Why don't anarchists defend the freedom of the Organic Laws for the USA, property+contract rights (and nothing more)?

Question

The Organic Laws of the USA come down to "every man is a king on their own land/law of the land", aka, the common law (property + contract rights), aka, the right of a man to his labor; why don't Anarchists see this as everthing they could ever want? The USA is free of kingship/rulers foundationally, but no Anarchists aid in defending those foundations with the lawful Common Law authorities/offices/officers/courts that should exist and operate, but don't.  Everyone just started accepting the defacto rule of govts beyond their territorial jurisdiction after WWII (generally they own only tiny amounts of land, not all land within map boundaries).

Anyway,  it is 100% lawful for the landowners of any county to elect a non-employee common-law sheriff, justice-of-the-peace, and operate common-law courts to defend their soveriengty and freedom in all lands outside govt ownership (DC + territories, parks, military bases, govt-owned lands for buildings, etc).

Comments

I think the dots you are failing to connect are that anarchists don't advocate the use of force to gain compliance.

When you talk about property and laws you inherently reference the use of force to control others.

Every man is a king, but of a kingdom of one.
No man can force another into compliance.
That is hard to see today because the fascists are in charge.

So, the reason anarchists don't support those things is because they require that force be used to control others.

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I think the dots you are failing to connect is that there is no force in the common law, that is how "outlaws" come to be, those that choose not to submit to it.

When I talk of property rights I am talking about preventing the use of force to control others.  Preventing the use of force against people and their labor, and acknowledging the right of people to defend themselves and the products of their labor.

So, I hope you try to understand better, and see that your points are based on a lack of understanding, and are just plain wrong, and completely off the mark.

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"...those that choose not to submit to it."

Who is it that enforces this determination of outlawry?

Who determines who gets to be the judge and what prevents the judge from favoring her friends?

What makes it right for a person labeled as sheriff to use force to control others not party to the agreement?

By what authority do those that band together to force this on others operate?

Under an anarchic arrangement one's neighbors would come to your defense if someone attacks you, in return they expect  you to do the same for them.

A basic principle of anarchism is that an attack on one is an attack on all, as the attacker will soon enough get around to attacking everybody.

There is no need to set up hierarchies to defend anarchism, the people can/will defend themselves just fine.

Answer 1

Probably because there's nothing appealing about anything you just referenced at all.

I don't want to be king of anything, let alone the life that exists everywhere which apparently you think can be bought and sold through "common law (property + contract rights).

I don't care what's lawful and I don't want laws. I don't want sheriffs, I don't want courts.

I don't want the singular, boring form of life that your capitalist hell (paradise to you?) implies.

Comments

Freedom and personal responsibility is not appealing?  What does that say about your preferences?

Whether or not you want to be king of anything, you ARE king of your body/mind/spirituality-or-lack-thereof, and any children you create, and any labor that you engage in.  As I stated, property is a man's labor, a place where he can exercise his labor and faculties toward the provisioning of his life and those that depend upon him.

And I am partly with you about not wanting laws/sheriffs/courts, as possibly the laws of karma/kamma are enough, but a fundamental problem with humanity is that without defense, overpopulated masses will always eventually try to plunder those that exercise due personal responsibility amidst an abundance in nature.

Capitalism is usury.  Capital is money used to invest for the purpose of making more money - THAT is capitalism, which is a plague on mankind, a "sin" warned against in every religion.  I don't support or have any regard for that at all, I don't know why you said that.  A free-market is just fine with me - the problem is that breeding masses always run themselves down into poverty and despair, and then make pleas for help, which industrialists and other plantation owners are only too happy to provide by exercising sovereignty and authority over all to extract under the name of "welfare for the poor", while profiting handsomely in the process.

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"you ARE king of...any children you create"

that doesn't sound like anarchy to me...probably the furthest thing from it that i can think of.

i have no desire to relate to other people as a "king", nor do i view my "labor" as "property".

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You are only stating that you prefer to not be responsible or accountable for anything that you do ... which of course, is impossible, since nature or others will hold you accountable one way or another, sooner or later.  And I am not sure how you will eat, clothe, or shelter yourself or survive in any way if everyone is free to beat you senseless and take whatver you have each time to make an attempt to provide for your sustenance.

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no, i did not state that. you did.

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In every sense of the word, a king is someone responsible for his own welfare and those that depend upon him within his domain, so you did say as I said in saying you would not want to be a king of anything, or even a decent father.

   1a :  a male monarch of a major territorial unit; especially :  one whose position is hereditary and who rules for life
   b :  a paramount chief
   3 : one that holds a preeminent position; especially :  a chief among competitors

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how about you say what you mean, and i'll say what i mean. i have no interest in further conversation with you if you insist on speaking for me.

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hey baa, just as an exercise how would you define king?
i define it as a role in feudal society, one that is not separable from the idea of god-chosen, hierarchy, etc., which seem to be antithetical to how i3rabbit is using the word.
but (in our reading group we've been listening to someone defending the idea of anarchist-monarchist, so this is the right week for this conversation) if you consider the concept that everyone is a king (as some have said that we're all gods--using symbols that have emotional resonance to remind people that we have agency), then i3rabbit could make more sense (at least on that metric).
whether it is worthwhile trying to get past the jargon is a different question, of course.

edit:
however no amount of semantic shenanigans can make appropriate the idea of being king over one's children, of course... so, my stretches are undoubtedly misplaced.

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yes, i have a high sensitivity to the notion of children as property, which probably prompted my initial comment.

Answer 2

Because anarchists don't support property and contract rights. Common law is still law. How is common law protected? Who recognizes it? It all falls to the state agreeing that these claims are legitimate, which means that the tactic is acceding to state power. Contract rights equal ownership of porperty. Anarchists are opposed to the accumulation of property in the sense that common law (so far as I understand it) would protect/reinforce.

That isn't to say that some anarchists might not rely on such tactics for momentary gains or holding ground, but not a a strategy of attack. Also, While I am not 100% sure about all the nuances of what you suggest, I am pretty sure that when this has been used strategically by groups or individuals it hasn't worked out too well (refusal of taxes, asserting sovereignty over private property, etc. - see for example, Ruby Ridge).

Comments

> @cb: yep, this 'republic' has always had imperial designs and engaged in foreign wars since day one, before day one...and even during that great internal bloodletting of 1861-65 it didn't let up. The US is nothing but an empire of merchants.

I don't disagree with that, but there is nothing anyone can do to control all others.  The best we can do is to learn how to best conduct our own affairs, and understand that "it's a free country", with foundations in self-government, the governing of ourselves.

Everybody has their own views, their own ideas of what is best, and that is why being a nation of independent sovereigns, living without the rule of others (Anarchy), is the best society, because it's the only way people can have the freedom to do what they think is best.  And the common-law, which is completely voluntary, is the only way to protect those doing what they think is best from the force of others.

I hope I answered you all well.  There is just a big misunderstanding of what I say because everybody has "ideas" that generally come from sources of disinformation.  I have yet to see a single thing that anyone can point to that places the common-law and Organic Laws for the USA at odds with the highest values of Anarchy.

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whether you consider yourself an ancap or white nationalist or not, you share with them (at least the ones who have posted on this site) a tendency to a) rant, b) write huge blocks of text, c) insist that we accept your terminology, d) put your meanings to our words.

preachers tend to be boring.
if you can't express something that sounds like an interest in what other people think, then i will recommend that no one responds further to this thread (which might not be necessary, of course), and it can exist as one more example of rhetoric from a non-anarchist.




(also flip, if you see this, your answer doesn't count as an answer. just a reminder.)

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i18r said: "There is just a big misunderstanding of what I say because everybody has "ideas" that generally come from sources of disinformation.  I have yet to see a single thing that anyone can point to that places the common-law and Organic Laws for the USA at odds with the highest values of Anarchy."

Only when anarchists are held to be separable from anarchy; when anarchy is held to be a static abstraction rather than a fluctuating living process (aka: the intellectual division between 'theory' and 'practice'); only if one removes ideas out of the conditions of actually lived history; and so on.

There is no 'disinformation' at work here that I can see, so much as there is a recognition that English 'common/organic law' evolved over a long period within very questionable conditions of power-relations* as far as anarchy and anarchists are concerned.

Here It may be added that those who appeal to the above abstractions and desire to hearken back to some version of a de-contextualized, a-historical, 'golden era' where these notions are presumed to have existed, most definitely raise the proverbial red-flags for *this* anarchist.


*(Church, 'the family,' work, imperialism, colonization, enclosure, dehumanization of others and the concomitant rise of 'whiteness' as an ideal)

edit for typo...and another

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> whether you consider yourself an ancap or white nationalist or not, you share with them (at least the ones who have posted on this site) a tendency to a) rant, b) write huge blocks of text, c) insist that we accept your terminology, d) put your meanings to our words.

Ranting is generally understood to be lengthy emotional
expressions, whereas, I attempted to merely put forth information.  Sourced definitions of words have importance in meaningful communication.  Without using words well, in their commonly understood meanings, decent communication is imossible.

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> Only when anarchists are held to be separable from anarchy; when anarchy is held to be a static abstraction rather than a fluctuating living process (aka: the intellectual division between 'theory' and 'practice')

That was the whole point of my question and replies:  the USA was founded as a nation of sovereigns, people without rulers, with a system of law (the common-law) for the protection of people and their property that is voluntary.  There is nothing static about it - you can't get more anarchal than that - how could you?

> only if one removes ideas out of the conditions of actually lived history; and so on.

"Conditions of actually lived history" have nothing to do with anything ... they are merely a result of people doing what people do.

> English 'common/organic law' evolved over a long period within very questionable conditions of power-relations* as far as anarchy and anarchists are concerned.

Organic Law is the fundamental written law of a nation.  In the USA, it is composed of the 4 sets of laws cited previously.  Common-law is unwritten law that is universally accepted and well-understood by all.  It doesn't really evolve, at least, not in its conservatively understood sense of protecting property+contracts.

>  Here It may be added that those who appeal to the above abstractions and desire to hearken back to some version of a de-contextualized, a-historical, 'golden era' where these notions are presumed to have existed, most definitely raise the proverbial red-flags for *this* anarchist.

I never said freedom was a golden-era, though in terms of general prosperity, in terms of general living conditions, cost and access to medicines and medical care, cost of food, clothing, shelter and general living, amounts of leisure time and required labor to sustain life, circa 1830 was the peak in the USA, and the quality of life has deteriorated overall since then in those terms.

I never would even care to say there ever was or ever will be a utopia - my replies only suggest that freedom is "as good as it gets" - and "that is what you got" ... And generally, I would add that anyone that complains about it is just someone that was bred into debt-slavery by irresponsible parents - and such is life.  It can suck ...  And that is why immoral behavior is "immoral", because it creates crappy lives.

Answer 3

Here's why this anarchist doesn't support this scheme:

1. I accept little to none of its reification: its language; morality; unspoken/unexamined presuppositions; the logic derived thereof; its intentions; its a-historical, un-lived 'theory'; as well as any attempt in imposing it all now.

2. I have no desire to police myself or others by way of its flimsy  and hypocritical moral notions, the 'universality' of which has shown time and again changeable  by those in power when convenient to them, be they called 'monarchs,' or 'property owners.' 'Rights' (and 'rights' talk) always follows might. So-called 'common law' is no different.

3. I don't give fuck one about little pieces of paper justifying this code of hammurabbit any more than I do the bible, the torah, buddha's words, thomas jefferson, blackstone, the US code, or any other. Your love of little pieces of paper betrays you in actual history, since it was your beloved US which conquered ('might') and granted 'rights' on paper to the native peoples ('forever'/ 'in perpetuity' in many cases) and then shit on them when your little  burgher-kings found it advantageous to do so...I think it now comes to about 371 times. But, please inform us of the lawful and moral intricacies of how these US laws signed by the US didn't apply to the US, even in the earliest days of your beloved US republic. Actually, don't inform us, since it's all pretty obvious (see #4).

4. I am wholly unaccountable to you or anyone else in providing a reasoned analysis *on your terms (see #1 and 2)*. I frankly find your idealistic, a-historical love of 1830s-era-USA quite nauseating given it's grounding in state coercion, genocide, colonization, imperialism, theft, hypocrisy, contradiction, metaphysical hokum, dehumanization, slavery, work, etc.

edit for ease of reading, typo and my dyslexia

Comments

great answer, af!

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i don't do facebook, but i know about the facebook "like" concept.  i wish we had a "yawn" flag for users here.

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i like your answer too, AF. you put in a lot more effort than i felt willing to spend on it. it seems to me that i18rabbit doesn't really want answers to consider or exploration of a question...rather a platform to keep hammering at the "correctness" of their viewpoint.

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f@ & ba@ thanks for the comments. yes, one of the most insidious aspects of approaches like hammurabbit's is the expectation, the demand even, of 'correctness.' this person put it in a nutshell: "'Conditions of actually lived history" have nothing to do with anything ," that is, if we forsake our own lived lives, and those of others, we'll reach the correct view, a view from nowhere.

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f@-yes, maybe with enough 'yawns' we could put some of these questions and answers to rest...at least down for a nap.

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> Here's why this anarchist doesn't support this scheme:

Well, guess what?  Under the Organic Laws for the USA and the American common-law, you are free to do as you like, and nothing you said argues anything I put forth.

In your reply:

#1 has nothing in violation of the Organic Laws for the USA, nor the American common-law.

#2 has states nothing in opposition either.

#3 has some good points, but they have nothing to do with anything except human nature.  None of what you say is argues against the fact that people are sovereign by way of the laws I put forth, or even no laws at all.  Yes, it is true that there are less than honorable people in the world, and it is equally as true that most people will side with dishonor when it benefits them, and it is equally true that the extreme ignorance of people allows criminals in high places to get away with murder; but nothing you put forth does away with any of it at all, nor does it argue against anything I put forth.

Case in point: you don't even know the difference between the US (federal territory) and the USA (all lands within America).  And it is this kind of ignorance that allows "Burger King" to roll over "native lands".

#4 is a bunch of complaints because your parents did not provide well for their children, evidently, eg, state coercion, genocide, colonization, imperialism, theft, hypocrisy, contradiction, metaphysical hokum, dehumanization, slavery, work, etc. <-- You know what this is a result of?  Wankers and whores that don't give a shit about the results of their irresponsibility.  If the morality of society demanded parents to give a damn about children, there would be none of what you cited.  Every complaint you have is a complaint about the resultant chaos of generally uneducated children that were never provided or provisioned for, and were dumped off into the hands of a state to care for - which they will gladly put to use in doing all the bad deeds you stated.

But none of this is an argument against my point that: the founding laws for the USA are 100% in support of Anarchy: the freedom to do what you want, so long as you don't come on my land and destroy the efforts of my labor, or physically attack me, in which case, you will be held accountable, law or no law.

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i18, it sounds like you think none of the answers or comments written here answer your question (or at least don't provide any insight to it).

do you think someone could answer it in a way you would find helpful?

edited: for clarity

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i18rabbit: you come off as a condescending, moralistic know-it-all. combining that with the fact that your espoused perspective has many points of direct conflict with any sort of anarchy i recognize as such, why are you even posting here? you can blather on all you want about how much "law" you know and how smart you are, it is of no interest whatsoever.

<yawn target="i18rabbit" />