Friday, March 26, 2010

Anarchists Do Not Favor Total Government

Dan Clore responds to more Glenn Beck idiocy:


As an anarchist, I'll leave it to the progressives, communists, fascists, Nazis, birthers, 9/11 truthers, candidates for governor of Texas, and crazy people to explain their own views -- or to dispute the accuracy of Beck's application of these labels to them. I just want to point out that Beck's assertion that anarchists favor "total government" could not stray further from the facts.

Anarchists oppose illegitimate authority and hierarchy, and therefore oppose capitalism and the state; anarchists do not oppose all organization: anarchists favor voluntary, non-hierarchical, self-organization. Anarchists do not oppose all rules and laws; anarchists oppose rules and laws imposed involuntarily by illegitimate authorities, such as the state, and favor voluntarily-agreed upon rules and laws.

In short, anarchists definitely do not favor total government, they want to abolish government to the greatest extent practicable, and preferably, entirely.

As Beck has reportedly at times described himself as a "libertarian", one should note that originally the term was synonymous with anarchist; it later became extended in reference to various other minimal-state and limited-government political philosophies. In general, however, the more libertarian your views, the closer you come to outright anarchism. So why not go the whole hog and pay the postage to boot?

"Anarchists" for "Total Government" (Glenn Beck Corrected)


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