RE: The Social Democratic Case Against Anarchism
Decentralized can be just as fascist as centralization. Centralization can lead to more libertarian outcomes. I mean, the centralized policing in Norway is more libertarian than the decentralized anarchic policing of South Africa.
Also, take the United States. The local governments in the South wanted to preserve slavery, the central government overruled. The local governments wanted Jim Crow laws, segregation, etc., but central government overruled. America has lots of rural areas, where the people are mostly uneducated bigots (homophobic, racist, etc.). If you allow the small towns in America to make their own rules, many of them would ban or execute blacks and homosexuals. The central government allows the big cities, where the majority of people are, to override the local populations that are generally fascist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. And, generally speaking it is best for everyone in America when the educated city population gets do drown out the uneducated rural populace, because the rural population generally supports fascism. Not that they are bad people; they just don't know any better.
My two main motivations for increased Decentralization are as follows:
As for those small communities which you say should be forced to not be racist, homophobic etc. well there are basic foundational human rights that the vast majority of us agree upon. Any microcosm of a community should have the communal decency to enforce that. Honestly, they will always exist, and if that community blacklists themselves over things that do not directly affect their survival then they are just hurting themselves.
In the case of homophobia, fighting for either side is ideological - and anyone from either side forcing people to think their way on that topic is not cool, and I don't appreciate the deliberate agenda to normalize it. Im not religious, but I gave been studying theological topics for about a decade now, and there are some very good reasons to oppose certain sexual activities and I think the motivation behind it matters a lot. Sex has induced thousands of years of generational trauma and we as a species havent properly figured it out, II think we are still in a discovery phase trying to figure that out. This is not to say im homophobic, Im anarchist, you do you, I do me, and in most cases even though I dont agree with you, I will cooperate with you. Theres even parts within my own psyche I dont like but it doesnt mean I should just accept that part and say its okay, I need to inwardly socialize (reprogram) myself, if I want my own psyche to be fully compatible with my own values.
I don't claim to have the solution towards these things but when the whole charlottesville fiasco happened people were starting to discredit people standing up for freedom of speech. If people are racist, wouldn't you want to know that so as to not associate or do business with them? Even if you made it illegal that just pushes people underground and makes them more elusive to catch. Look at the influence of secret fraternities on this planet such as the one's who refer to themselves as illuminated, and tracing back through the pythagorean mystery schools. Whether they wanted to be secret or not --- by keeping their plotting, rituals, teachings underground, they have preserved it much better than having it in the open. I think that will happen and already is happening with forms of intolerance such as racism, sexism, homophobia.
Forcing people to think a certain way doesnt work, socializing them clearly does. The socialization roadmap has clearly paved the way towards more tolerance and in general i think thats a good thing. By methods of propaganda, public opinion can shift within one generation. If a community wants to be racist I think they will be isolating themselves economically and culturally and its only a matter of time until the common good unfolds. The people who "Dont know any better" is a very ignorant comment. I find most people who defend democracy all of a sudden shift tunes when I speak of DIRECT DEMOCRACY because they don't trust the general population - recall that churchill quote about the average voter. If you think that people "dont know any better" and that your values should be coerced, well then, thats not democratic. What if 51% of the people said so, then YOU wouldnt know any better right?
I don't know much about Norways or South policing but that definitely sounds very problematic to me - I cant really make a proper comment on this because I am not informed. But if Norways police are centralizaed then I wouldnt be surprised that there is corruption on abig scale and we may never find out because of that centralization. I know here in Canada, we have the RCMP - a national police force that gets contracted to cities. Cities can choose to have their own regional police force but lately the RCMP has been pushing for more centralization, while this is happening there are appalling amounts of corruption being revealed at the highest levels. If you have corruption with a municipal police force, then its just the municipalities policing thats corrupt, not the whole country.
There are advantages of large networks such as for the purpose of policing and protecting human rights, but that can always be an organization of smaller ones, using a TRUSTLESS blockchain based interface that makes compliance difficult ifnot possible.
As ekklesiagora says, I don't think It is merely ideological. It is not purely ideological that DOMA had to be overturned some years back, to allow gay marriage. It's a harmful oppression that harms gay people and classifies their love as unwanted and lesser than others.
When people talk about how being gay is immoral and make laws that either make life harder for gay people or treating them worse than heterosexual people, they're harming those that are harming no one else. It's like people saying "omg, people having crewcut/long hair/etc is immoral, so disgusting, so let's not let them marry anyone else". In other word, it's perfectly fine for people to say that X isn't for me, but when that opinion is used to create laws, regulations, social oppression, bullying behaviors, etc, that right to free speech has turned into bigotry and discriminative behavior that harm people that are just being themselves and not harming others. In fact, it's an oppression over the free speech and self-autonomy of others.
Psychological coercion, bullying, classism, libel, etc can be as harmful as physical violence.
Again, there's a very important distinction between people saying that they feel being gay isn't for them and that they're not into the idea of being gay, and externally judging/harming others by saying/asserting/etc that gay people are terrible sinful people that should feel ashamed and kept out of businesses/services/etc.
ps: We live in an imperfect world. There are often several goals/ideologies that interfere with each other that we can only approximate those goals as best as we can. Anarchism is a great goal, as much as equality of opportunity, social welfare, societal growth, increasing everyone's happiness, etc. For example, while living in capitalism, most people do not have the privilege to opt out to survive or function without participating in the system. Naturally, that doesn't mean that we cannot behave in somewhat anarchistic ways even while/when we're not participating in the system. Most people do in some respect.
Part 1:
You said: “A government could have full blown power over almost everything THROUGH DIRECT DEMOCRACY and I may be okay with it, but as soon as you put one human to make a decision on behalf of a lot of people without legitimate consultation then thats a problem, so when I say centralization I mean one person or a group of people= who have a disproportionate amount of power.”
To clarify, I only accept centralization under certain very specific conditions. I will support centralization only if the result of that centralization happens to be more libertarian than the result of decentralization would be in the same circumstances. I am, first and foremost, a libertarian, and only support decentralization when it has libertarian results. I want things to be done through direct democracy as much as possible, but not if the things that get done are anti-libertarian and bad in themselves. A fascist policy that is anti-libertarian is just as bad if it is passed through local direct democracy as it would be if imposed by a single tyrannical despot. I support the results that are most libertarian. It was direct democracy in Switzerland that banned the construction of mosque minarets. This is a fascistic policy that I can’t support, even though it was voted in directly by the people, not through representatives. The mosques in question are private property, and the building of minarets doesn’t harm anyone, so the libertarian policy must be to allow mosques to have minarets. Furthermore, as someone who has somewhat of a background in Christian fundamentalism, having been influenced by theonomy/reconstructionism (a movement to implement biblical law in America) before becoming an atheist, I am very aware that there are religious folks in certain small towns that would actually make “sodomy” a punishable offense, so that a person accused of sodomy would be publicly flogged if not executed. That policy is unacceptable and fascist, regardless of the manner in which the law is formed. If a town decides to execute homosexuals or drive blacks out of town, that policy is fascist and unacceptable, even if it was formed through directly democratic processes at the local level. Insofar as more centralized power prevents such anti-libertarian policies, I think those forms of centralization are justified.
On the other hand, I adhere to the distributist doctrine of subsidiarity which holds that all matters should be handled by the least centralized and smallest body capable of efficiently dealing with it. If a matter can effectively be dealt with on the individual level, then no one else needs to get involved. If it can be dealt with at the family level, then that’s where it should be handled. If it can be handled by the local community or municipality in an effective way, then no larger or more centralized authority should get involved. However, this is not pure decentralism/anarchism. I believe that governments should exist for the purpose of maximizing human liberty, with liberty being defined as non-domination. If two families are feuding and come to violence, I think local government ought to get involved. If a massive army starts marching into town, then federal/central government ought to get involved. When it comes to issues of civil rights, if the local governments fail to appropriately guarantee those rights to all people, then more centralized levels of government are right to intervene. Also, this comes into play with things like corruption in local government institutions. For instance, there was a cop in my city who killed and injured several people because he was intoxicated while on duty and crashed his cop car. The local police were all working to cover up the fact that he was intoxicated. There was local corruption, so the federal government stepped in and took over the investigation to ensure that justice was done. In such instances, I am for less local and more centralized levels of government taking over, if they can effectively deliver justice when local government fails to. If, however, the more centralized levels are less effective at delivering justice in any instance, then the more decentralized/local level action is to be preferred.
Thus, my position is more pragmatic. I don’t think that decentralization is either good or bad in itself; same for centralization; I don’t think that “more government” is necessarily good, nor that it’s bad; and I don’t think that “less government” is necessarily good nor bad. What is good is whatever happens to maximize liberty and general wellbeing, and what happens to maximize liberty/wellbeing will differ from time to time, varying with “particular circumstances of time and place.”
I am for decentralizing any thing as soon as more local/decentralized/directly-democratic levels of government are able to effectively deliver justice on that particular thing. If you can educate people through public schools, get them to learn tolerance for other cultures, and thereby eliminate bigotry through education, then local direct democracy won’t lead to fascistic policies. Once you thoroughly educate the rural populace and eliminate the bigotry that causes rural folks to support bad policies, then it is perfectly fine to allow rural populaces to govern themselves directly at the local level once more.
You said: “As for those small communities which you say should be forced to not be racist, homophobic etc. well there are basic foundational human rights that the vast majority of us agree upon. Any microcosm of a community should have the communal decency to enforce that. Honestly, they will always exist, and if that community blacklists themselves over things that do not directly affect their survival then they are just hurting themselves.”
I know of a town in Missouri, where the majority are members of a fundamentalist sect. That town would execute homosexuals and trans people if they were allowed to make their own laws, and they would probably do the same to black people. This doesn’t just affect the members of that community, but the members of neighboring communities as well. If a homosexual is driving across country and happens to stop in a town that has the death penalty for sodomy, then that person will become a victim. The town has no right to impose anti-homosexual laws.
"If God does exist, He did ban gay sex, and homosexuals really will be punished for eternity in the afterlife, then the fact is that homosexuality is immoral." is of course only relevant if said god cannot lie/be immoral. The gods of many polytheistic religions, such as the trickster gods, are sometimes supportive of lying and being immoral. I do question the morality of some theoretical gods that are claimed to be perfectly moral.
No, whether or not God is moral would have nothing to do with it. The goal of human ethics is to minimize human suffering, regardless of whether God exists or not. If it is the case that God will punish one in hell for all eternity for homosexual acts, then one ought to avoid homosexual acts in order to avoid the suffering that they will bring. The right action is the one that has the effect of minimizing suffering. Even if God is moral, that doesn't make obedience to him obligatory or ethical. What makes it the right or wrong course of action is its consequences.
Imagine a world in which God is good/moral, but where He eternally tortures humans that obey His commands in hellfire. In such a world, obeying God would maximize suffering rather than minimize it, so disobedeying God would be the right course of action.
All moral obligations stem from hypothetical imperatives. The notion of a categorical imperative is basically incoherent in itself. What's good is neither supernatural nor absolute. What is good is a matter of preference, a matter of preference that humans generally agree on I might add—what's good is that which we desire (self-preservation, comfort) and what's bad is what we wish to avoid (pain, anxiety, discomfort) and these preferences are mostly biologically determined so that all humans agree on them. Human ethics is grounded in human nature. God could not possibly be moral in the human sense of the term. For humans, cruelty is wrong because suffering is bad by definition—i.e. we define "bad" as something that we dislike, something that increases our suffering. God is supposedly impassible (i.e. incapable of suffering), so he cannot naturally suffer, and so cannot naturally view cruelty as bad... You cannot sympathize (suffer with) others if you do not know what it is like to suffer. The concept of cruelty being immoral would be impossible given God's nature. God can't sympathize because He can't suffer, and so such a being can't possibly be morally good in any sense of the term that is coherent to humans.
Part 2:
You said: “In the case of homophobia, fighting for either side is ideological - and anyone from either side forcing people to think their way on that topic is not cool, and I don't appreciate the deliberate agenda to normalize it.”
It’s not a matter of ideology! It’s a matter of fact! I believe in universal and objective morality. That means that certain things are truly right and certain things are truly wrong. Whether or not homosexuality is wrong is a matter of fact, not a matter of tastes. The religious person says ‘God exists and hates sodomy and will punish homosexual acts, therefore homosexual acts are wrong.’ These are claims about reality, not just opinions or tastes. Does God actually exist? Does He actually abhor sodomy? Those statements are either true or false. This fight isn’t just “ideological” opinion abstracted from reality. Whether or not homosexuality is immoral is a matter of FACT. If God does not exist; and mankind evolved through natural selection via survival of the fittest; and homosexuality doesn’t actually cause others to suffer, then homosexuality is absolutely not immoral. In that case, the fact is that homosexuality is NOT immoral. If God does exist, He did ban gay sex, and homosexuals really will be punished for eternity in the afterlife, then the fact is that homosexuality is immoral. Either way, it is a matter of fact. One side is correct and the other side is wrong. One side needs to be educated and the other side needs to try to educate them!
Personally, I’m an atheist, after having been Christian and having studied theology and religious apologetics for years. For my arguments against Christianity, check out An Atheistic Critique of Christian Apologetics. For an overview of my theory of ethics, explaining how ethics can be constructed scientifically, see my Steemit series on Ethics.
You said: “...starting to discredit people standing up for freedom of speech.”
There is no war on free speech, at least, not in the way that people on the right want you to think. I think the problem here is that people are mixing up two separate issues: (1) whether people ought to have the right to free speech, and (2) whether the freedom of speech entails the right to a platform. People have the right to free speech, but the Alt-Right is a bunch of fascist fucks that are trying to force people to give them a platform. Ohio State, Auburn University, Penn State, and Michigan State all refused to give Richard Spencer a platform because the content of his speeches is likely to cause riots. When Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida, the Florida Highway Patrol billed them $302,000 for security costs. When people like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer speak at universities, they cause the university to incur high security costs. The Alt-Right is not just demanding free speech; they are demanding the right to a platform and they are demanding for universities to pay for the security costs associated with their speeches. You have the right to say whatever the hell you want, but you don’t necessarily have the right to use university property or private property as a platform to do so.
Furthermore, counter-protests don’t violate the right to free speech. You have the right to express your opinion, and so do the people that disagree with you. The counter-protesters have the right to shout down hate speech, just as much as the Alt-Right has to propagate hate speech. In 90% of cases, no one on the left is actually violating or fighting against the free speech of the Alt-Right. Counter-protesting, denying a platform on university property to members of the Alt-Right, and even screaming at people does not violate their right to free speech. If Milo Yiannopoulos is an asshole, and I decide to be an asshole back by yelling over him, that doesn’t violate his free speech. I have as much a right to exercise my free speech as he does to exercise his. (For the record, I don’t mean to imply that Milo is as bad as Spencer; Spencer is more blatantly genocidal and racist, whereas Milo is more like a drunk relative being a dick.)
Also, freedom of speech does have limitations. For instance, it is illegal to go into a crowded theatre and yell “fire!” when you know that there is no fire. Doing so will cause a stampede for the door, people will be trampled and injured, maybe some will die. Thus, speech can be criminal if one knowingly incites a riot or something like that. Furthermore, take the instance of Charles Manson. Manson was imprisoned for his crimes. Most people agree that he was evil and dangerous and needed to be punished (or at least confined so that he couldn’t do any more harm). Manson had the ability to sort of hypnotize and manipulate people, brainwash them even. What made Manson’s trial interesting was the fact that Manson did not actually kill any of the people himself. In reality, he just told other people to do it, and they obeyed him because of his charismatic persona. He wasn’t in a position of authority over his followers, and they weren’t necessarily afraid of him, but they were manipulated into obeying him through psychological trickery. He didn’t actually kill people, but he did give the orders. His real crime was something he said (i.e. telling someone that they should kill someone else). Also, there are other instances when you would probably agree that censoring a person is not necessarily a violation of their right to free speech. For instance, if a person walks into a synagogue during Saturday worship and starts yelling anti-Semitic slurs, the people have a right to throw that person out of the synagogue. If a man is attending a lecture or a play, and he begins shouting at the speaker or actors, his right to free speech doesn’t apply: the owner of the venue has the right to throw him out. If it is 2am, early in the morning, and I walk outside and start yelling, waking up all my neighbors, and shouting about whatever the hell is on my mind, then people have a right to come shut me up. That’s called disturbing the peace, and it is an instance when your right to free speech is overruled. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m on my own private property or on public property, I don’t have a right to scream and yell and keep people awake all night.
You said: “The people who "Dont know any better" is a very ignorant comment. I find most people who defend democracy all of a sudden shift tunes when I speak of DIRECT DEMOCRACY because they don't trust the general population - recall that churchill quote about the average voter. If you think that people "dont know any better" and that your values should be coerced, well then, thats not democratic. What if 51% of the people said so, then YOU wouldnt know any better right?”
When I said, “they don’t know any better,” I was not making an ignorant comment. I was merely stating a fact. The reality is that a large part of the populace is ignorant. Hopefully the majority are not. However, it is often the case that people with like minds and similar cultures flock together. Thus, the majority in a certain small town or area could very well be ignorant. That’s why I think the votes of the majority of people who are not bigots ought to override the votes of the bigots in the form of urban liberals overriding rural racists, etc. It’s still majoritarian democracy, and it can even be direct democracy.
I like direct democracy, and like digital direct democracy in particular. However, I do think there are instances when decisions need to be made on complicated issues only after long deliberation. I tend to agree with Edmund Burke on this point, that sometimes decisions need to be made by people who listened to all the arguments and participated in all the discussions. If there are meetings on town planning, to discuss some pressing issue, then there ought to be much deliberation, debate, and discussion. The people that took part in the discussion and listened to the various sides of the debate and heard the various arguments—those are the people that should vote on it. If some such topic is debated within the context of a parliament, council, or congress of delegates or representatives, then it would be best for only the delegates/representatives to vote rather than allowing the people to vote directly, since the people did not all listen to the arguments and would therefore not be in a position to make the most rational choice. Suppose that the people all agree that there ought to be taxes and that the taxes ought to fund defense, only stipulating that the tax shall be the least burdensome tax sufficient for funding the defense of the territory (it is quite possible for people to reach such a consensus in smaller polities, like Rojava)—the people have consented—but now the people go back to work and the administrators are left to implement the policy agreed upon. It may be best to have representatives assemble in a deliberative assembly and discuss how to go about implementing the policy. The deliberative assembly will thoroughly discuss the issue of how much defense is needed, debating all the finer points, then they will determine the cost of that defense (i.e. how much tax revenue they need to fund defense), and then they must determine the least burdensome way of collecting said taxes (shall it be a flat income tax, progressive income tax, flat sales tax, value added tax, land value tax?). The representatives would discuss all of these matters, determine what is most consistent, in their own estimation, with the mandate that they were given by their constituents, and then vote in favor of that. So, the representatives, after deliberation, may decide that land value tax is the least burdensome way of collecting tax. And that decision ought to be made not by the people at home who did not listen to all the arguments for and against it, but by the representatives that did listen to the debates that took place.
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