one thing that world leaders certainly understand - as they meet to help realize their ecstatic vision of the future for us all, as we all pull together behind their inspirational leadership (yes, we can): they would all be bullet-riddled corpses without a continual massive security cordon. that's because the state is all of us, pulling together to help each other by means of a perfectly voluntary social contract.

here is a relatively good principle: live so that no one wants to kill you, or at a minimum, so that if they do, it's wrong and irrational for them to. tip: try not to run a war machine, have unfathomable power over every aspect of the lives of the people around you, administer a prison system, and so on. these things, understandably, piss people off.

Dr. Mekdese Kassa, 45, from Columbia Md., was marching with other Ethiopian immigrants Thursday in a permitted rally on Liberty Avenue to protest the presence of the prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, at the meetings. The protesters said Mr. Zenawi illegally took power by force in 2005.

Dr. Kassa said he was more worried about police behavior than vandalism.

“When you see this kind of police presence, it makes you feel like you’re back in your old state,” he said.

Shaking his head at the police officers standing in front of him, Mr. Kassa added, “That’s why we came here from Ethiopia, because our rights were repressed there.”

Comments

[marriotr]

"or at a minimum, so that if they do, it's wrong and irrational for them to."

See, "irrational" is the sticking point here, especially coupled with the bit about having unfathomable power over others. When the two combine, you get a relativism loophole that any individual with any modicum of authority can stretch into any shape they want.

I see two ways of attacking this, both with problems. The first is to attack notions of authority, particularly those that are grounded in the obscure, indoctrinatory or inaccessible. The second is to meta-define irrationality, in such a way that it can be approached similarly, with different but harmonious definitions, by different actors.

The first has problems of extension, and the second has problems of enactment- both would require drastic changes to the public's normal metaphysical assumptions.

[Robert Kelly]

This is a good post and a good comment by marriotr, but I don't speak marriotr's language. I can't say much more. But, ah,
'reason as authority' reminds me of Orwell's critique of anarchism. I think I've mentioned this before in a comment.

Now, Orwell considered joining the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, he was friends with anarchists and his brand of libertarian socialism coincided with anarchist aims, but his critique...

Mentioned in his review of Gulliver's Travels, if you demolish all forms of law, all that is left in its place is, well, public opinion, which is much less forgiving than law. Either "reason" or "universal brotherly love" or something like that, given the human animal's natural desire to conform, perhaps could lead us to a place where conformity becomes so strong then there's no reason to have police or a state at all. There's no reason to express dissent, because, as he put it, the truth is self-evident due to reason, or the truth is not possible so what's the point in squabbling over it? Opinion itself becomes obsolete.

[Andrew Dobbs]

I've long joked that I want to run for Congress on a platform of abolishing the Secret Service. Any politician who can't walk the streets in safety is a tyrant, and if the government can print money to pay their bills, why can't I?

[mr.fun]

it would require a different species.

[mr.fun]

and watch the "it's wrong and irrational for them to" - lots of people want to sublimate and define what is and is not rational.