Artemis Zuna Trading Post : Anarchy
"Anarchy" doesn't mean "no rules", it means "no rulers".
(Thanks to Scott Bieser at ScottBieser.com and Liberty
Art Worx for that identification & distinction).
Thanks to Sunni Maravillosa for pointing out this excellent summary of the entire Anarchist position:
The Anarchist Alternative
Most of the following is excerpted from Butler Shaffer's excellent article What is Anarchy
"Archos" is Greek/Latin for ruler, tyrant, or dictator. "An-archos" or "Anarchy" means "without a ruler"; civic life lived without a tyrant or dictator to tell us what to do -- hardly an undesirable state of affairs, in the view of many.
"If the Constitution no longer limits government actions, the legal source of the Government's authority is gone, and what we really have is an "archy" with a bunch of thugs and con-men running around impersonating Government rulers as officers and agents."
Those who condemn anarchy should engage in some quantitative analysis. In the twentieth century alone, GOVERNMENTS managed to murder - through wars, genocides, and other deadly practices - OVER 200 MILLION OF THEIR OWN CITIZENS, men, women, and children. How many people were killed by anarchists during this period? Governments, not anarchists, have been the deadly "bomb-throwers" of human history!
Someone explained to me what a horror anarchy would be with violent crime, habitual robbery, and being able to lose your home at any time. I mentioned the FBI crime stats, various seizure laws, and various government taxes & regulations and said, "So essentially anarchy is the same thing, only we don't have to pay taxes for it."
"Anarchy is not chaos. It is not destruction. It is simply the absence of 'government'. The agency most people erroneously identify as 'government' today is in reality a gang of lawyers, armed thugs, and con artists backed by an army of bureaucrats, which operates an immense array of protection and other rackets financed through extortion and fraud."
A very interesting study of the orderly nature of anarchy is found in John Phillip Reid’s book, "Law for the Elephant: Property and Social Behavior on the Overland Trail". Reid studied numerous diaries and letters written by persons crossing the overland trail in wagon trains going from St. Joseph, Missouri to Oregon and California. The institutions we have been conditioned to equate with "law and order" (e.g., police, prisons, judges, etc.) were absent along the frontier, and Reid was interested in discovering how people behaved toward one another in such circumstances. He discovered that most people respected property and contract rights, and settled whatever differences they had in a peaceful manner, all of this in spite of the fact that there were no "authorities" to call in to enforce a decision. Such traits went so far as to include respect for the property claims of Indians. The values and integrities that individuals brought with them were sufficient to keep the wagon trains as peaceful communities.
And last, but certainly not least Top Ten Reasons Why an Anarchist Is Your Best Friend by Retta Fontana
