On Anarchism

[Adam Grigoriu]

Quoting from another thread, so as to not have that thread move from it's intended purpose to politics

Question: do you really want to overthrow not only the monarchy, but the whole system of government? Please be assured that IMHO those are perfectly valid opinions! But it's been a while since someone has suggested literal anarchy in Talossa. For many of us the system of government - even, for some, the Monarchy - are an essential part of the fun.

I would like to hear the answer to this.

I am unable to confirm or deny these allegations at this time.

That's too bad.  I don't think we should be immigrating anyone who vows to overthrow our government or who says they'll essentially be lying with their citizenship oath.  I hope that, unless this is clarified a bit, that someone will exercise Section 8 on this application.

S:reu Burman, do you intend to try to overthrow the government?

I no longer call myself an anarchist, though my political leanings are still fairly far left. It's not my intent to get into a debate about anarchism outside of Talossa, but I am curious about how an anarchist Talossa would look and what we'd do.

I also want to finish my thought about S:reu Burman's immigration. I'm sure I could be schooled about the history of Talossan politics by those that have been here a lot longer than myself, but it seems like there is precedent for far-left political activity in Talossa. The wiki is fairly light on information, but there was a Talossan Socialist Party that existed as recently as the 46th Cosa, as well as a few others during the Ben era. Like I said in his immigration thread, so long as S:reu Burman will approach any planned otherthrow of the government via legal means and not otherwise break El Lex or the Organic Law, I have no problems with his immigration.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I am curious about how an anarchist Talossa would look and what we'd do.

Surely just the way it looks now - except no King, no Government, no Ziu, no Uppermost Cort, no Provincial Governments. A purely cultural organisation. I don't know whether there would still be law, probably some form of community agreements and voluntary adhesion thereto.

it seems like there is precedent for far-left political activity in Talossa. The wiki is fairly light on information, but there was a Talossan Socialist Party that existed as recently as the 46th Cosa, as well as a few others during the Ben era.

We've had actual Marxist-Leninist parties.

[Eðo Grischun]

We also had a party in the last cosa which had a platform of civic nationalism coupled with some Peculiarism. 

The reaction seen in the immigration thread is the exact reaction we have grown used to seeing come from the Talossan Conservative Right.  Blocking immigration applications for failure to swear absolute, unwavering, undying and blind allegiance to the King or for holding citizenship in "bug" or micronations or for holding political views that didn't exactly match the status quo is the exact kind of thing the old RUMP would do.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

There's a ton of precedent for anarchists and far left citizens in our country. I am one of them. But this particular citizen was calling for the overthrow of the government and then playing coy about it. I think that is problematic.

If someone intends to convince a democratic majority that we should abolish the government, fine. But that isn't the sense I'm getting from someone being so evasive. The fact that it also seems to imply that he intends to lie with his oath of citizenship, since he has no intention of upholding our organic law, is also a problem, although I know I am one of vanishingly few people who thinks it's actually wrong to swear a false oath.

I don't know if some of you folks have the black bloc in your areas, or have ever had to throw stop someone from throwing a brick at a protest?  Maybe that's just a regional thing.

Etho, name another time a citizen has been blocked from immigration. Bonus points if it was by members of our old party.

[Éovart Andrinescù]

Could we perhaps explain away the evasiveness as a somewhat faux-pas but overall harmless attempt at humour? I'm admittedly biased against anarchism but in our context it seems pretty benign. Luckily Talossa is the one country in the world where you could have a bloodless anarchist revolution that was actually bloodless.

[Glüc da Dhi S.H.]

Can't say I'm a big fan of anarchism or overthrowing legitimate democratic systems of government.

Also, to say our current monarchy is tyranny seems very much confused both about our constitutional monarchy and about actual tyranny in the world.

That said, people are absolutely entitled to be wrong. Rejecting a prospective because of some ideas we may or may not like seems unnecessary, unless they clearly actually intend to break the law.

Also, I agree with Eovart that the evasiveness is probably at least partly tongue in cheek and also the means for actual violence in Talossa are very limited. Either way I'm not particularly scared.

[Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM]

I took the evasiveness as humor. Plus, if there is anyone in Talossa that needs to be convinced, it would be me since I'll be the one administering the Oath and etc. :-)

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Could we perhaps explain away the evasiveness as a somewhat faux-pas but overall harmless attempt at humour? I'm admittedly biased against anarchism but in our context it seems pretty benign. Luckily Talossa is the one country in the world where you could have a bloodless anarchist revolution that was actually bloodless.

I honestly have no idea if he was being silly or not, but I hope so.  The fact that he seems to be working really hard at avoiding Miestra's original question just gave me pause, especially since he still seems to be at it.

It wouldn't be that hard to have a revolution in Talossa, and would mostly revolve around internet security issues.  Seize the domain name and associated properties and you'd basically be done.  Someone tried to do that once before (2009 or 2010, I think) and got caught because he was bad at it, but we've mostly gotten lucky.

[Açafat del Val]

I am going to echo the concerns: no matter how humoring the intentions may have been, it's an intensely reasonable question to ask.

I, for one, don't feel comfortable handing over trust to someone or a group of someones who may be interested to hijack all of Talossa under the guise of principled anarchism. I quite like it here, and I'd be pretty angry if someone pirated the webspace.

It doesn't matter whether it's probable-- only that it's possible.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

It wouldn't be that hard to have a revolution in Talossa, and would mostly revolve around internet security issues.  Seize the domain name and associated properties and you'd basically be done.  Someone tried to do that once before (2009 or 2010, I think) and got caught because he was bad at it, but we've mostly gotten lucky.

Someone did it on June 1 2004 and it was a glorious victory

Seriously: this is why I am so obsessed with making sure our intellectual property, databases and websites can never again be the property of a single person, and therefore liable to be seized by a single person. (6/1/04 was an extreme measure against a dictatorship. We don't want that happening again - or the situation which provoked it to ever arise again.)

The idea that one guy with anarchist beliefs means that he has any intention to, or interest in, doing such a thing is, however, insulting and paranoid. I am a communist, but I'm not going to nationalise Açafat's toothbrush.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I'm not sure why you are trying to turn the very thing that you first noticed into some sort of neoreactionary inquisition. I'm basically only interested in his anarchist beliefs because he expressed an intention to overthrow the government. You are the one who first noticed that and questioned it, and the gentleman's studied interest in avoiding the question is now also interesting.

If someone says that they are a communist, okay. If someone says that they are a communist and they want to purge us of the predatory upper classes by any means necessary, then I have more questions.

[Açafat del Val]

I am a communist, but I'm not going to nationalise Açafat's toothbrush.

I, for one, am a little offended by this. My toothbrush is very valuable, and thus, the fact that you would NOT want to nationalize it means you think it’s of little value.

Grrrrrr.

On a serious note: I speak only for myself when I say— I would welcome an ideological or principled anarchist gladly, but not someone whose long-term goal is to tear down the OrgLaw and remove law altogether (or, worse, someone who lies to cover up these intentions).

I also appreciate humor, lightheartedness, and even the individual’s quick response time.

What I don’t appreciate is a concerted effort to avoid a simple answer. It doesn’t break the mood or undermine the spirit to say, “I like Talossa as it is, although I may fight against excessive bureaucracy or a bloated legal code”.

If the gentlemen cannot say something to that effect, then we should give pause and consider whether he can swear the oath of citizenship in good faith.

[Eðo Grischun]

Etho, name another time a citizen has been blocked from immigration. Bonus points if it was by members of our old party.

I can't.  It's not so much that individual applications ever got "blocked"; rather more a case of the RUMP created and defended laws that had the effect of not letting things get to that point in the first place.  The blanket ban on Talossan citizens holding dual micronational citizenships, the crafting and defending of the oath of allegiance to the Crown, the cult-like attitude surrounding the protection of the 1997 OrgLaw where anybody that held differing views to the status quo were labelled as a danger to the nation. 

There was also a brief minute during Reunision where things could have teetered in the other direction because of the wording of the citizenship oath where some RUMP members were about to have an aneurysm over people not wanting to swear allegiance to the King, saying they would return amended oaths with bits they found offensive missing or promising to deliver oaths with a clenched fist in protest like Tommy Sheridan or deliver oaths with a preface to the people like Welsh and Scottish anti-monarchists do.

The same sort of thing is happening here. 

I am confident that the prospective is doing nothing more than goofing around right now and (and I really hope I am right about this) having a right good laugh at the state you are getting yourself twisted up into over this.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Etho, name another time a citizen has been blocked from immigration. Bonus points if it was by members of our old party.

I can't.

I also can't think of an instance where our former party of the RUMP blocked anyone from immigrating based on their political beliefs.  I do agree that we did stuff like defend an oath to support the monarchy and defend the semi-permeable wall, and that may have passively caused some potential immigrants to decide not to immigrate.  But then, the same could be said for any political ideology, right?

Obviously, the fellow might just be goofing around from first to last.  He might be working hard to avoid actually answering Miestra's questions just to troll us.  But I agreed with her that it was worth scrutiny.  You don't.  C'est la vie.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Etho, name another time a citizen has been blocked from immigration. Bonus points if it was by members of our old party.

I can't.

As usual AD is using loaded language; since the Kingdom's immigration laws were massively liberalised during the National Schism, no-one's citizenship request has been rejected (assuming they followed the requirements of the law), and in only one case were the provisions of Lex. E8 invoked.

There was also a brief minute during Reunision where things could have teetered in the other direction because of the wording of the citizenship oath where some RUMP members were about to have an aneurysm over people not wanting to swear allegiance to the King, saying they would return amended oaths with bits they found offensive missing or promising to deliver oaths with a clenched fist in protest like Tommy Sheridan

I did that! I copied this gesture from a Socialist MSP, I forget her name, just translated it into Talossan. No-one seemed to worry too much.