	argument.
>>
>> More like, fatally flawed.
>>
>> Here and there I wonder of possible constitutional clauses
>> (/amendments) which might somehow "balance" the degradation of the
>> state, whilst maintaining it's potential or claimed benefits:
>>  - eliminate politician salaries (or at least set them to a maximum of
>> the mean (not median) of government subsistence handouts (now -that-
>> might cause a rapid shift to "a living wage for everyone no
>> exceptions" :)
>>  - criminalise campaign donations (like HTTPS, raising the bar?)
>>  - do a Switzerland/ Israeli "every child must learn to competently
>> use a machine gun, and every household must possess at least one"
>>  - legalise at least all plants, probably all drugs
>>  - more?
>
> 	Problem is, even a sensible statist 'constitution' or
> 	legal system is managed by the state. Things can look good on
> 	paper, but who's going to enforce the sensible laws?
>
> 	"all men are created equal" - except slaves.

Sounds like a prime beef you have with any constitution is its (lack
of) honesty. Perhaps we can work on that :)


>> > 	re : 'division of power' - the incentives for people who
>> > have power lead them to COOPERATE to maintain or gain more power,
>> > not to 'check' each other's power. ABC of economics.
>>
>> So how does political anarchy improve on handling this 'problem', or
>> is it not a problem but a reality we must accept?
>
> 	The problem remains, in general terms. People can cooperate for
> 	good or bad puroposes.
>
> 	But at least anarchists aren't naive enough to believe that
> 	different factions within the mafia 'check' each other. Sure,
> 	there may be some internal quarreling in a mafia organization
> 	or in a government (they are the same thing), but the internal
> 	quarreling is not going to significantly prevent the government
> 	from doing all the bad things governments do.
>
> 	Anyway, anarchists handle the problem of criminal cooperation
> 	inside a government by getting rid of the government.

I think you'd only see temporary 'improvement' and for a shorter time
than with constitutional statism.

Barring a general population wide increase in awareness/consciousness
of course - but the same can be said for any system.  I can keep my
mental door open to the possibility that political anarchism might
provide a longer duration of stability, or a greater likelihood for
"population awareness increase" but frankly I doubt that.

Of course we can argue that replacing one undemocratic mafia, e.g. the
British overlords that you guys kicked out, with another is
essentially "handling the problem of criminal cooperation inside a
government by getting rid of that government" as you say.

What are the metrics of national sanity?
- wealth levels?
- human intention towards family self sufficiency?
- stable military?
- deaths due to mafia faction fighting?
- actual freedoms which can be readily lived by individuals v.s.
proclaimed freedoms which have impenetrable and unspoken boundaries?
(speech, movement, association, growing food/plants, breeding, making
and doing anything which harms no one, choice v.s. imposition of any
medical procedure or substance, ...)

Why would political anarchy not descend into mafia coalitions, control
and actual anarchy, more quickly than constitutional statism?
Over here in Australia we have had pretty good run re 'political
stability', despite more and more total ratbags who now dominate -
yes, in military we've been lapdogs to USAgov in Vietnam, Iraq etc,
but internally we had say 80 years of prosperity and 'stability' - I
can imagine it having degraded more quickly if we had political
anarchism as our "foundation" rather than a "binding" constitution for
the mafia to target and having to spend effort to undermine.

Just like HTTPS - not actually providing its claims, just raising the
bar - does constitutional democracy also raise the bar?


>> >> etc)
>> >> and build upon them or try implementing them in a more functional
>> >> way, or... go the "ignore it altogether" route, end up reinventing
>> >> the wheel, and arriving at a not-all- that-functional variation of
>> >> it.
>> >
>> > 	So, you are willing to 'cooperate' with the current
>> > criminals and justify them while accusing a bunch of anarchist of
>> > 'maybe' doing something that goes against their principles?
>>
>> It is human nature to gather with or cooperate with those who hold
>> power, to the extent that it is in one's self interest - just as you
>> say above about those already holding power cooperating amongst
>> themselves.
>>
>> I don't think any particular political system can solve the problem of
>> the base nature of humans,
>
> 	True, but some systems are...absurd, even when judged by
> 	their own flawed standards.
>
> 	Democracy : people are not smart enough to govern themselves at
> 	the individual level, but, they are smart enough to
> 	elect...dumb 'representatives'? Something doesn't add up...

:)

Here we go - with constitutional statism, we need more truth in its
opening pages. How's this:

- we the people are, on the whole, sheep, willingly shorn for any 2
bit lie promise
- we are often greedy, self centered and small minded to an extreme
- we are by nature tribal, we live in fear, and we will sell our mates
for a dozen silver coins and our souls for a bowl of rice and the
promise of 'protection' from 'bad things'
- we are so pathetic, we will even continue to alternately vote in two
known political mafia gangs who persist in promising us everything
(housing, food, clothing, medical and 'protection') for nothing (just
a vote for them) whilst they continue to financially rape the country
through illegal and debt 'instruments'

- and so because we are so pathetic, we acknowledge that if we even
pretended to be able to live our own lives free of representatives and
a protectorate, we would very soon run screaming in fear to the
nearest gun-totin militaristic saviour

- in our well trodden and known to be doomed to total corruption
within at most a few decades, but ultimately placebo, if
self-deluding, concept of democracy, we seek to placate our own
madness and desire for an unachievable order in the world by declaring
another democratic religion for we, the sheeple, very soon to be shorn
of any and all of our achievements in this world by our new democratic
mafia overloards

How's that for an opener?

Certainly, we live in interesting times.

>> although I do think some systems may have
>> better prospects for social stability over some period of time -
>> although more fundamentally is the state of consciousness of "we
>> humans" - and educating the next generation to strive for something
>> higher than the pursuit of greed.
>>
>> Re education, I do recommend John Taylor Gatto
>
> 	I've read stuff from Gatto. He's pretty good. What's really
> 	amazing about him is that he worked for tens of years for the
> 	US public indoctrin I mean US public education system to finally
> 	realize how fucked up the system is.

And then wrote so in clear and enjoyable to read true stories. Good stuff.

Regards
Zenaan