Posts by David Cauchi
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Neither of the two local primers I linked to venture on what you'd do should even a few citizens think differently and, say, insisted on comporting themselves as capitalists. It's implicitly assumed that everyone will agree.
The point is that you're free to comport yourself any way you please. There's a company in South America that uses anarchist management structures (there's a term, but I'm afraid I can't remember it). Workers set their own hours, salaries, and conditions and can take part in, and vote at, board meetings. It works really well, apparently - you just have to make allowance for the small minority who can't handle it and need to be told what to do.
I would imagine an anarchist society would contain pockets of such people.
I find the tendency to dehumanise anyone in authority quite distasteful too.
So do I, which is why I'm against people holding authority. Just look what it does to them.
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All we are saying is that there is a viable alternative to authoritarianism. You don't need priests, kings, nations, governments, laws, police, prisons, or soldiers. It can be and has been done.
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In both cases, your 'interesting social experiment' was set up and implemented in poor (especially by contemporary Western standards) countries that were in the middle of a war. That they managed to do so, let alone maintain it in the face of determined opposition, suggests to me that knee-jerk reactions like 'it can't be done cos people are too selfish' are simply wrong. The Whites and the Reds joining forces (!!!) to defeat the Blacks in the Ukraine should tell you what a serious threat both of them found it.
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Andrew, you've got be joking. The police have had horrendous press recently and have an appalling public image, so it's in their interests to play this up and scare the middle classes into taking them seriously again. Relatively innocuous indeed!
There have been these special new counter-terrorism squads sitting round with nothing to do but play toy soldiers in exercises for the last five or six years. What do you think the scenarios of those exercises would have been? I'd be very surprised if they weren't about a grand coalition of maori radicals, environmentalists, and anarchists with secret bases in the bush plotting to take over the country.
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I think Larry Niven said about Anarchism something along the lines of that it's a beautiful dream, but unfortunately too fragile to sustain itself. Human societies simply cannot operate that way be cause we are by nature selfish and competative.
I suspect that if the Anarchists ever achieved their goals, they wouldn't find it all that comfy.
Larry Niven is (was?) a libertarian, so he would say that.
Nestor Makhno successfully established an anarchist society during the Russian Revolution. And then there were the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, who, like Makhno, were dicked over by authoritarian socialists scared of being shown up.
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Stink. Stuffed that one up right and proper. Here's the link:
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I'm all for an autonomous Tuhoe nation, but even someone of the meanest intelligence should realise that blowing people up is not the way to go about getting one.
<a href="http://www.nskstate.com/state/index.php">Embassies for nations that don't actually exist</a>, on the other hand, are a different story.
Only avant-garde art can save us!
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Hullo Mr Stereotype, how are you today?
For every activist like that, I could find ten who are intelligent, responsible, non-violent people with strong principles and a drive to make a difference in the world.
Ha ha, how am I meant to respond to that without it descending into a 'are too' ... 'are not' farce?
I shall take your word that 90% of all activists seriously question their assumptions and don't assume they have all the answers.
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There's a lot of nutters around activist groups.
There's a reason cops, soldiers, terrorists, activists, and revolutionaries tend to be young men. All you need to do is wind them up and point them in the right direction.
They don't question things. They see things in black and white terms. They think they know it all. They are not overly burdened with scruples.
Ideologues (of whatever ilk) are dangerous. Everything is sacrificed to the cause, even their humanity.
Oh, and you don't need bullets to kill people with a gun. Either you stick a bayonet on to the end and jab it into someone's vitals or you bludgeon them to death with the butt.
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As far as Save Happy Valley goes, the relevant section of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 is section 5(3)(c). It has to be disruption to economic activity that threatens human life.
As far as these arrests go, the relevant section they could be charged under seems to be section 13.
All our laws are online (not official versions but). Here are the relevant sections anyway:
5 Terrorist act defined
(1) An act is a terrorist act for the purposes of this Act if—
(a) the act falls within subsection (2); or
(b) the act is an act against a specified terrorism convention (as defined in section 4(1)); or
(c) the act is a terrorist act in armed conflict (as defined in section 4(1)).
(2) An act falls within this subsection if it is intended to cause, in any 1 or more countries, 1 or more of the outcomes specified in subsection (3), and is carried out for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political, or religious cause, and with the following intention:
(a) to induce terror in a civilian population; or
(b) to unduly compel or to force a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act.
(3) The outcomes referred to in subsection (2) are—
(a) the death of, or other serious bodily injury to, 1 or more persons (other than a person carrying out the act):
(b) a serious risk to the health or safety of a population:
(c) destruction of, or serious damage to, property of great value or importance, or major economic loss, or major environmental damage, if likely to result in 1 or more outcomes specified in paragraphs (a), (b), and (d):
(d) serious interference with, or serious disruption to, an infrastructure facility, if likely to endanger human life:
(e) introduction or release of a disease-bearing organism, if likely to devastate the national economy of a country.
(4) However, an act does not fall within subsection (2) if it occurs in a situation of armed conflict and is, at the time and in the place that it occurs, in accordance with rules of international law applicable to the conflict.
(5) To avoid doubt, the fact that a person engages in any protest, advocacy, or dissent, or engages in any strike, lockout, or other industrial action, is not, by itself, a sufficient basis for inferring that the person—
(a) is carrying out an act for a purpose, or with an intention, specified in subsection (2); or
(b) intends to cause an outcome specified in subsection (3).
13 Participating in terrorist groups(1) A person commits an offence who participates in a group or organisation for the purpose stated in subsection (2), knowing that the group or organisation is—
(a) an entity that is for the time being designated under this Act as a terrorist entity; or
(b) an entity that carries out, or participates in the carrying out of, 1 or more terrorist acts.
(2) The purpose referred to in subsection (1) is to enhance the ability of any entity (being an entity of the kind referred to in subsection (1)(a) or (b)) to carry out, or to participate in the carrying out of, 1 or more terrorist acts.
(3) A person who commits an offence against subsection (1) is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years.