anarchy who me? Yes! You! equals freedom. But at what price? 000106 ... silentbob chaos. humanity is not responsible enough for no government and no police right now. we'd destroy ourselves. although, then we'd see the real natural selection. if its survival of the fattest it will be a true test to see who the strongest is. 000803 ... MollyCule I once had a 3 hour long discussion with my boss at work (it was a mall store, which means we didn't do a whole hell of a lot) about the pros and cons of anarchy. He was against, I was for. The thing is, he was 30 and had a degree in Political Science, and I'm a strikingly brilliant yet under educated 20 year old, and I do believe he ended up winning . . . his opinion seemed to be that I was young and un-jaded enough to still believe in anarchy as a viable system of government, while he was older and had seen enough to discard it entirely. Perhaps he's right. I suppose I won't know until I'm older and more jaded. 001014 ... tourist If we had a planet of Altruistic Visionaries I'd jump right on board the Anarchy band wagon. Unfortunatly We live on an overcrowded world full of the self centered, and the aggressive individualists. The present level of comfort we enjoy is fragile. And if there was no government at all I doubt we would have food water electricity telecommunication, or anything but a hardscrbble existance. You may rid yourselves of a central government, but I assure you that something Will Fill The Void. It would be the new Feudalism, warlords. bandit kings. Knights of the Klan. Something would seize control, but only over small areas. We would be cut off from the rest of the world,people would become stupid-er and more prone to superstition. We might stay in this state for generations, or longer. Scatching out an existance from under a yoke of oppression till a wayward asteroid snuffs us like the Dinosaurs. Anarchy and Freedom are not nessesarily the same thing. 001110 ... daanuh think for a moment if we did have anarchy... the second we abandoned all other forms of governing by the heirarchy, the smaller "parties" (for lack of a better word) would suddenly rise up. i feel alot safer with a politician who talks alot of shit and doesnt really make much progress, than id feel with a big street gang member who bears arms 001116 ... splinken let's split up into small bands. we can roam around, foraging and frolicking. i wanna be the Big Man of my band. 001116 ... blithe are not mothers the original anarchists? popping out babies with no plan 010330 ... psychobabe yes, you can blame certain people for the whole anarchy thing, but really its just a bunch of people going all out on chaos! Order leads to chaos, and it stays there, as in us if you look at it. We lead from order, as in being alive, liveing our days till we die, until we die where our bodys decompose into fucking worms meat. Chaos. I love it, i want it, i need it. Its like i said before you can blame people for your mistakes, but really, in the end it will all end in pure, hard-core ANARCHY!!!!!! 010419 ... The Truth anarchy is the word needed to describe what we DON'T want. Somehow, some people thought it was a good idea, (probably because they don't like getting into trouble) without taking the time to thouroughly think this concept through. I quietly snicker when I see punks demanding anarchy, I think ignorance is funny. 010420 ... pogo stix i have never waved that flag anarchy is impossible some sort of order ALWAYS imposes itself 010420 ... faith anarchy isn't chaos.. it comes after it. it is voluntary self-gov't the definition has been shifted to a more chaotic outlook. 010420 ... psychobabe if you have such a strong belief that anarchy isnt pure chaos, then show me and tell me, because i'm not changeing my mind till anyone does 010420 ... Effingham Fish The power went out across several blocks in and around this town's most popular commercial sector, today. However, it's high noon on a nice, sunny day, so that's not where the anarchy comes in. Bear with me. The power outage, of course, included the traffic lights. So, police were stationed where the outage intersected with the main throughfare, directing the traffic. To be suddenly called out to do a thankless, possibly dangerous job, even with the weather so pleasant... I kind of felt sorry for the guy. But, I digress. I turned off of the main road, and went down parallel to the university, on my way back home. Whether the police didn't know that the power was out that far away, or they didn't think it would be quite as busy, is unimportant; what is important is that it was out, and it was as busy as on the main road. People, in cars, and on foot, crossed in and out of the university at a steady pace, but it was all good. The people in cars waited patiently for the people on foot to cross safely, and vice versa. They turned and passed without a single sudden braking or horn blow for as long as I was in earshot. No light, no cop, but it worked. Amazing, I thought as I drove away. All the prepared, thought-out arguments I'd heard for anarchy in my life, and all it took was one tiny, random event to convince me that it could work. 011030 ... Subterranean Visions anarchy is a good idea. it would drive everything into complete chaos and martial law. but i believe this would give birth to a new, better system of life. tribalism, or something similar. 011030 ... jestification any radical change in the system would be met with 'problems' because of the insane social conditioning we go through..... that's no reason to dismiss new ideas, it is a reason to discuss new ideas. i'm an anarchist at heart, but i'm still exploring my head. they might agree on something one day..... all i'm sure of is that i choose to meantally resist this fastly globalizing consumer society where everything is (or will soon be) a commodity........ & complacency is a motherfucker. 011207 ... cube to all those describing anarchy as a FORM of government - hello, the definition of anarchy is NO government. most of us wouldn't live to see week's end if dropped into true anarchy... 011207 ... bijou "Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson, etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism. Anarchism means peace and tranquility to all." - August_Spies, Haymarket_Anarchist 011212 ... flogging birdmad the scourge of every sea 011213 ... girl_jane If only it were possible. If everybody was able to take care of themselves and not go around killing people and other destructive, chaotic acts, I'm definitely all for anarchy. Natural selection, yes, I wonder how many of the people I really don't like would be around if natural selection had worked for the human population. Look at a few of the indian tribes. They were fine and dandy before we came. We had to leave were we were originally from because of government. Then, we come here and treat the people that were here before us like crap-the reason for us leaving. Wow, our ancestors were a bunch of hypocritical bastards. Look at us now, we have a leader who calls terrorists 'folks' as if he's going to invite them to a barbeque. Riiiight. Hurray for government. {insert eye roll here} 020212 ... reitoei most anarchists are posers. they just dont want a government to tell them they cant go deer hunting in their front yard. anarchy is not chaos since rules will always develop. anarchy is lack of government not lack of culture. i met this crazy gay scotch anarchist in a public library today. he was born on feb 29. the people you meet. 020212 ... silentbob none of the anarchists I'VE ever met were deer hunters. 020213 ... Casey Is it possible for the dick of anarchey or break the hymen of democracy? 020213 ... silentbob oh, i think democracy was devirginized and raped long ago, not by anarchy but capitalism and bi-partisan tyrany. class war. and in jello's words A Two Party State Masquerading As A Two Party State 020530 ... bell sessions read it in the books, in the crannies and the nooks there are books to read... chorus. 020530 ... ms money poor lil' anarchist posers, wishing they could just steal their punk pop from the mall where they hang out. 020530 ... kerry is the dumbest concept i have ever heard of in my entire life. the world is just too immature to handle responsibility. the way things are now, if we were anarchists we'd all be running around killing each other. =utter chaos 020530 ... kerry by the way in that last blathe i messed up the last part, 'scuse me! 020530 ... Rockstar who came up with that anyway? novel I suppose, but naive nonetheless. 021007 ... hi we're running around killing each other now 021007 ... Open Minded What is anarchism? Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society in which individuals freely co-operate together as equals without political, economic or social hierarchies. Anarchism essentially seeks to create a classless, stateless society, free of oppression and exploitation, that is organized and held together by the four principles; individual freedom, social and economic equality, free association, and mutual aid (i.e. cooperation and solidarity). What isn't anarchism? Anarchy does not mean chaos, crime, destruction or havoc. To the contrary, these have been the characteristics of political and economic hierarchies throughout history. One of the most common critiques of anarchism is that people "naturally" require hierarchal structures to govern society. However, every single hierarchal structure throughout history has burned to rubble. Not a single government nor empire has lasted more than a few hundred years. People have always rebelled against governments and hierarchal structures. Perhaps this is an obvious indication that people cannot sustain a natural equilibrium within society as long as hierarchy exists because as history has shown us, people will ALWAYS naturally rebel against them. What type of society does Anarchism advocate? Anarchism sees to create a society in which individuals can live independently from government and all top-down structures. We believe in mutual aid and cooperation. Anarchists believe in anti-authoritarian decision making, such as direct democracy. Direct democracy works off of consensus and more involves people expressing their ideas, opinions, concerns, criticism and suggestions about certain issues that effect that group of people. This is what makes direct democracy different than representative democracy. It eliminates all top-down hierarchical means of decision making. Many believe using consensus is naturally how humans work. For example, when you go out to see a movie with your friends you work on consensus.. You make a proposal by asking everyone, "what do you want to see?", and everyone decides. If there's a conflicting decision people usually talk about it. That's direct democracy. We do the same thing when we want to go out and eat for example. All these decisions effect us directly thus we engage in a format of a consensus decision making process so the decision can best fit our needs without excluding anyone's opinion or concerns from the group. This insures that everybody's voice is heard. Direct democracy also eliminates the top-down hierarchical in decision making format. People usually don't like it when another has the authority to make all decisions and boss everyone else around, therefore we naturally engage in consensus. Many anarchists believe that such behavior indicates that deep down inside we are all anarchists. Our behavior is so naturally anarchistic, that we don't even realize it. So what do you want? Utopia? That's a dream. Nothing can be perfect! Anarchism doesn't see to create the 'perfect society', but rather to achieve liberation by creating equality, education, and mutual cooperation. A community can achieve anarchism by declaring independence from statist capitalist forces by collectively organizing to form co-op networks to provide food, clothes and housing to the community. The Black Panthers and american Indian Movement demonstrated this in the late 60's and 70's. The only reason why they failed is because the FBI/CIA' cointelpro (counterintelligence program) neutralized revolutionary communities by means of chemical warfare.. and that today is one of the biggest problems we still face in our communities because of cointelpro. *taken from http://www.raisethefist.com/news.cgi?artical=anarchy* I dont understand why people wont acknowledge their own intellectual capabilities to know right from wrong. "What would you do without a polive force?" We, not only as a society but a country, would never tolerate murder, rape, or any other violent attack. We dont need people telling us not to, its in our own nature not to. The only thing keeping us from having anarchy are people who are misinformed on what anarchy truly is. It does NOT mean NO RULES it means NO LEADER! Some people in society believe that chaos would occur without a government to prevent it. But government DOESNT prevent it. You only have to read the