Robert;: In France, during their revolution...
: In Russia, ...after the "people's" revolution.
: ...the Greens promised a better environment.
As Nikhil has already pointed out to you, (1) the French Revolution was a revolt of bourgeois capitalists against feudal monarchists. There were no anarchists involved. The Bolsheviks crushed Makhno and the other "black" armies with even more gusto than they attacked the whites. The Greens, while thier goals are noble, are also not anarchists, since they propose change through a restructuring of national constitutional governments, rather than an elimination thereof. Once again, you've demonstrated that you really have no idea what you're talking about. Your equation "violent = anarchist" is patently false. Most modern anarchist theoreticians reject violence altogether, whereas most statists see it as "diplomacy by another means."
As for the German minister of whom you wrote, I must ask why you can make appologies for the mistakes of people who agree with you, but not for those who don't. You seem to be holding Greens to a higher standard of ethics than Christians, and that strikes me as pretty hypocritical, especially from someone who claims to have all the answers to moral dillemas already written down.
: History is replete with these type of examples. Why would anyone think that the new crop of "anarchists" will have a different outcome than their woefully failed predecessors, I cannot surmise.
I'll agree with you insofar as history is replete with examples of violence, however, as none of the groups you mentioned were anarchists, your comment is irrelevant twaddle.
: They all have the same modus operendi, promise a "better" society
Sort of like a rabbi I heard about who lived in the middle east a few thousand years ago.
:... agitate at the roots
For example, tell fishermen and hookers to rebel against the social order that tells them they're low-ranking individuals?
:to break-down the societal fabric and corrupt morals,
Kick all the honest businessmen out of the temple courtyard, stir up a bunch of radicals and eventually get hauled before the local magistrate and condemned?
:then cause a situation where mob rule is the order of the day,
and dissenters are stoned to death. Later when the dissenters take over, counter-revolutionaries, folks who want a return to the old ways, are sent before the inquisition and burned at the stake.
:and then when the "anarchy" power vacuum becomes too prevalent a dictator moves in to fill the void.
And wears a dress and a tall, pointy, fish-shaped hat and lives in a palace in Rome.
What you've done here, Robert, is to make a series of statements about how revolutionary events happen, but these are so general that they will apply to any heirarchical movement, including the history of christianity, as I just demonstrated. Making statements that are so general that they apply to all situations is basically what the newspaper horoscopes and the "psychic friends" phone lines do. It's not particularly useful as a technique in historical analysis, however.
In addition, it is particularly unhelpful in this context, since the statements you made all apply only to heirarchical movements. Since anarchists are opposed to heirarchy, your comments are not germane to the discussion.
: Well I've just provided some specific examples (by your request). I would ask, why are you so impatient and presumptuous? Regardless of the challenge I offer within the dialogue, you (if you were truly sincere in your "debate") should welcome it. But no, apparently you are terribly vexed at the idea of someone challenging, in this case, the basic premise on which you base your entire programme on.
Actually, Robert, if you could challenge the basic premises of anarchism, I'd be quite impressed and happy to discuss the issue. However, your "challenge" was to statism. What you did was show specific examples of how even well-intentioned state societies end up abusing power. Since that is a central theme of anarchist thought, I hardly see how your comments are a callenge.
What you did was say "State A was bad, state B was bad, and state C is bad, therefore anarchism is bad." This is a non sequitur. The premises do not lead to the conclusion at all. The argument against the state societies that you present strikes me as offering more support for my position than for yours.
: It is indeed pertinent in any honest discussion to challenge the premises on which the argument is based. If you get them wrong, then your entire argument becomes suspect.
Ahh, yes, very true, Robert. See above.
:Perhaps this is the root of your anger. Perhaps you are merely interested in "debating style". I'm more interested in content.
Again, Robert, you're projecting. I'm not angry with you at all. I get a bit frustrated sometimes, but not angry. You seem to be reasonably clever and are a decent writer, and it sometimes frustrates me that you won't listen to people or attempt to understand why not everyone believes the same thing as you. You rarely respond to people's central arguments, instead picking out of context lines and responding to your (deliberate?) mis-interpretations of those.
As for you being more interested in content than I am, well, again, see above. If you're so intersted in content, please make sure that your statements are applicable and that you understand both your opponent's position and your own.
: Moreover you keep refering to a "conspiracy". I've never mentioned that word. Perhaps you can enlighten myself and the audience on your vision of this accusation.
Gladly. In Happy Lenin's Birthday, (er hum), Earth Day you imply that the effort to increase awareness of environmental issues is controlled by communists. In your post Why do you so eagerly subject yourself to your Imperial corrupter?
you claim that people are enslaved by some cabal of internationalist, monarchist/communist, "one-world government-ist," materialists, and that only by accepting your personal version of christianity can they hope to escape subjugation.
You repeat this claim in The Imperial Dialectic and in
Imperial Wild Fires. In
Evolutionism: Truth in Advertising? you claim that all of modern biology, paleoanthropology, archaeology, and geology is a hoax, perpetrated by scientists to decieve the public and lead them astray.
I could give more examples, but these give the general thrust of your approach.
:You mentioned that my argumet had something to do with a writing on Patmos Island. Please explain and be specific.
Pretty funny, Robert. You want me to quote bible verses at you. Ha ha ha. You know that if I open that book, all my old delusions will simply wash away, and I won't be an evolutionist, anarchist, queer, satanic, pagan, commie, alien abductee any more, I'll be a devoted follower of the one true word of Rober...uh...I mean Jesus... I can't have all my illusions stripped away, Robert, that would be too much for me. I'd better not touch that book. (Closed captioning for the humor-impared: this is sarcasm.)
:...perhaps this a classic example of a prejudiced and hence resultant falacious charge against me.
Robert, your examples of what you mistakenly thought was anarchism were not relevant. My examples of your paranoia are citations of your own works.
: Is this good "debating style"? It sounds like an attempt at intimidation myself. Perhaps I'm to be mocked and jeered just for having the gaul of taking a dissenting view, heh? Stop the childishness please.
Yes, well, the facts are always good propoganda for us anarchists. If you feel intimidated when I tell you that you haven't given me a single reason to change my opinions, well, too bad. I don't post for the purposes of intimidating people, and nobody else has complained about my writing style, though many have disagreed with me. If you're feeling intimidated, maybe it's just you.
In fact, your effort to portray yourself as a martyr to truth, being mocked and jeered by the unwashed hordes of pagans, strikes me as pretty vain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a mortal sin?
: I'll state unambiguously here that I see no conspiracy at all (that's your allegation, not mine). Any move towards the destruction of the nation-state and the ensuing dehumanisation by the world culture is totally out in the open and clear for anyone to see. Perhaps I'll comment more on that in another post.
Yes, Robert, please do, and please make sure you present at least one tiny fragment of unambiguous evidence in support of your claim.
: Question, are the universities where you and SDF teach state-funded in any way? To a large extent perhaps?
: If yes, then I rest my case. The key here is in-practice not theoretics or philosophies, my dear chap.
Given that we do live in either an anarchist collective or a Green republic, but SDF and I are each making efforts to change this situation, I don't see how your comment is relevant. Our goals for the future are not invalidated by our situations in the present. To put it another way, you keep saying that the kingdom of god is not of this world, and yet you stay here, in this world. Is it because you don't want to be a part of the kingdom of god? Of course not. It's that you can't be part of the future until it becomes the present. Neither can we, and it is still unreasonable for you to hold Greens and anarchists to a higher standard of morality than you hold yourself.
: Know one thing about Jesus, there is no paranoia as you suggest. Specific examples, "be of good cheer" (John 16:33), "Worry not" (Matthew 6:34), "Do not be afraid" (Revelations 1:17) even in troublesome times. Perhaps that makes me look foolish, but as they say in Hangul, kan-chan-ay-o. God Bless.
Actually, what makes you look foolish is your persistent willingness to debate on topics about which your knowledge is either minimal or completely wrong, or both. Sorry to inform you of this. Anyway, keep trying. Pick up a couple of introductory logic books, eventually you'll get the hang of it.
-Floyd
