: The operative word that you use here is "philosophical". In practice, however, anarchists will and are led by leaders very easily. In an ordered society they look rebelious, but when that order breaks down they are the first to become conformist.And this statement is based on what experience? On which particular anarchists? I must re-state my earlier comment that your claims demonstrate your fundamental lack of knowledge about the subject. You're also assuming that you know, based on no evidence, how anarchists would act when "order breaks down." Given that you've clearly demonstrated that you don't understand what anarchism is, and that you offer no examples of anarchists being easily led or becoming conformist, I have to assume that you're full of baloney. In fact, during the Spanish Civil War, the FAI behaved in accordance with their stated philosophy much more successfully than any of the statist factions.
As usual, Robert, you've made a huge, grandiose statement about a subject in which you have no expertise, and you've neglected to offer even a single splinter of evidence to support your outrageous claim. This is not good debating style, Robert.
: Communism is a contrivation of imperialism.
Perhaps, if that's your definition, fine, whatever. It has absolutely nothing to do with anarchism, however, and so it's an irrelevant tangent to this discussion. Once again, bad debating style.
: : What SDF was suggesting, which you seem to have completely ignored in your post, was that fundamental changes to the American education system might have long-term benefits, and I doubt that anyone who looks objectively at the situation could disagree.
: The operative desire here is the "state" education system. I'll simply restate Marx and Engels' 10th point of communism: To provide for a free and universal state education system. Again, this is thinly vieled imperialism.
OK, you define education as imperialism, fine. (I can see why you might, frankly.) Listen, Sam's point, with which any reasonable person would agree, was that the U.S. education system has some serious problems. He then proceeded to offer some very intriguing possibilities for correcting some of those problems. These suggestions had nothing to do with any communist, monarchist, imperialist, or even anarchist conspiracy. They were proposals for re-structuing some of the departments within the university system. You went off on some whacked tangent that had nothing to do with the topic and once again demonstrated that you don't know what you're talking about.
I don't want to get insulting here, and I have no desire to start a big flame war, but frankly, Robert, I really wish you would at least read the posts that you are responding to. So far, I have no evidence that you actually do so. As far as I can tell, your habit is to pull one or two sentances out of context, pass them through your filter of paranoia and superstition so that you can invent new meanings for them, and then respond to the little voices in your head, rather than the posts that others are actually making. This is also shoddy debating style.
:: (skipping)...The suffix "-archy" literally means "a form of rule or government," so "an-archy" literally means the absence of a form of government. It does not mean secret conspiracy of imperial corrupters.
: Again that is a philosophical theory. In practice anarchists are easily led and will be the first to demand a central authority when society goes awry.
Again, you offer no supporting evidence for your outrageous assertion, so I have to assume that you have none. Look, again, at the definition of anarchy-a position that rejects the claims of the validity of the state. By definition, your statement is false, since someone who demands a centralized authority is, by definition, not an anarchist.
:Do you not demand an authority to subsidise through taxation (ie. the force of law) your desires for your state-education programme?
Actually, an anarchist education system is not a "state-education programme," again by definition, and anarchist communities do not impose arbitrary taxation or acknowledge the validity of the "force of law." Your statement is therefore meaningless. However, trying to decypher some meaning from it, I think you are asking if I believe that the beneficiaries of an education system (i.e. the community that receives the products, whether material or conceptual, of an education) should in some way support that education system. In that case, yes, I do. If a group of people wants to benefit from an organized approach to knowledge, they should expect to offer some effort in exchange for those benefits. That does not mean that I support the forced taxation of people outside of the community of beneficiaries, nor does it mean that I support a centralized decision making authority. Your claim once again mis-represents the nature of anarchist thought, and the more of these types of claims you make, the more apparent it becomes that you really don't understand the nature of anarchism.
: In Christ, there are no worries.
Nor, it seems, are there any requirements to actually understand a subject before spouting off about it. Frankly, Robert, given how little you understand about science and philosophy, I am beginning to wonder if your knowledge of religion and spirituality is as good as I've been crediting you with. What I mean is that you seem to be so poorly informed about so many subjects, that I worry you may have just as poor an understanding of other subjects as well. Increasingly, I'm realising that your interpretation of christianity most decidedly doesn't jibe with what I know about the subject!
Honestly, Robert, in the interest of creating a successful discussion, I'd like to request that you actually make an attempt to understand what other people in this room are actually saying, rather than responding to some single line, taken out of context and then twisted to fit your whacked interpretation of the world. That approach doesn't convince anyone of your position, it just makes you look foolish or worse.
-Floyd
