grdslm's fundamental misunderstandings (plural) are too many to address, so I would like to try to address just one of those misunderstandings.
grdslm wrote, in at least partial response to my request for a response:
Anything beyond that and you're going to need my consent, I'm afraid. "'People' have to submit to statutes all the time", sure.... because they want a nice J-O-B or B-E-N-I-F-I-T. I'd rather grow my own fruits and vegetables, raise my own chicken & goats, build my own automobiles, defend my own rights, worship my own God, live with my own wife & kids, etc... all without government assistance, thanks.
As for "the alternative being 'anarchy'", I'd have to disagree with you there. I prefer the term, "anarchism", as a method for reaching statelessness... and there are MANY forms of anarchism. I prefer Libertarian-Socialism, as there is still a Platform, or Constitution if you will, of basic rules.. and all the people are involved, if they so choose, in Direct Democracy. The main premise is to destroy the concentration of power, as THAT is the main problem with current societies.
To begin, people do not have to submit to statutes for a job or benefit. The laws concerning speeding, for example, don't "care" about your job. Obeying those laws confers no benefit, unless the benefit is not to be arrested and perhaps incarcerated or certainly fined for disobeying those laws.
Many statutory and common law rules are premised upon neither jobs or benefits. The history of common law crimes, for example, would not show that the obedience to criminal law was required to protect a job or a benefit, unless, of course, the benefit for compliance is to continue to live. Originally, common law crimes were mostly hanging, branding, whipping or mutilation offenses; in fact, almost all felonies, as that term was originally used, were death peanlty offenses. The Quakers invented the prison or "penitentiary" where criminals were imprisoned in order to repent.
The statutory benefit conferred by a statute prohibiting sex with a minor has nothing to do with a job or benefit.
grdslm does state that he favors anarchy, or, as he puts it, anarchism. Anarchism is really Christian Anarchy; the term was coined to describe the type of anarchy or stateless society described by Tolstoy in
The Kingdom of God Is Within You. Many of grdslm's ideas seem to be taken for Tolstoy's work, including the idea that Jesus' teaching should form the foundation for the "laws" of a just, stateless society.
Historically, such concepts have failed, even with homogenous societies -- see, e.g., Tolstoy's own Czarist Russia. See also Somalia. This is simply because God is perfect but his representatives and followers here on Earth are generally not.
The U. S. is not a homogenous society. We have many variants of Christianity itself, many Jews, Native Americans, some number of Moslems, Hindus, Bahai, etc. All have differing views of the Laws of God. Of course, many Americans do not believe in God and are indifferent theologically to the teachings of Jesus (although non-believers may certainly agree with those teachings, non-believers are not required to agree).
The concept of libertarian-socialist anarchy is somewhat interesting. As best I can tell, the concept involves volunteerism without private property (property ownership allows the accumulation of wealth and the exclusion of others). How that would work in grdslm's ideal world is unclear. He says:
I'd rather grow my own fruits and vegetables, raise my own chicken & goats, build my own automobiles, defend my own rights, worship my own God, live with my own wife & kids, etc... all without government assistance, thanks.
I doubt that he could build his own automobiles without assistance but how would he get assitance without accumulating private property to sell or barter for the metal, parts, skills necessary to build such a machine. How could he defend his own rights without help, if more than one of his neighbors wants to take his goats, wife, or kids. (There is a really bad pun lurking here.) This sort of maudlin musing forgets that governments exist, in part, because people banded together for protection from other people who wanted to take their goats, wives and kids.
The right to worship one's own God is also frequently dependant upon collective (e.g., governmental) protection from those who would prevent worship of another God -- see, e.g., the Old Testament and the Moslem world.
Also, your vision of God may not be acceptable to others. For example, if you want to worship Satan and engage in ritual human sacrifice of persons of another religious group, you may be subjected to some form of "regulation." (For example, your neighbors may decide to exterminate you and yours.)
I'm sorry, grdslm, but ultimately, your answers to my questions were not very satisfactory. Your view of the law, as others have pointed out more ably than I, is pretty much just wrong.
And, your legal/social structure, anarchism, simply does not work in the real world any better than literal anarchy. Liberterian-socialist-anarchy is even more difficult to conceive in a world where folks have different religions, beliefs, needs, and goals.
Governments, even the most primitive, exist to coerce cooperation between individuals for the common good. Without coercion, history teaches that cooperation fails.
Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!
