There are plenty of anarchists on the web and throughout history who have argued that the state needs to be eliminated. The countless number of arguments and books on the subject are extremely intriguing and compelling. But I'm already an anarchist. I know why the state should be eliminated; my next question is how? We no longer live in the year 1776. Whether we like it or not, the government overpowers us. Gun rights activists like to use this argument that we need our guns to protect ourselves from the government. However, those citizens are only under the illusion that their guns somehow protect themselves from the government. If the state wants to arrest someone, that person is either going to be arrested or killed. So how do we possibly rid the state?
To understand this, a few principles first need to be established. For one, when an anarchist says "governments should be eliminated," this may be more metaphorical than one might think. Government, as defined in this context, is an entity that has a monopoly on force which financially sustains itself by extorting funds from the masses. If an entity does not perform either of these functions, it ceases to be a "government" or a "state." Even though an entity may practice similar operations as a government (e.g., electing officials, setting down some rules, etc.), it is not a government if it does not monopolize force nor rely on theft as its income. To use an analogy, if someone were to advocate for the elimination of LLC's, this does not mean that he would want to eliminate a company such as Blockbuster, which is an LLC; rather, he would want to eliminate the ability for companies to receive limited liability and only have to pay one tax (as opposed to a corporation, which receives limited liability but is imposed with a double tax, or a sole proprietorship, which has unlimited liability but only has to pay one tax). Of course, that guy would probably recognize that Netflix is to Blockbuster as Facebook is to MySpace, but I digress. In sum, when an anarchist says that he wants to eliminate the state, what he's saying is that he wants to eliminate state power.
In order to determine how to rid a problem, it is useful to understand why the problem proceeds. If I'm a mechanic and the brakes are not working on a car, I'm going to figure out why the brakes are not working before trying to fix the problem. If my house alarm keeps sounding off every time I enter (including when I enter my code), I'm going to try to figure out why it keeps malfunctioning in order to eliminate the problem. In the context of state power, then, the question becomes: why does the government wield power?
Why does Superman wield power? It may seem like an odd comparison, but the principle can be applied universally. Superman's powers would be useless back on Krypton before it was destroyed because everyone had those powers. Superman had incredible power on Earth, however, because he was the exception. So how does the state have the power to tax, wage war, kidnap and cage peaceful people or exclude any other entity from enforcing law? It has the power because it is the exception. Google and Apple are typically overall perceived as good companies (they receive much less scrutiny than any government), but if either of these companies were to murder people by the thousands because they were brown or kidnapped and cage people because they refused to obey their diet, these companies would shortly go out of business. However, governments constantly exercise far more than merely these activities, yet they're running strong because they are the exception.
But what sort of "exception" is the government, exactly? Governments do not come down from other planets nor are they endowed with any type of supernatural abilities. The state is not Superman. No worthy human being would ever rationalize the activities that are practiced by governments on a daily basis if they were practiced by any other type of entities. Simultaneously, the vast majority of people support at least the bare minimum functionalities of government, not because of any variety of superhuman abilities, but because they believe, for whatever abstract reason, that government is a necessity. The exception, therefore, is not physical but psychological. Thus, state power is not acquired through the physical nature of government, but through people's perception of government.
In conclusion, the way to eliminate the state is to eliminate the psychological exception. The way to do this is to reach out to as many people as possible and convince them of these ideas. Talk and reason with people, write blogs, make your arguments heard. Without the exception, there is no power. Without power, there is no government. I know that the type of conversations an anarchist can have to make him think that there is no hope for the human race (I live in Vermont), but God damn it, if the Mormons and Muslims can somehow reach out and convince people of their completely irrational beliefs, we can spread the word of Logic.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
My Conversion from Pro-Choice to Pro-Life
I've said a lot of controversial things on the Internet. I constantly condemn government for the disgusting evil that it is. On my Twitter profile, I say that I'm a "libertarian," which has been a heated debatable position in recent years with figures such as Ron Paul. I also say that I'm an "atheist" in a nation in which 90% of the people believe in God and more are agnostic or somehow "spiritual" (religious without admitting it). I say that I'm an "anarcho-capitalist" -- that is, that I do not believe that the government should exist at all. Repeatedly, I've made claims that the US government is a mass murdering terrorist organization, that the belief in God is more ridiculous than the belief in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, and that the entirety of the government itself is so evil that it must be completely eliminated. But none of my positions have raised more eyebrows and debate than one: abortion.
Indeed, abortion is an incredible issue. Since the decision of Roe v Wade in 1973, over 50 million abortions have occurred. To the pro-life purist, the seven justices who ruled Roe are responsible for over 50 million murders, a higher quantity than those that Hitler, Mussolini, Bin Laden and Stalin are responsible for combined. To the pro-lifer, a tragedy comparable to the holocaust is happening on a daily basis, and no one seems to care. On the other side, you have the complete opposite position. To the pro-choice purist, a statistic that says "over 50 million fetuses have been killed" is as meaningless as "200 million red blood cells die every day." The true pro-choicer sees getting an abortion as the moral equivalence of getting a haircut and sees the protests of pro-lifers as trying to disturb that fundamental right. Often, the issue of abortion is linked with sex: the pro-lifer professing to keep your legs closed if you don't want a baby, and the pro-choicer claiming that the pro-life position is nothing more than yet another pathetic attempt from the religious fanatics to restrain sexual activity.
I've been convinced to change my mind on many issues, but this is the one issue that I can honestly say I was persuaded to take the complete opposite position. Sure, I've changed my perception of certain things with historical or economic clarity. Sure, I've accepted solid arguments for anarchism, strict atheism, etc., but abortion is the one issue that I completely went from night to day.
Originally, I took the pro-choice position. I found it ridiculous to make any sort of claim that an embryo, a clump of cells, had "human rights." In Vermont, the state where I grew up, this sort of thing was almost non-controversial. I thought that the pro-life position was silly: how could anyone really defend the "rights" of a clump of cells? And a pro-choice purist, I was: I couldn't even understand the mentality of the pro-choicer who was cautious about or condemned abortion "on a personal level." I was the one who would argue that abortion was the moral equivalence of a haircut and the significance of dying red blood cells. I was the one who would advise the teenage girl to do what's "responsible" and get the abortion.
Holy mother of Joseph's erectile dysfunction am I glad for adamant, persistent, knowledgeable pro-lifers who lifted my head out of the gutter.
My conversion to the pro-life position was certainly not quick or easy. I had to keep being edged a bit further to the other side before I finally reached the logical conclusion. It began when I started arguing abortion on political forums. I may have viewed my position as common sense, but articulating the reasons for backing the position was something different. What other debate dynamic could I use other than "because it's a goddamn clump of cells, moron"?
Thankfully, the pro-choicers had me covered. "People have the right to abort whatever they want from their own bodies. How could anyone say you don't own your own body?" "If we outlaw abortion, it will go underground and women getting abortions will die." "What about in cases of rape? She didn't exactly 'open her legs' then, did she?" "The fetus is NOT a human being! Look up Carl Sagan!" "Statistics show that the legalization of abortion lowered crime rates." "Women may not be financially able to care for the child." These arguments sounded intriguing and they backed my position with what seemed to be some solid points. For the most part, I accepted them.
I had to reconsider buying these arguments when posed with the question: what if? What if the fetus was a human being the same as the rest of us with parallel rights? Well, in this case, most of the foregoing arguments would have to be thrown out. "Everyone owns their own body" would actually be a pro-life argument, since it would incline that the fetus would have ownership of itself and therefore has the right to not be killed. The "underground abortion" argument doesn't work if abortion is murder; shouldn't rapists have safe, regulated rape houses so they don't get killed during back-ally rapes? Crime rates were not lowered if abortion is murder, and someone potentially being something of a criminal in the future is not a justification to kill them. If these arguments were applied to the born child, they would be ridiculous: should a mother be able to kill her child if he was conceived of rape or she is not financially able to care for him? All such arguments, then, crumble in the absence of one core claim: the fetus is not a human being.
When I was eventually convinced of this, I still maintained my pro-choice position, but stopped using these arguments. I recognized that they were distracting and unnecessary. To use an analogy to demonstrate the logic behind this, let's say I'm one of those repo men and I get caught "stealing" a million dollar yacht. Clearly, my defense would be that the yacht did not rightfully belong to the alleged owner (due to the contract he signed upon purchase, etc.), and I was simply taking the yacht back to its rightful owner. Therefore, it wasn't theft. The only relevant issue would be who the proper owner of the yacht was. If he was the proper owner of the yacht and I felt like taking a sweet ride that day, I would be a criminal. However, if he was not the proper owner of the yacht and my employer or myself was, then taking the yacht would be an act completely within my rights. If I was, in reality, just a repo man, a quick way to land me in prison would be to argue to the judge that I was financially in a bad spot; I can do whatever I want with my own body and that includes walking into and driving a yacht away; if I didn't take the yacht, I would've taken something else that could've put me in danger; or that I've concluded through some research that taking yachts overall lowers theft rates. No, my point would be concise: it was not stealing because the yacht did not belong to him and it is none of your business why I became a repo man, etc. Similarly, I recognized most of these pro-choice arguments to be red herrings. If the fetus was a human being, these points would be irrelevant. If the fetus was not a human being, but simply a clump of cells that we shouldn't care about, the arguments would be unnecessary to make. In short, I went out with the same argument I went in with: "it's a clump of cells, moron."
Indeed, abortion is an incredible issue. Since the decision of Roe v Wade in 1973, over 50 million abortions have occurred. To the pro-life purist, the seven justices who ruled Roe are responsible for over 50 million murders, a higher quantity than those that Hitler, Mussolini, Bin Laden and Stalin are responsible for combined. To the pro-lifer, a tragedy comparable to the holocaust is happening on a daily basis, and no one seems to care. On the other side, you have the complete opposite position. To the pro-choice purist, a statistic that says "over 50 million fetuses have been killed" is as meaningless as "200 million red blood cells die every day." The true pro-choicer sees getting an abortion as the moral equivalence of getting a haircut and sees the protests of pro-lifers as trying to disturb that fundamental right. Often, the issue of abortion is linked with sex: the pro-lifer professing to keep your legs closed if you don't want a baby, and the pro-choicer claiming that the pro-life position is nothing more than yet another pathetic attempt from the religious fanatics to restrain sexual activity.
I've been convinced to change my mind on many issues, but this is the one issue that I can honestly say I was persuaded to take the complete opposite position. Sure, I've changed my perception of certain things with historical or economic clarity. Sure, I've accepted solid arguments for anarchism, strict atheism, etc., but abortion is the one issue that I completely went from night to day.
Originally, I took the pro-choice position. I found it ridiculous to make any sort of claim that an embryo, a clump of cells, had "human rights." In Vermont, the state where I grew up, this sort of thing was almost non-controversial. I thought that the pro-life position was silly: how could anyone really defend the "rights" of a clump of cells? And a pro-choice purist, I was: I couldn't even understand the mentality of the pro-choicer who was cautious about or condemned abortion "on a personal level." I was the one who would argue that abortion was the moral equivalence of a haircut and the significance of dying red blood cells. I was the one who would advise the teenage girl to do what's "responsible" and get the abortion.
Holy mother of Joseph's erectile dysfunction am I glad for adamant, persistent, knowledgeable pro-lifers who lifted my head out of the gutter.
My conversion to the pro-life position was certainly not quick or easy. I had to keep being edged a bit further to the other side before I finally reached the logical conclusion. It began when I started arguing abortion on political forums. I may have viewed my position as common sense, but articulating the reasons for backing the position was something different. What other debate dynamic could I use other than "because it's a goddamn clump of cells, moron"?
Thankfully, the pro-choicers had me covered. "People have the right to abort whatever they want from their own bodies. How could anyone say you don't own your own body?" "If we outlaw abortion, it will go underground and women getting abortions will die." "What about in cases of rape? She didn't exactly 'open her legs' then, did she?" "The fetus is NOT a human being! Look up Carl Sagan!" "Statistics show that the legalization of abortion lowered crime rates." "Women may not be financially able to care for the child." These arguments sounded intriguing and they backed my position with what seemed to be some solid points. For the most part, I accepted them.
I had to reconsider buying these arguments when posed with the question: what if? What if the fetus was a human being the same as the rest of us with parallel rights? Well, in this case, most of the foregoing arguments would have to be thrown out. "Everyone owns their own body" would actually be a pro-life argument, since it would incline that the fetus would have ownership of itself and therefore has the right to not be killed. The "underground abortion" argument doesn't work if abortion is murder; shouldn't rapists have safe, regulated rape houses so they don't get killed during back-ally rapes? Crime rates were not lowered if abortion is murder, and someone potentially being something of a criminal in the future is not a justification to kill them. If these arguments were applied to the born child, they would be ridiculous: should a mother be able to kill her child if he was conceived of rape or she is not financially able to care for him? All such arguments, then, crumble in the absence of one core claim: the fetus is not a human being.
When I was eventually convinced of this, I still maintained my pro-choice position, but stopped using these arguments. I recognized that they were distracting and unnecessary. To use an analogy to demonstrate the logic behind this, let's say I'm one of those repo men and I get caught "stealing" a million dollar yacht. Clearly, my defense would be that the yacht did not rightfully belong to the alleged owner (due to the contract he signed upon purchase, etc.), and I was simply taking the yacht back to its rightful owner. Therefore, it wasn't theft. The only relevant issue would be who the proper owner of the yacht was. If he was the proper owner of the yacht and I felt like taking a sweet ride that day, I would be a criminal. However, if he was not the proper owner of the yacht and my employer or myself was, then taking the yacht would be an act completely within my rights. If I was, in reality, just a repo man, a quick way to land me in prison would be to argue to the judge that I was financially in a bad spot; I can do whatever I want with my own body and that includes walking into and driving a yacht away; if I didn't take the yacht, I would've taken something else that could've put me in danger; or that I've concluded through some research that taking yachts overall lowers theft rates. No, my point would be concise: it was not stealing because the yacht did not belong to him and it is none of your business why I became a repo man, etc. Similarly, I recognized most of these pro-choice arguments to be red herrings. If the fetus was a human being, these points would be irrelevant. If the fetus was not a human being, but simply a clump of cells that we shouldn't care about, the arguments would be unnecessary to make. In short, I went out with the same argument I went in with: "it's a clump of cells, moron."
I didn't spend much time philosophizing about "when" a fetus transforms into a human being until a little bit later. It was a speech I heard from Ron Paul that got me thinking. He depicted an event he witnessed as a doctor: an aborted baby about two and a half pounds of weight being thrown into a bucket. I began to research the visual aid to help understand the reality of abortion. I found a lot of depictions such as "The doctors would remove the fetus ... and then lay it on the table, where it would squirm until it died ... They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn't take it, no nurse could"(Former Planned Parenthood Director, American Medical News, July 12, 1993). It was at this point that I realized that late-term abortion was wrong and that it was important to find the line that needs to be drawn between "clump of cells" and "human being."
What, then, constitutes a human being? First, I went with consciousness. I didn't like the idea of laying a squirming baby on the table until it died, but if the fetus wasn't and had never been conscious, what's the harm? However, my pro-lifer rivalries pointed out the obvious: I was not drawing the line at "consciousness" out of logical deduction but out of my own, personal squirm of what I thought was just too far. If being aware of what's going on was the issue, wouldn't that mean that there wouldn't be a moral issue with killing someone in a painless matter in their sleep? I eventually recognized that this was the case, but I still did not see how that justified conception as the line to draw. What was the difference, I argued, between the sperm and the egg five minutes before conception other than a chemical reaction? I tried drawing other lines: it becomes human when the brain is developed, when the heart is developed, when the nervous system is developed, etc. Something a pro-lifer said to me resonated. He said that I was using circle logic: that the (early-stage) fetus is not a human being because abortion should be legal, and abortion should be legal because the (early-stage) fetus is not a human being. It didn't hit me immediately, but, eventually, I realized that he was right. I was making excuses to try to grasp on to this idea that abortion was acceptable. I was drawing whatever arbitrary lines would fit my agenda. It was hard to admit it, but I was trying to bend the facts to meet my conclusion rather than using facts to reach a conclusion. It was time to be honest with myself and look at this from a more objective standpoint.
Ultimately, what I refused to accept was that the "chemical reaction" at conception marks the beginning of human development. No longer is it an extension of another person's body, but it is its own, unique human being. Its DNA is human and its signature is exclusive to itself. The zygote isn't even dependent upon the mother until about three days after conception when it starts to feed off of the mother's nutrients (and anyone in a similar situation would be "dependent" on these nutrients). From the moment of conception, the fetus is an autonomous human being; contingent on the fetus not dying or being killed, this fact becomes more apparent as more of its characteristics start to form. The core claim of the pro-choice position is "the fetus is not a human being." To make such a claim, there must be some sort of positive evidence. If it is not a human being, what is it? It is alive and contains human DNA, so it cannot be another species or object. It cannot be an extension or piece of another human being if it has its own DNA signature. The only logical conclusion, then, is that the zygote is a human being. I thank the pro-lifers who woke me up to this fact. I've now been arguing the pro-life position for years and my mindset has completely reversed. I only hope to reach out to more pro-choicers and expose them to the truthful tragedy of abortion.
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