Freedom is law

[ravengod]

Chaos is not freedom for in chaos everyone obeys everyone else
this is all explained in the leviathan
freedom is obtained only by giving up your chaotic natural freedom and replacing it with a contract between you and the others
freedom reveals itself only between order and peace limitations

[redstar2000]

Thomas Hobbes? Ravengod, you have VERY strange tastes. :cool:

[Blibblob]

well, dont all communists. very strange tastes to the rest of the world.

[redstar2000]

Sometimes it certainly seems that way. The funny thing is: a lot of people (even some pro-capitalists) will freely admit that communism is "a good idea" but then go on to explain that "it will never work" because all humans are turds.

That's a TOUGH one to overcome. But we'll do it.

:cool:

[Blibblob]

Well, communism wont work today, but maybe in the future the world wont be so fucked up, and people might be able to get along.

[bombeverything]

Quote: from ravengod on 12:29 am on Jan. 19, 2003
Chaos is not freedom for in chaos everyone obeys everyone else
this is all explained in the leviathan
freedom is obtained only by giving up your chaotic natural freedom and replacing it with a contract between you and the others
freedom reveals itself only between order and peace limitations


"Liberty is the mother, not the daughter of order"

I like it. People tend to ignore the law of reason and the spirit of community. Nature is best left untouched.
Freedom has it's own set of natural laws. A person can only be truly free amongst other equally free men. These laws are self imposed and voluntary.

I am crapping on.

[ravengod]

What spirit of community?
You think back in the stone age people shared evrything and lived happily ever after?
Maybe inside their families but not on a bigger scale
this does not apply to society
chaos breeds violence and unlimited freedom breeds chaos
laws are necessary for an organized communist society
they tell us how to protect our freedoms

[Blibblob]

LOL, so you think that in a communist society, there is no law?

Communism cant work on a large scale, a little country, maybe. Where there wont be any conflicting cultures, people have to be quite similar. Humans dont know how to work well with others, its conflicting ideas that breeds chaos, not freedom directly.

[redstar2000]

Actually, we DON'T KNOW how people lived in the "stone age".

In those few hunter-gatherer societies that survived into the 20th century, sharing was common...though not "perfectly equal". But we don't know how valid that is for earlier hunter-gatherer societies...by the time we got around to studying hunter-gatherer societies, they had already been pushed into marginal areas where survival was problematic.

I suspect communist society will be governed more by custom than by law...but there will certainly be law as well. The difference between then and now is that then it won't be regarded as something "special" or even "holy". Law will be seen as tool to be used when appropriate and set aside when unneeded.

:cool:

[Blibblob]

Then read Locke, he had some good ideas for pre-social man. And in a time of total anarchy, humans will come together and form a system of government- Locke, (not quite the EXACT quote, but close enough)

[redstar2000]

Yes, blibblob, I'm aware of social contract theories of the origins of human societies...though I'm not aware of anyone who takes them seriously now.

Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, etc. were SPECULATING about the earliest human societies; their KNOWLEDGE of such societies was the same as ours: ZERO.

But we're pretty certain what DIDN'T happen: a group of "noble savages" and/or "brutes" in convention assembled, debating and adopting a "social contract". We're pretty sure that you need literacy before you can have a meaningful contract...and they didn't have that in "the stone age".

:cool:



(Edited by redstar2000 at 7:27 pm on Jan. 19, 2003)

[Blibblob]

Verbal contracts are just as important as written.

They could speak, grunts tell just as much as an hours worth of conversation.

No one can really know how the past was if the people who lived it are dead, and no one can know about how the future is going to turn out. Not a single being.

[bombeverything]

What spirit of community?

I believe that there is an intrinsic spirit of community amongst humans. It's in the heart [i.e. it is inbred]. Society for anarchists is, as Thomas Paine wrote, invariably 'a blessing, the repository of all of what is good in humanity: co-operation, mutual aid, sympathy, solidarity, initiative, and spontaneity'. A person cannot fully realise their potential unless they are mixed with society. I think people are basically good, and if they are not then why leave the power in the hands of the few?

You think back in the stone age people shared everything and lived happily ever after? Maybe inside their families but not on a bigger scale
this does not apply to society

I am unashamedly idealistic. Both Peter Kropotkin and Leo Tolstoy based their model of social harmony on their observation of tribal and peasant villages. In Spain in the 1930's [at the beginning of the civil war], peasants set up a network of collectives in thousands of villages. In Catalunya, the most highly developed industrial part of Spain, anarchists managed the industries through workers' collectives based on the principles of self-management.

chaos breeds violence and unlimited freedom breeds chaos

Give me an example of anarchist society that has been chaotic.

laws are necessary for an organized communist society

Rules are, as Tolstoy describes 'rules, made by people who govern by means of organised violence, for non-compliance with which the non compliant is subjected to blows, the loss of liberty, or even to being murdered'.

It is important to note that the state did not appear until about 5500 years ago in Egypt. Their conduct was regulated by customs and taboos; they had no laws, political administration, courts, or police to maintain order. The state emerged with economic equality, as the rich claimed private property and laws were made to protect them. Therefore, the state was founded on social conflict. The state is oppressive and controlled by the dominant elite.

Both communists and anarchists share a common vision of a free and equal society. Engels was confident that classes and state would eventually fall. Although Marx and Engels found it necessary for the proletariat to take over the state, they both looked forward to a time where the proletariat would abolish its supremacy as a class and society. The only difference between us is a difference in tactic.

they tell us how to protect our freedoms

How can one be truly free alongside a government? Anarchy is living within the bounds of nature and the belief that nature flourishes best if left to itself. I am confident that human beings can organise themself and create a social order which will prove far more effective and beneficial than any imposed authority. Through education and enlightenment, people would become more rational and recognise universal truth and there common interests and act accordingly.

I really pity anyone who does not believe they could govern their own lives. EVERYONE has an equal right to be free.

[Weatherman]

Theres a book that talks about all this. Its called the ABC's of Communist Anarchism by Alexander Berkman. You can access a free online copy at "ratm.com" under reading list. Also regarding old societies I do believe we have some evidence that they operated peacefully and efficiently, if you want to know more about that read "Faces of the Enemy", I dont have authors name on hand, but he referanced some of those societies. I believe that that perfect utopian society is possible, but that its hard to see from our current social state. Government has always been the tool of the oppresor, wether or not this can change I do not know, but my belief is that it can; and after that is achieved some time will pass until we no longer need government. Thus Communist Anarchism. Anyone can email me at [email protected]