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Showing posts from March, 2010

The Bill of Rights and Political Anarchy

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As I argued recently, political anarchy is the absence of unrighteous dominion . The state, characterized by its monopoly on the use of force and/or the coercive nature of its collection of funds, is one form of unrighteous dominion. Before a number of American colonies would ratify the United States Constitution , they demanded that it be amended to include what is called the " Bill of Rights ". Even though the Constitution was designed to grant only certain powers to the Federal Government, these colonies understood how nearly futile it is to "chain" down the state from exercising power beyond its granted authority. They understood that political anarchy, relative to the central state, must remain in certain spheres of action. As I will argue, the Bill of Rights was designed to protect the political anarchy of these spheres, and we should be diligent in expanding political anarchy into other spheres of action. What Are Rights? There are two ways of looking a

The Absence of Unrighteous Dominion

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We are taught in holy writ that "when we undertake...to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves". Also, that "it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion." That is because to control or dominate over another unrighteously is evil, and where evil is, God is not. It is my belief that political anarchy  is the absence of this "unrighteous dominion". I am completely aware of the objections that such a statement of belief as this may create. As I will show, these objections are misdirected, the word anarchy  has been misused in contemporary thought, and a state of political anarchy  is actually desirable for a righteous people. Anarchy and Tyranny From politicians to religious leaders, anarchy  has been u

Defend the State, Defend Socialism

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The state is an institution of government that receives wide-spread support among all sorts of political philosophies. The difference, however, is that different political philosophies support different sizes and scopes of the state. A few examples: your typical " conservative " favors using the state for military and national defense, as well as enforcing morality among the people; your typical " liberal " (in the modern sense) favors using the state to regulate the economy and provide social services; even your typical " libertarian " who is generally opposed to the state in favor of liberty will support using the state in a limited, defense and crime prevention capacity. As I will argue here, so long as the state can collect funds by force to pay for national defense and crime prevention, it can collect funds by force to pay for anything, and so long as the state can legitimately enforce it's monopoly of the defense and justice services, so too can