Comment on Anti-government violence is growing. The response needs to be more than just increased policing
shads@leminal.space 3 days agoBut we kinda do. Because you can’t expect people to act reasonably or rationally.
I know a guy, let’s call him Bob, who got a warning from the police for aggressively looming over a man at the supermarket who was wearing a mask and trying to maintain healthy social distance.
Because Bob didn’t believe in masks or social distancing he percieved that behaviour as the other person being judgemental of him. When the other guy, rather reasonably, pointed out that he has cancer and didn’t want Bob, who was wearing his mask over his chin at the time, to be so close to him, the confrontation was on.
Bob still maintains to this day that he was just standing up for his rights as an Australian…
He is also firmly of the belief that Anthony Albanese is a traitor to the country and that John Howard is the best Prime Minister we have ever had…
Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
I don’t quite understand what your example is meant to demonstrate, but I think you’re confusing me with a libertarian (the weird fascist kind) or something which I am absolutely not.
We don’t need a government to keep everyone in line, that’s a fact. We can organise, decide rules, enforce them and have actual justice without a violent system of domination built on hierarchical power.
shads@leminal.space 3 days ago
My example? That there are people who refuse to act rationally or reasonably? This was someone who needed an intervention from an authority to motivate him to act in a way that cost him nothing but that he was ideologically opposed to.
Governments are always going to have a strong advantage against other frameworks that seek to decentralise power, trying to overthrow a centralised power structure is likely to be extremely violent and bloody. We aren’t there yet.
I have read Alastair Reynolds and I would love to be a Demarchist, but I don’t see that being feasible in the forseeable future.
Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Right, that’s what I thought you might have meant, simple misunderstanding then. I’m not saying we don’t enforce things, just that we don’t need hierarchical systems of authority to do so. Someone putting the community at risk like this can be stopped without the use of violent state thugs, probably with much better outcomes too.
Sure, revolution isn’t on our doorstep, but I still want things to be different. I don’t think there’s anything wrong or objectionable about aspiring to a better society. Why would we talk ourselves out of the idea just because change isn’t right around the corner?
Demarchist? I afraid I’m not familiar with the term, so I won’t make assumptions. Regardless I still don’t think we should give up so easily.
shads@leminal.space 3 days ago
Democratic Anarchy, it is a system that would rely on a couple of generational leaps in computers and mind machine interfaces before we could even aspire to it. Nowhere near as appealing as the Culture would be, but also only dependent on moderately Clarke tech computers not massively Clarke tech.
Anyway I’m not defeatist, more just realistic. This guy would fall pretty squarely into the capitalist bootlicking Libertarian camp. He only really responds to violence (or the threat thereof) as motivation, in other words your typical boomer small business owner. He is never going to comply without some form of threat to back things up.
Its great to be idealistic, but I sincerely doubt we will see change in my life time, or that of my kids. We as a species are wired to listen to the ape that shrieks the loudest too much.