Good question.

Irving Younger, “The Perjury Routine” The Nation, May 3, 1967, pages 596-597

I think the usual concern is that anarchism would soon collapse back into order, probably of the local-bossman type that would eventually evolve into something like feudalism. That might be internal or external, since an invading army under unified command is going to win almost every time against lots of local landowners/communities/etc. who can be split off and made into allies, or intimidated into neutrality, or wiped out piecemeal while the next targets are intimidated into inaction. Even in a straight up invasion, unified command is going to beat 50 independent forces negotiating over what to do, at least until the invading army gets so big that its internal administration and communications can’t scale up to the needed size.

There has already been a successful society with completely voluntary political association (and ‘free market’ law with trade-able rights-enforcement… even for murder). The Icelandic Commonwealth developed successfully – and lasted for longer than the US has lasted to date. In fact it lasted right up until the time that the sociopath’s career-path-of-choice at the time (the Church) turned up and started laying down the (regionally monopolistic) law.

Yes, it was pre-Industrial – but I don’t see that as making it LESS applicable to today: the Icelandic society of the time generated less surplus production relative to subsistence, and so competition for resources was harder then, than it would be in a genuinely-free modern industrial society. (People no longer steal hubcaps, eitehr).

You’re right that the political-parasite class – and their media lackeys – have successfully perverted the meaning of ‘anarchy’ and ‘anarchist’, in the same way as their parasite forebears (the Church) perverted ‘heresy’ and ‘heretic’ (“heresy” means CHOICE: now we take it to be synonymous with “apostasy”).

{As an aside, the child-molesting ‘priestly’ class also deliberately perverted “Apocalypse”, which means ‘revelation’ or ‘disclosure’, not “devastating end of the world where Jeebus shoots fire from his tongue, which is totally a sword”}.

This is why my handle is ‘Kratoklastes’ – it means ‘one who seeks to break the power of the state’. It’s my view that arché (‘rank’) will always exist; differences in endowments, effort and luck will cause differences in outcomes and differences in one’s eventual place in the social order.

POLITICAL power (kraté), on the other hand, does not need to exist – and only exists because the masses are too easily scared into compliance with the most opportunistic, parasitic and dishonest individuals in a society. I always refer to the parasite-political class as ‘individuals’ because I doubt that it is right to call them ‘people’: I firmly believe that in time we will discover that they are effectively a different species – “homo cheneyensis” as I call them… in all outward respects identical to homo sapiens, but with a hard-wired lack of empathy that removes them from ‘humanity’ as we would define it.

“Furtive gesture” is one of the most idiotic word combinations in the history of language. A “gesture” is something meant to be noticed. “Furtive” is how you describe something meant not to be noticed.

It would be one thing if they used the combination ironically, as in “deafening whisper” or “silent scream”, but anyone who puts “furtive gesture” in a police report is an unlettered buffoon.

All them fuckers should be sent to dictionary jail.

….Michael “Shake” Reichert.

First, let me say that I would not presume to speak for Radley. But even if he was an anarchist, think of what a loaded word that is. I’m not saying that the “bomb thrower” stereotype is correct (in most cases), but that is what a lot of people associate with the term anarchist. If Radley was an anarchist he still might not go around talking about it in order to avoid marginalization.

I am–to borrow a phrase from Nock–a “philosophical anarchist.” More broadly, I would say I fit into the left-libertarian camp. I know that it can be hard to wrap your head around anarchist ideas. Just as Margaret Thatcher tried to tell people that there is no alternative to state capitalism (she and her ilk erroneously referred to it as “free market capitalism”), we all grow up thinking that there is no alternative to nation-states and other coercive government structures that surround us. Indeed, I still struggle with the issue, and I don’t begrudge people who decide to reject anarchism. The honest anarchist needs to admit that we don’t know how things would turn out.

But I don’t think it is at all certain that life without a central state would be “nasty, brutish and short” as Hobbes warned. Those who believe anarchism is synonymous with chaos are oblivious to the fact that state structures very often promote chaos. This is the realization that led me to reject statism. But that doesn’t mean I wish for the immediate demise of the state. This scenario could indeed lead to chaos. If a new society emerges without states, I believe it will be after a gradual process. It will happen after people simply start ignoring the state and organize themselves voluntarily. Maybe we don’t have to have riots, assassinations and more war. Maybe we can just walk away.

Not in Minnesota.

Younger is famous for a very good set of CLE videos on advocacy, including “Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination” which is so good it’s still in use today (and you can’t get it on a torrent, dammit).

@Steve Verdon – if Radley’s not some form of anarchist, it’s because he believes somewhere deep down, that there exists a system whereby all positions of power will not eventually fall into the hands of the unscrupulous and sociopathic. That somehow, if we only got things right, only the ‘right’ people would seek office. It would be nice if it was true, but then again it would be nice if we all had unicorns that shat winning lottery tickets.

It’s a blind spot that many MANY people suffer from – Glenn Greenwald is another one, and even Matt Taibbi (although Taibbi is suitably jaundiced about all politics). These people (Radley included) are smart, have a deep-seated sense of social justice, and in all other ways are admirable as fuck.

But they can’t slough off the last vestiges of naivete about the State. They seem to seriously think that there would be a descent into barbarity in its absence… and that this descent somehow would generate losses that exceed the 50%-plus that the State currently takes, when one counts

[tax+i*(debt + NPSBR + unfunded liabilities)]/GDP

where i is the interest rate on a bond with a duration of roughly seven years.

And of course they do’t think it through to the very end… where the State, having raped the polity until the debt servicing level gets past a tipping point (historically, when interest payments exceed 15% of the tax take), takes the nation to war and obliterates hundreds of billions of man-hours worth of otherwise productive labour.

Answer: 1971.

In other words Judges really don’t give a fucking shit. Yeah the cops are lying but that son of a bitch must be guilty of something. In fact, now we can rely on dubious drug dog alerts as well so even more fun (and money, and power, and even prestige to the prosecutors and judges who use their records of being tough on crime to obtain higher office).

Our criminal legal system is a fucking pathetic sick joke.

Seriously Radley, why aren’t you some form of anarchist?

OTOH, I wouldn’t have been surprised to have read it was 1871.

Judges know the police are lying, thereby corrupting their testimony and the entire criminal justice process. Judges don’t care, because the criminal justice system has never been about justice.

Protect & Serve (Themselves!)

I feel safe.