I love this site and I find the debates her stimulating if not sometimes over my head. I was wondering what some of your opinions were the morality of following laws under a statist system.
If you accept the premise that statist don’t derive their authority on any moral grounds and only derive their authority through coercive violence is it logical to conclude that breaking laws of a statist system is something that is morally acceptable? Is smoking pot, drinking under 21, owning assault rifles, tearing down your rotten house while the historical society is going crazy ok? Most people don’t break laws because they fear reprisal, but a certain subset of society I would argue refuse to break laws because to them it has some kind of moral consequence. Does an anarchist living in a statist system only avoid breaking laws he thinks he will get him/her caught while doing?
When does an anarchist society begin, when the statist society delinquishes its own self claimed authority? Do the laws end when you decide to stop following them or when the state ceases to exist?
Be careful. You only list crimes without victims. If you keep you list of laws to victimless prohibitions then the anarchist does not believe that it is immoral to break these rules. In fact many anarchists believe that it is not only moral but courageous to break these laws that exist not to protect society but to give rulers power over others or worse that grant monopoly privileges to selected people at the expense of society at large.
The law ends when the state runs out of money to enforce its volumes of laws. Unfortunately the state makes its territory into a miserable place before then. As long as the state can uphold the law through violence then the law remains.
Welcome to the forum. I’ll answer these to the best of my own opinion.
Not to answer for anyone, but I think most of us on here will agree that you can do anything so long as you don’t hurt anyone else or damage their property, for the most part. I’d say that all you listed is completely fine. I’m confused by what you meant when you said “while the historical society is going crazy”, but I don’t think that changed how I read your question. Civil disobedience is looked upon as a good thing if you don’t agree with the law, but taking the risk of getting caught is a personal decision. When it comes down to it, the State will use violence against you far before you’ll even think about using violence against it.
I don’t personally think about laws too much as I live my life. I pay attention to whether I’m causing someone harm, and that’s basically it. I don’t think any anarchist would purposefully get caught (i.e. carrying around an AK-47 or something when there’s a police officer in sight), though. The way I see things, doing something illegal necessarily get me in trouble if I don’t brag about it. For example, I go on the roof of our dormitories at night a lot because it helps me relax. There’s a lock on the door that goes out to the roof, but I know how to pick it, so I just go up there and make sure to lock it when I come back down to my room. No reason for me to smash the lock, set fire to it, and draw anarchy symbols all over it.
I see the state like I see getting sick. You don’t say, “When will my healthy life begin?!” People are naturally healthy, just like the world is naturally stateless. Sometimes you get sick and it’s just a cold, other times it’s the flu. Sometimes you have a State and it’s Wilson, other times it’s FDR. The statist society delinquishes when people adapt more healthy, independent lives. As Tolstoy put it, “They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power … There can be only one permanent revolution – a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.”
To me, irrational laws end when you decide to stop following them. The State ceases to exist when they realize that they aren’t seen as legitimate by the previously-governed. That’s a tricky question, though. You have to make sure it’s irrational laws you’re talking about. Anarchy isn’t so much against rules as it is against rulers.
“If you accept the premise that statist don’t derive their authority on any moral grounds and only derive their authority through coercive violence is it logical to conclude that breaking laws of a statist system is something that is morally acceptable?”
I feel this is a good time to remind all US’ers here that, if you find yourself on a jury, you have the legal right to decide a person’s guilt based on your belief in the law’s validity.
IOW: If you’re on a jury for a pot criminals case, and you believe pot should be legal, you can find him not guilty based on that.
“If you accept the premise that statist don’t derive their authority on any moral grounds and only derive their authority through coercive violence is it logical to conclude that breaking laws of a statist system is something that is morally acceptable?”
Well take the fact that 10% of sheep are gay, I would say that would make it a natural occurence. I don’t think anyone finds gay marriage a violation of natural law but more of a jeudo-christian or even islamic law
My understanding of natural law is its universally known, for instance take the extreme case of murder. Everyone knows murder is wrong, its still performed. But then take the concept of abortion, if you think it is a human life then you would consider it murder and wrong, but if you didn’t then you wouldn’t find it objectionable. Now apply that differentiable logic to breaking of the states laws, you will never find consensus who from those who believe that state derives its authority from a moral means, because, like abortion, it muddies the waters of the premise. But among those who believe that they don’t derive their power from any moral authority then you can propose the question.
I think some of the other posters hit upon points in which it would make it objectionable and a violation of morality, when it hurts others, but what about some of the grey areas. I can think of one area in which society finds wrong… insider trading… some argue that it gives an unfair advantage to the people who are the insiders letting them profit off of other peoples outside looking in view. In an austrian context I would describe it as exchange with someone you know that the perceived value they receive is greater than the actual value they receive. Is that deception and therefor wrong?
To break laws which prohibit victimless crimes is neither moral nor immoral. Better look from consequential stand point. If you afraid of being caught and put in a cage, it is not in your rational interest to do it. If you don’t give a shit, then no one can forbid you, no matter what they say and what types of guns they have. You just do what you wanna do. You don’t hurt anybody by smoking a pot, or gambling, or masturbating. To prohibit such actions IS immoral and a crime.
Natural laws are not about “naturality” (being in nature), but being universally applied to everyone consistently, as far as I know.
Gay marriage is not natural. Straight marriage is not natural too. It’s made up by us, lol.