@HeavenlyPossum @nil@functional.cafe @passenger

I reject the premise of your question, and I'm not playing your words games where every law is inherently a personal attack. Laws are necessary for society to function.

@ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil @passenger

Laws are the real word games, enforced by violence, used by state only for it's own agenda and for the benefit of it's elite.

You're just unwilling to see or admit how much violence, coercion and destruction is really necessary for the things you like to have become possible.

I like the JWST too, I've always loved space exploration. I know it's not easy at all to face hard facts about the human and environmental costs of the processes and power structures that made these things possible and which are in the DNA of all our technology, so to speak.

But we have to do it. We have to take a hard look. It's not a word game. If you take a position that state is necessary, then you are taking the position that some people are going to have to be coerced in order to achieve things you perceive to be worth that coercion.

Why do you think this is the right position instead of saying it's not worth it if it means inflicting violence or the threat thereof on people in order to accomplish something?

We who take this position say that the ends are entangled with the means. You cannot view them separately.

@ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil @passenger

It's not a word game. If laws aren't enforced by at least potential violence they're not laws, they're suggestions. Breaking a law potentially leads to arrest, which is so much the same as kidnapping that at least in California the penal code section forbidding kidnapping has to specifically exempt law enforcement officers in the pursuance of their duty.

The minimal state action necessary to enforce a law, without even considering what can so easily happen to people who displease cops during an arrest, is indistinguishable from kidnapping, a felony, a violent act. We all like stuff, but is it worth subjecting other people to violence, to kidnapping, to potential torture or death (both have a nonzero probability of occurring during arrest and/or imprisonment) just so we can have it?

@AdrianRiskin @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil

I currently live in a country (the UK) which has an area (Cornwall) which has no police presence. There are two (I think) places where you can go to talk to desk cops, but they have no dispatch cars or field people. If something happens, they have to get cars in from the next county over.

The roads in Cornwall are famously bad; it can take hours to get anywhere, even though it's not large. It's also a pretty rural place. This means that if cops need to get to somewhere deep in Cornwall, they physically cannot get there in less than hours, and that makes them useless for many things. There is in practise no risk of arrest whatsoever for many things, for example burglary. Anecdotally, Cornish people have told stories of calling the police and being told politely that help will not come.

Cornwall is a poor area, but it has nice beaches so there is tourism; and tourists in poor areas often means elevated crime, but rural areas often mean underreported crime. This is a long way of saying that while Cornwall's crime rate may be up versus some other areas, it's not monstrously high. People may be able to deal drugs and burgle people without risk of arrest, but for some reason most choose not to.

Does this mean that in Cornwall there is no law? No state?

@passenger @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil What an interesting question! I live in Los Angeles, which has an overwhelming police presence, and yet here there's also in practice no risk of arrest for drug dealing or burglary. The police aren't here to protect people against that kind of thing, but to protect the ruling class's extractive operations.

Stop paying rent, e.g., and refuse to move out and the cops will drag you out and dump all your stuff on the sidewalk, and they'll do it very, very promptly. Try to live in a park instead of paying rent to a landlord or refuse to pay your taxes and they will haul you off to jail immediately.

So I'm not surprised at what laws the police don't enforce in Cornwall, but I bet if people stop paying rent or mortgage, or set up a commune on the grounds of some manorial estate the state would make itself known fairly quickly.

@AdrianRiskin @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil

There are a fair few squats in Cornwall, but I think that's mostly because a) it's a poor rural area full of the holiday houses of the wealthy, and b) it's got a lot of new age types who might not commit violence but love the idea of a rural area to sit and smoke dope in.

In the UK, evictions are done by bailiffs, who are private security thugs, rather than cops. However, cops will turn up to protect bailiffs if they suspect there's going to be violence. I don't know how those go down in Cornwall - I suspect they must bring in cops from elsewhere.

(On a different matter, I hope you and yours were okay during the weekend? I hear LA had a bit of rain.)

@AdrianRiskin @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil

One thing I will also add is that the current King has been quite aggressive in buying up parts of Cornwall to add to his personal land holdings, which has included pressuring people to sell, and even leaning on courts. He's been doing it for long before he was King, too. This pisses a lot of people off, and means that if you ask locals about courts enforcing land law, they're very likely to be more pissed off about that, than about hippy squatters.

@passenger @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil Interesting too! What does he do with the land? I assume collect rents and stop people from using it for their own productive purposes, but that's based on US stuff.

(About the rain, there was a lot of it, but not so much where I live, only about 1.5 inches, and no one here had to leave the house, so everything was fine).

@AdrianRiskin @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil

Here's an article about it that I quite enjoyed:

https://whoownsengland.org/2017/03/15/what-land-does-the-duchy-of-cornwall-own/

Short answer, he just sits on it as a wealth gathering tool - it technically belongs to his son now, inherited separately from the crown. Charlie is an environmentalist of the Malthusian school, so the land is well looked after, but not so much for people.

@passenger @ScottSoCal @nil @AdrianRiskin

Unsurprisingly, the data are fairly consistent that the absence of police does not lead to an increase in crime because, as Adrian noted, the police do not exist to “fight crime” in some abstract sense but rather to maintain the capitalist order and defend the prerogatives of the propertied elite.

That they *occasionally* provide useful services to *some* people outside of that elite is an ancillary byproduct of their purpose, not intrinsic to policing.

@nil @passenger @ScottSoCal

I don’t know how you can reject the premise of the question and have a meaningful conversation about anarchism. The state is an institutional form of violence; asking how we might achieve things in the absence of the state is asking how we can cooperate to achieve shared goals in the absence of violence.

If you reject the premise of the question, then there’s no shared understanding of the state that would allow us to have a useful conversation, even if you hadn’t started by being a jerk.

@ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil @passenger
@Huntn00

I just came across this, highly recommended:

"The Conspiracy of Law" by Howard Zinn
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/howard-zinn-the-conspiracy-of-law

@RD4Anarchy @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil @Huntn00

That looks really interesting! I shall read as soon as -

*looks at the staggeringly long list of theory books I want to read*

- uh, as soon as we've had the revolution, probably.

@passenger @ScottSoCal @HeavenlyPossum @nil @Huntn00

Yup, same here! Can't believe I still haven't read "Dawn of Everything" yet, FFS.

This is really good though, and not that long. I just read it this morning.

@HeavenlyPossum @nil @ScottSoCal @passenger You are never going to get total agreement from the people, laws are necessary, rules that a majority agree to so there is a way to peacefully resolve disagreements, commonly agreed to rules of society.

@Huntn00 @HeavenlyPossum @nil @ScottSoCal

Where I come from, that's referred to as a driveby assertion dump, and is considered a somewhat discrediting argument. Would you like to try again?

@passenger @Huntn00 @HeavenlyPossum @nil @ScottSoCal No not really. I like the idea of laws agreed to by the majority as rules that limit extreme behavior. Why don’t you ping on the guy who claims the State harming citizens is never acceptable? If this ties into the idea that no state is legitimate, then I disagree. And I might assume the view is states are illegitimate but feuds between clans is better for OK Corral resolution.

@Huntn00 @HeavenlyPossum @nil @ScottSoCal

My sibling in christ, you are responding to a thread started by an anarchist, on a platform that's intentionally designed so it has no laws, no monopoly of force and no centralised coercive power.

You're welcome to disagree, but please wipe your feet first and bring something stronger than simply "I disagree."

@passenger @Huntn00 @HeavenlyPossum @nil @ScottSoCal It was actually a bit of hit and run. I could be out of sync, but for days I’ve listened to the evils of the State from anarchists. If I misunderstood the context of what I read in this thread, than I’ll just say sorry and bow out, and let the debate continue. Blame it on scrolling text. 🙃