Their axiom is partly very wrong:
“...if you travel from democracy to a constitutional republic and keep going, eventually you arrive at a place absent of any government. This is anarchy. This is law of the jungle, survival of the fittest. Mad Max type societal tribe formation.”
This is not true, but an illusion created by government to justify itself. Use this chain of thought:
1) How often do you need government, as such, in your daily life? Do not equate government with the things that have been built by government, but think of government solely as elected, appointed, or hired people.
2) Even at a low level, if you think of the government as the police, this is inaccurate. The *people* are the police. The uniformed police are just a convenience so that the people can do other things. Fire departments are more to the point, as they maintain and use powerful fire fighting equipment. But they are still a convenience. If they didn’t do that, ordinary people would have to.
3) Government exists as part of the social contract, an agreement by the majority to have managers of day to day business for the public. But there are plenty of people who live *outside* the organizational part of the social contract. And they certainly do not live in “anarchy”, just an absence of government in most of their lives.
At the local level, government is “hired” to do these tasks. It doesn’t mean you have to have them. But if you don’t, you have to do that job yourself.
On the opposite extreme, it can be said that the two purposes of a national government are defense against foreign armies and nations, as well as criminals who operate at the national level. A third purpose is to mediate between state governments. And some other things.
Lack of government does not mean anarchy or chaos.
“Lack of government does not mean anarchy or chaos.”
I have re-read what Sundance wrote about the Left/Right spectrum of Freedom to try understand why that statement alone has aroused so much passionate disagreement. I, maybe through my ignorance of the latest labels for political extremes, have always assumed this paradigm to be correct: Tyrannical Dictatorship at the far Left and Anarchy at the far Right with the conclusion that neither extreme is good for civilization. Beyond that, I just assumed Sundance was trying to sort it out as to what was the goal of the occupation in the first place and where did it end up. Due to the many questions, it seemed that Sundance said this doesn’t look like it’s worth their time to pursue the story.
As the old white guys long ago said, our Constitutional Republic will only work as long as the people are morally good as defined by Christian principles and follow the law. How far away are we now from that? I agree with Jefferson: The government that governs least governs best. Only those laws that are truly needed to maintain order and Constitutional functions - get rid of the rest.
People who want to live in a cradle-to-grave socialist environment in America used to be able to move to the hyper-liberal states such as New York and Connecticut. Taxes are very high to support this demand. For years, the state govt.’s have run out of other people’s money, so lot of people have moved away for that reason alone - not because they particularly minded the Nanny state mentality. Then they moved to the more pleasant places and ruined those states with their hyper leftie laws -now there is nowhere to escape in this land of ours.