Cheesy title I know but I wrote this for a writing assignment I had a couple semesters ago, which I got a 4.0 on. My views have expanded since this paper was written and I would very much enjoy feedback and criticism. Thank you if you take the time to read my short essay.
Side note, the tab key wont allow me to indent
A Great Awakening
If five years ago you asked me what my political views were or what party I identified with, I wouldn’t have any idea. One thing I do know, however, is that I would not have called myself an anarchist. It’s weird calling myself that, I even fought my belief in the philosophy. I thought it me sound crazy. But I have to face it, I am an anarchist.
I think it’s something found in all of us. Wanting to be completely free, living peacefully with your neighbors, allowing each other to be different but work together towards common goals and also pursuing our own individual goals as well. This is something that cannot be achieved with a government, the reason being that governing, which means conducting the actions of people, is an act of force. If you don’t pay your taxes, eventually men with guns will come to your door and force you to either pay or kidnap you and you will be put into a cell. If you resist, you may be killed, and it will be justifiable. You are essentially paying off the mob. If you don’t pay them to protect you from possible violence, they bring violence to your door step, and let us not forget that the rest of society has to then pay to keep the people who don’t pay locked up. Now, I understand the need to contribute to society. We need roads, garbage pick-up, transportation, and helping the poor is what great societies do, and I would be willing to contribute to these things without the threat of force if I didn’t and do so now by feeding the homeless and giving money to charities. Most people understand these things are worth participating in, and these are the issues that we vote on now. If it’s such a large concern of the people in America now and people research these issues to come up with solutions with a government, then doesn’t that show that this is something that we are willing to participate in as a society without a government? I have talked to many people about the possibility of a stateless society and every one of them has said that they, individually, would be willing to contribute to society if they were not forced to, most were just scared that others wouldn’t also participate. But you do it now, and the majority of us do. Most don’t think of taxes as theft, “these are things that we have decided on as a society.” That doesn’t change that it is in fact theft, but their belief of it being a “necessary” thing to do for the benefit of society allows them to justify it.
In a stateless society each individual person has to accept ownership of their self, their actions, and the effects of their actions. If you own yourself and your actions then you own your labor, therefore, you own the benefits of your labor. Each individual has the right to defend themselves, which extends to property because of this principle. It is wrong to damage or steal another persons’ property, this includes their car, house, money, body, etc. Easy right? Forcing people to be peaceful does not create a peaceful world. Besides, when has any law created a social movement? They don’t. Social movements create laws which must then be enforced onto others. Money also makes laws but that’s just another reason not to have a government that enforces laws at the expense of those being forced to pay them. When gay marriage was legalized it wasn’t because Obama wanted it, we wanted it as a society. The Civil Rights Act that banned segregation and the legalizing of gay marriage have not been able to deliver the desired results. Wealth segregation keeps the inner city ghettos filled with poor blacks living in run down homes, going to the worst excuses for schools our government has to offer, and granting police a license to kill these people through their willingness to justify almost any case that gets brought into the public eye. Kim Davis refused issuing marriage licenses to gay couples as law states and is now being forced into a cell because her faith doesn’t allow her to agree. These are not problems the government can solve. Instead of using the government to enforce laws, I simply suggest that we use the government created infrastructure, standards of living, and internet to control the world we live in and leave this “necessary” evil in the past.
One of the first problems we would have to be able to figure out with the loss of government would be figuring out how it is that we are going to continue to develop society. We now have an expansive road system that reaches coast to coast that only needs to be added to. This could be easily done by raising awareness about a project to build a new road that leads off the highway to a smaller town. The additional road ends up giving the city more direct access to trade and a few businesses such as hotels, gas stations, convenience stores, and possible tourist attractions, if it was in a good area for vacation, would likely follow. This creates new housing developments, more businesses and so on. Many think this would be difficult without a government, but they did it in the colonial times with just some basic hand drawn maps and a dream. Today we have the internet and companies like Google that provide services like Google Maps which allows you complete oversight of the world you live in and accurate GPS location systems being used every day by millions of people. With these tools we can locate the properties that you wish to build on, raise awareness of the project and money to buy property and fund construction, and then pay a company to make it happen. You can even do it as a job and get paid for it by communities who’d like some help trying to find ways to bring in new businesses, as long as your product is something people think is worth paying for.
When two people exchange goods in trade, it is within the best interest of the consumer to understand the quality of the product being received, it is also within the best interest of the salesmen to provide the consumer with accurate information on the product so they can trust they are getting their money’s worth. Because of this we have standards such as requiring food and drug testing and including the information of a products ingredients, safety hazards, and origin of manufacturing. We also have standards that we expect to be followed in cases of constructing buildings, roads, bridges, planes, trains, and automobiles. If we have these standards now, and businesses follow them now and those who work these jobs understand why these are the standards, because it’s what keep people safe, then they will follow. Otherwise they would not be able to do business. We as a society with standards, as we have shown ourselves to be by implementing them into enforceable law, would not feel safe with these standards not met and wouldn’t pay for the product. We would instead find a company that would willingly uphold these standards and we would happily pay them instead. Businesses that would not follow the standards would hardly exist in today's world where even though lawful standards that benefit companies allow human DNA in your hotdogs many informed consumers pay extra to have higher quality than that which is just required. Buying organic foods is profitable because people want it. The consumers are the ones that make the rules and we can enforce them through non-violent and non-coercive means. In the case of the roads, if a construction company was not willing to commit itself to the standards the people agree with, they wouldn’t get the contract. No one wants to pay for a road to be built poorly so it would break up and be a pot-hole trail soon after, which would call for repairs and more money being spent.
Everything we have now, we can have without government through the markets. If you would like to move to a place where like-minded people wanted to sign a contract to a security company that allows them to protect the combined properties owned by those involved, then they can be free to do so. If you lived in an area that you didn’t like you could actually have to ability to go move somewhere else better for you. I think it would logically follow that there would be pockets of extremist believers of each political, religious, and moral view and outward from those areas you would see territories operating in a slightly different but similar way. Say there was an area free off all security services and a company in this area offers you a great job. You may be comfortable working there, but you may not want to live there because you would rather pay to have someone patrolling the streets at night to attempt to prevent robberies. There would likely be others that would also like to do so living near-by with those standards. We could have the economic freedom we want while having the feeling of being protected as well without having to be forced to do so. People who didn’t believe in guns could gather and decide to all live without guns and rely on their security service to protect them, while those who just don’t like assault rifles could live in an area near-by without assault rifles but still have handguns and be able to live in a place where they can be happy with the conditions they are in because they are the ones who get to choose them.
The government is just a company that is not able to do its’ job, therefore we as a society should stop paying for its’ services. With a two party system maintaining control of our government we are offered little choice in the manner our society continues to develop. When it began it was a system built on compromise, you give us a little of what we want and we give you a little of what you want. But this has reached an end, there is no more wiggle room for compromise and our governments’ gears have locked up preventing any further progression on subjects being debated in the political realm. Both sides have their ideas, but neither will be able put one into effect to see if it will actually work, so what is the point in doing this anymore? If we allow these ideas to be practiced in concentrated areas by willing individuals, we could see which ones work and which ones don’t and adjust to make progress. If we want a peaceful world the first step is moving towards a stateless society. Without our dependence on the government we would be able to solve our own issues, which would include dealing with people of all races and belief systems to create better understandings of our differences and similarities. This is how you create social change. When we can change the way we feel about one-another and accept each other for who we are as individuals rather than identifying in groups we will finally have a peaceful world. We will begin to understand that one does not represent all and application of this into everyday life creates a more harmonious environment in which people realize that being different doesn’t make you wrong, and just because most people do things one way and you happen to not agree, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to choose another path for yourself. We have been raised to oppose this idea. You must listen to your parents or be punished. If you don’t follow the law, you will be punished. If you don’t obey god, you will be punished. If you’re on the naughty list, you are punished. This is something ingrained into us from childhood. Do as you’re told or be punished. This is not the world I wish to live in, I will set my own standards and be my own leader. If people wish to follow my lead then so be it, they will do it voluntarily. I know America is ready for a stateless society. We now have the capability to do it and as Americans and lovers of peace and freedom this is something that we should strive for.