Kobold King

The implication is enough. Active as in "speediest reactions" or active as in "most posts"?

To put it bluntly, intercourse. Or as the dictionary defines it when Nighthound's involved, "AAUGH MY EYES WHY EDGEDANCER WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO USSS..." * endless vomiting sounds * This is something I'd much rather dwell on. Bruce, I presume?

But I just used up all my brain bleach after Nighthound "putting her to good use"! * suddenly remembers that mental picture * * sways queasily * * pops open skull and pours last drops of brain bleach into the exposed cortex within *

I don't like civilization. I would rather have a tribal society in which neither organized education nor a postal system is necessary. However, I was pointing out that a government is not necessary to support either of those institutions. As for medications: what if I told you that most diseases that modern medicines tackle or try to tackle have been historically known as "the diseases of civilization"? Diseases exist in all societies, but the worst of the worst--the black death, smallpox, measles, influenza, cancer--are virtually unknown in tribal societies, and indeed any society that limits the amount of carbohydrates it ingests. Tribal people are, objectively, healthier. As I said, there are some diseases tribal societies can't cure. But then, western society can't exactly cure all ailments either, and half the ailments it's trying to get rid of are a direct result of living in a "civilized" culture. Again I will say it: government is a form of banditry. If government is necessary for civilization, than civilization itself is banditry. If you seek to justify banditry against me and all other unwilling members of society, the burden of proof lies with you to prove beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt that the barbaric act of stealing from me is better than the consequences of not stealing from me. And since tribal societies have existed happily on this planet for an order of magnitude longer than the oldest civilization, I strongly doubt there's any proof at all that these consequences exist.

Would the San system work for Western man? No, not as we live currently. Which is a point in and of itself--if western society literally cannot exist without stealing money and oppressing its citizens, then does that not make western society inherently evil? First of all, I am not a libertarian. I do not come close to embracing pure libertarian ideals. I oppose raw capitalism with the same fervor as I oppose communism. The expansionist nature of the libertarian ideal disgusts me. I am an anarcho-primitivist. The infrastructure of western society is not necessary for survival, or even to good living. A thousand tribal societies across the globe prove that fact indisputably. I will say again, and in bold so that all my recognize this as my core point: If I am not harming any other human being, than no human being has the right to confiscate my resources under the threat of violence. To me, nothing else matters. A tax is nothing more than a robbery, no matter how its phrased or justified. Imprisoning someone for not paying those taxes--as is necessary in any government-driven society--is morally no better than kidnapping a bloke off the street and tying him up in your basement. Saying that our society can't survive without this violent upholding of tax laws is by no means an argument for our society's continued existence! Rather, it is an argument that it needs to change, and to change as fast as it can! If that means throwing away the infrastructure of western civilization, then so be it. Infringing upon the liberties of the people for a supposed greater good is the worst kind of tyranny. Again, I will point to my core argument, with a personal appeal. Do you, Orlion, feel so strongly about having plumbing in your house that you would point a gun at my chest and steal from me to pay for it? Is electricity such a basic human right that you would personally rob me blind, locking me away in a dungeon if I don't comply, just to have wall sockets to plug into your modern conveniences? If society can achieve the technical infrastructure you speak of without stealing, then more power to them. I won't stand in their way. But if these things are the inevitable by-products of armed robbery, then I want no part of them, and no human being has an innate right to them. If you argue, argue not against libertarian ideals I have never embraced, but argue against my core point. Argue why it is acceptable to take my money from the other end of a gun to pay for a society that I want no part of. Argue why western society is so pure, so outstandingly admirable, that locking men away for the crime of not supporting it is an acceptable course of action. Argue that the crimes of a violent government are necessities for the greater good. As one last note--in the interest of remaining civil and not sinking into private frustration (and inevitable hostility), I ask that you dispense with this notion that I am a younger version of you. When you speak to me as if I were a dewy-eyed student with none of the sage wisdom you possess, you imply that I am your intellectual inferior. Please do not do so. I respect you as my intellectual equal. I ask only that you take my arguments at face value, knocking them down if you can, not leaning upon your superior age and speaking as if my stance were the product of an immature mind.

That is a false analogy. The people you describe were no more true anarchists than the Viet Cong was a people's advocacy group. They were angry people who were lashing out at society through violence and bloodshed. Do not think anarchists of today have forgotten the wrongs of the past! We don't view the world through any "idealized" lens. I myself am often accused of being a cynic of the highest order. Anarchy, at its best, can be found in tribes like the San of Africa, who live with rulers who are nothing but symbolic figureheads and have lived in peace with one another for longer than our civilization has smelted steel. Government at its best will imprison or downright murder anyone who doesn't "pay into the system" in the form of taxes. If you can provide an example of a government that does not owe its existence to the goods it seizes from its citizens, then I'll rethink my stance on it. But as I see it, anarchy and government can both be violent, but only one system owes its entire existence to said violence. Honestly, it is government and not anarchy that requires an idealized lens to be seen as anything but a tyrant's scam. EDIT: I think I got a bit passionate there again. Hope I didn't sound rude.

A dramatization of the scene so far: Sam: Easy there, Rev. Either one of these Epics will kill you. Revolution: Hi friends! Sam: Idiot. Voidgaze: You guys really are my best friends in the whole world! Revolution: Yay! Funtimes: YAY! Revolution: Too loud, I think. Voidgaze: Thank you friend! Funtimes: I KILL YOU! Sam: I knew it.

You get an empty coppermind! Using a clever bit of Feruchemy, I sneaked into the building and extracted the collected sum of Scadrian knowledge while you were waiting for your exchange. * inserts Vindication *

That's about what I figured. I'll find a way to have Sam drag her to the side and warn her that she'll get her top turned to napalm if she pulls that kind of stunt again.

We're brain buddies, like Protector and Purple Phoenix!

I'm INTJ. According to the Internet, this makes me psychological kin to Rumpelstiltskin from Once Upon a Time. By the way, Twi, will Funtimes feel any less friendly towards Revolution after this small incident, or will she brush it under the rug pretty easily?

So far, what I'm getting from Sharders is complete apathy. I'm a little let down, to be honest. I expected at least two or three downvotes by now.

Hey, I'm pursuing them. I raise as much of my own food as this day and age allows, I compost my own waste, harvest my own electricity from the sun, and frolic through the daffodils with nary a care in the world. If that's not true freedom, I don't know what is. Besides, I've gone up to a week without posting before and still had noticeable rep gain. I'm not even sure if I could stop garnering rep any more.

First off, in family-oriented tribal societies, crime as we know it is virtually nonexistent. People can be selfish, even controlling to the point of hierarchy, but violent crimes among societies like the San of Africa or the peoples of the deep Amazon are hardly ever seen. Committing a heinous act against another tribe member isn't just unthinkable, it's stupid. They rely on their friends and family in the tribe for their own continued survival. Alienating them is the last thing they want to do. But let's look at this from a Westerner's "civilized" perspective. I ask you--how much does the government really prevent violent crimes? I've already described how my home town suffers because the law enforcement won't do its job, and most American prisons are stuffed to the brim with people who made a poor decision about drug use, not violent crime. To get me to accept government as a defense against violent crime, you'd have to prove to me unambiguously that government can deliver wholesale on its promises, and that the protection it offers counterweighs the blatant robbery it performs daily on its citizens in the form of "taxes." (That's what people don't get. The government isn't protection from bandits, they are the bandits.) Frankly, to put it in violent, crude terms, I'd rather every member of society be versed in the art of killing bandits than to have one uniformed gang of bandits extort from everyone. Private schooling is a thing. Besides which, a tribal society doesn't need organized schooling, and an advanced society like ours has all the knowledge a child could ever need available for free on the Internet. I don't see the public school system as a sufficient argument for the existence of the United States Federal Bureau of Banditry. The Apache, the Inuit, the Zulus, the San, the Carib... there is not a stretch of inhabited land on this earth that a clever society can't harvest all of its needs from. If civilization collapsed overnight, the people of [REDACTED], Texas would have to adapt to sustainable, tribal ways of living in order to survive long-term, but it is more than possible to do so. No culture is invulnerable. Not a single one, even with roads and air supply lines. But I'll point out that tribal cultures didn't build their settlements on shores prone to hurricanes, like ours has, or build nuclear reactors that have a tendency to melt down and irradiate everyone, like ours has, or launch missiles at each other capable of vaporizing an entire city, like ours has (twice.) Tribal societies could dodge or swing back from natural disasters like ours never could, and at least they weren't responsible for half of their disasters. A new tyrant is also more likely to be resisted by the people. If they want to bow, let them! I don't infringe upon their right to submit to the first army than marches into the land. But if those people try to seize my money, land, or liberty for the sake of building their own army, then they are no better than the invaders themselves. They have no right to impose their decision onto me. In tribal societies, yeah, they do. In many tribal societies, which are probably the purest and least screwed up societies on Earth, abandoning your elderly forebears to die would be seen as just as horrid as a mother eating her own baby. And if by some chance there was no one available to care for an elder, there would be countless other members of the tribe willing to pitch in. In any case, if the government is a glorified bandit gang (as I've established), whose idea was it to give our elderly over to bandit gangs so they could be fed in their old age by stolen goods? You don't sound rude, for what my opinion's worth. I disagree strongly with you, but that's nothing new for me. My stance on government is pretty simple: if you're going to steal my money or lock me away forever in a concrete prison, you'd better have a storming good reason for doing so.

I'm easily irked at the moment, but I'm always passionate about this subject. Moral guidelines was considered a given by the earliest proponents of anarchy. "Authority" is, by Google's dictionary you seem to be using, I can be 100% opposed to authority--the ability of any other human to give me an order, make a decision for me, or enforce my obedience--while still obeying my own moral code. There is no conflict between supporting anarchy and upholding a moral code. Let's see... what would I lose if I severed my connection to the government? Law enforcement. I believe I've already made the case for the law enforcement of my community being completely, 100% useless. They weren't there for me when I was shot at by ruffians, and they won't be there next time it happens either. I have no use for such an agency. Education. I'm homeschooled, as is my family. Next. Libraries. A subset of education, I suppose? In any case, the town closest to me closed its library to pay for a half-a-million dollar football field that I don't use. In addition, libraries could also get their funds through private charities or simply by sheer volunteer work. When it comes down to it, as much as I love a good book I don't support anyone's right to extort hard-earned resources from others just to maintain a library. Roads. I don't like roads. They pave over the landscape, turning once pristine wilderness into asphalt lines of death. I want to see the roads fall into disrepair and erode away, so we can go back to natural transportation like donkeys. If for whatever reason a community decides that it absolutely must have roads, then volunteers can maintain it for them. I for one won't shed any tears over it. National Security. This is a big deal, and it is the reason the Founding Fathers supported government. In the Federalist Papers they maintained that a strong central government was essential for standing firm against foreign invaders. To me, however, this is much like summoning Cthulhu to fend off Godzilla. There's no point in repelling tyrants from overseas if you're going to surrender to tyrants here at home. I refuse to run into the arms of one evil out of fear of another. (A side note: a people that doesn't want to be conquered will not be conquered. Not forever, at least. The people of Vietnam have resisted invasions from the mightiest empires of the world, the United States included. The only faction that was able to break their spirit and oppress them was their own government, not any foreign power.) Vital Needs. I'm not on welfare. My grandma is, but we have enough funds and compassion to care for her if she'd only let us. In addition, it is government policies that prevent me from being as self-sufficient from the land as my Cherokee and Comanche ancestors were. The Postal Service. UPS, a private organization, delivers my belongings much more efficiently and accurately than the United States Postal Service. Just sayin'. Am I missing anything? I'm sure I can go without that, too. Yes... I do indeed realize what I would miss out on if I terminated my unwilling contract with the federal government. I have weighed the pros and cons, and I have judged government to be utterly superfluous to my survival and well-being. I'm interested in this experiment of yours, though I have reservations about whether it's truly anarchist in spirit. Honestly, I'm much more interested in this friend of yours and his opinions on government. I'm more of a separatist, myself. I don't have much hope in changing society, so I mostly separate myself from it, try not to rely on it, and contribute to it as little as I can. I wish I could declare my cabin the sovereign state of Jaredonia, free of all the outside world's politics and governances, but as that's not possible I'll just stick to complaining about the government on the Internet. Really, in an ideal world I'd support socialism. No concept of personal property, no currency, no economy... just a small community looking out for each other. Truth be told, many small tribes like the San people of Africa live much like that, and at times I wish I'd been born into their culture. I certainly agree with you on the incarceration of so much of our population. Like I said in a conversation at church yesterday--"I don't trust any civilization that spends more money on its prisons than its libraries."

I certainly don't mean to be uncivil. My passions in this argument are directed at the ideas involved, not at you--sorry if it sounds any other way. First of all, I believe you're under a misconception about what the word "anarchy" means. I have read a lot of anarchist texts in my day, and I will say, I have never once seen it equated with the absence of moral law. Anarchy only means the absence of human law, or government, which is a very different concept. As for our society allowing differing opinions... yes and no. I harbor no ill will towards anyone who is not an anarchist. However, in this society, differing opinions is allowed, but acting upon the anarchist opinion is strictly outlawed. If I stop paying taxes--even if I don't harm a single human being--my God-given right to freedom will be seized immediately. I will be swiftly tried and tossed into a prison to rot for the sole "crime" of not giving my money to an institution I despite wholeheartedly. Does that sound like a moral authority, or does that sound like the Mafia? If I sound passionate, it is because I write these words with the barrel of a gun levied into my face. If the government truly existed to help me, it would give me an option to opt out of their system. There would be an office where I could write my name and say "I'm not interested in what you're selling. I am willing to forego your services in exchange for not paying taxes." There is no such office. I would be imprisoned for even trying to opt out of the system that was ratified before my birth. I'm more than happy to hold differing opinions from my friends, dear Blaze, but the government of my country only allows me my opinion so long as I stay under its thumb. There can be no agreeing to disagree with such a faction; I will continue to be passionate in my words until the day comes when I don't labor as the slave of a self-righteous society. Again, I can't stress enough that I don't harbor ill will towards you, Blaze. Towards the Founding Fathers, yes, and to the federal government of today doubly. But most certainly not towards you.

Many characterize the anarchist's goal as an idealist's pipe dream. "Naive optimists, the lot of them," the pro-government arguer exclaims. "All humans have the capacity for evil, which is why they must be kept in check by an organized authority." To me, this reasoning disintegrates upon contact with pure logic. If all humans have the capacity for evil, how does anyone expect giving a crowd of humans total power over their peers to end in any way but badly? Consider this. An evil man ten thousand years ago had only two options to carry out his base wickedness. He could travel into the wilderness, becoming a fierce brigand, or he could attempt to take over his tribe and institute a tyranny. In either case, if the people of that tribe took a firm stance against him, his efforts would fail. A brigand, even a gang of brigands, will never be as powerful as an entire society that opposes them. But if the people accept a leader of any kind, a government is formed. The government might be founded by a tyrant, making it rotten from the very start; alternately, it might begin with a kindly chief or shaman who genuinely cares for the people, beginning a brief golden age but inevitably deteriorating into a corrupt and subjugated society. That last part is not open for debate--every government degrades into evil. No American could look me in the eye and say that they believe not one single president has done palpable damage to this country; they might disagree on which presidents were the problems, but they all agree that we've had terrible rulers. On a smaller level things are much worse. Police brutality runs rampant in the country today. Taxes skyrocket, fueling programs that the taxpayers might not support in the slightest. That's not even getting into the Japanese internment camps of the last century, or government laws in favor of slavery before the Civil War, or the absolutely horrid regimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Nero, and countless other rulers through history. All government either begins evil, or becomes evil in a distressingly swift amount of time. And the scale of an institutionalized evil like the Holocaust will always leave the petty tyrannies of an anarchist brigand in the dust. You say that anarchy only works with perfect human beings. Quite the contrary, I say that it is government that sprung from the minds of naive optimists, not anarchy. It is government that relies on its upholders to be always pure and devoid of evil intent, not anarchy. It is government that brings an age of darkness and wickedness with even one foul ruler at its head, not anarchy. It is government that cannot exist in our imperfect world, not anarchy.

Oh, there are definitely good cops in the world... I hope I didn't seem overly aggressive in my argument--you made your point well, and I immensely value your contribution to the conversation.

Here's the thing about police badges--good men don't need them to do good deeds, but evil men rely heavily on them to get away with acts of wickedness. So the way I see it, why have a police force at all? In ye olden days, entire towns would come together to search for missing children, or to drive murderers, rapists, thieves, and other vile sorts out of their community. In such a colonial system, the good men that made up the Douglas police department would have been anxiously searching for your sister whether or not they had badges or official authority. They'd do it because it's the right thing to do. Good men will be good, regardless of what they get in return. The men who killed Otto Zehm were evil men. They exist in all societies, often becoming murderers, rapists, thieves, and other vile sorts. Unfortunately, our society is one of the few cultures that looks at such men, calls them "determined and hard-working," and grants them legal immunity and authority over law-abiding citizens. Evil men will be evil, but they won't get nearly so far in a society that drives them out into the wilderness as they will in a society that gives them a gun and permits them to go hog-wild. Here's the sad truth about human government: it's based wholesale on a logical fallacy. Specifically, it's based on an "Appeal to Fear" fallacy; if you don't permit these armed men to take some of your money, society says, even more armed men will be breaking down your doors to take all of your money, or to burn down your house, or to enslave you, or to rape your family members, or do any number of other terrible things. There is no proof of this claim, but the people of western society has fallen for this protection racket hook, line, and sinker. Heroes will be heroes and villains will be villains, but society has proven it can't tell which is which. Government does nothing to help the heroes but offers tailor-made positions of power to the vilest villains the population has to offer, which is why I now and forever label myself an anarchist. I was born with a physical disability (a clubfoot) and I often subconsciously walk with my hands clasped behind my back. Good luck catching up with me.

I'll say this about police--I don't know all of them, but the ones in my home town are completely useless. Crime runs rampant in my town. Gang violence is a thing. Drug smuggling is very much a thing. My father and I were shot at from the road by someone trying to rob from us. Despite the fact that my town is a rural Texan version of Gotham City's underbelly, the police force does nothing. When a crime is reported they show up, file some paperwork, and then never continue the investigation. Crime runs rampant and unimpeded here, and through either apathy or genuine powerlessness, the police force does nothing. Actually, that's not true. The police force does do one thing right--it oppresses the citizens. Take a drive through my town and you won't find cops investigating the latest robbery, or the guy who got stabbed to death with a long sword last month. You'll find them parked in discrete locations on the road, pulling people over and handing them exorbitant tickets if their car tags are expired. These tags, just for the record, don't indicate car safety. They are what we call a "compliance law"; they don't protect anyone, but you can get in a boatload of trouble for not having a completely up-to-date tag. Speeding cars, by the way, have killed two of my cats in the time I've lived here, and the growing numbers of policemen monitoring traffic have done nothing to make the roads a safer place for either pets or people. So the policemen in my town do nothing to reduce crime, and they benefit from seizing money on the side of the road from people who have never harmed another soul in their lives. These are not men who are "protecting and serving" me. I cannot count on them to come to my aid, but I can count on having an army of them outside my door the day I stop paying taxes for their upkeep. The policemen of [REDACTED], Texas aren't warriors of justice, and while I won't go out of my way to spite them, I refuse to honor or verbally support them in the slightest. Because to my eyes, any policeman who spends more time handing out tickets over broken compliance laws than he does going after the superfluous gangsters in his neighborhood isn't a protector. He's just another bandit, gorging himself on money he stole from the men he ostensibly lives to serve. Like I said, I can't speak for everywhere, and of course I speak of the police as an organization, not as individuals. The country has many thousands of good policemen who desire nothing but to better their communities. Frankly, I wouldn't care about racism in the police force if they did their jobs without bias. What I care about is that the police department, like all other government offices in my town and countless others, extorts money at gunpoint to fulfill promises it flat-out can't keep. Honestly, I'm surprised more people aren't getting outraged over that.

Another random comment I'll make about "Crusaders of the Lost Mark."

Yes, by definition. Her main rival's army, however, has been characterized as Sam old Sam old.

I was thinking this one. It has the added benefit of calming rampaging Epics!