Anarchy is Not Mayhem

Note: I wrote this in January 10, 2011 with the intention of submitting it to my university's newspaper. The following is an exact copy of a Facebook note I posted for people to comment on. After taking their suggestions, I decided against sending it, for various reasons (laziness being one of them).

This is an editorial I plan to submit to the Webster newspaper, the Journal.  Please let me know of any faults with grammar and such.  And please keep in mind, I believe the maximum word count is 750, which I kept under, so condensing was required.

Anarchy is Not Mayhem

"Blood will have blood."

-Macbeth

    Force is to be understood here as aggression, the outright disregard of another's will and property.  Several of the Ten Commandments could be summed up thus: Thou shalt not use force.  Murder, rape, vandalism, theft: these are all force; included also are the denial of rights, really a form of theft, and the enforcement of one's decrees on another, which is truly a form of rape.  In essence, force is the transgression of property, whether it is a person's own self or things outside himself but under his control.  When you have someone who seeks to deny you the right to use your property peacefully, they are declaring force; when you have others who claim violence as a means to retrieve this right, they too are declaring force.  I shall be blunt: the former is the instance of government, and the latter is the instance of the popular concept of the anarchist.  Yet, here is a paradox, for one cannot be one or its opposite if they are in truth the same (this dilemma arises with Democrats and Republicans).  If, as I believe, government is the monopolizing agent of force, then how can an anarchist, one who is anti-government, also employ force?

    I came to write this because, as a professed anarchist, I was dismayed by recent events that have made the news.  First, there was the shooting at a school board meeting in Florida on December 15, 2010, at which the gunman had spray-painted an encircled "V," possibly alluding to V for Vendetta.  Then there was the recent massacre in Arizona involving Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in which six were murdered by an unstable fellow.  In this case, those who knew him personally say he was quite liberal, but the media, such as the New York Times, are trying to make him an example of the recent resurgence of the right-wingers.  A case closer to home: on a brick retaining wall near the new pathway at our university, someone spray-painted an encircled "A," supposedly emulating the anarchy symbol.  Though these are supposedly the  actions of anarchists or far right-wing nuts, they are examples of force.  These people are not fundamentally anti-government, only disturbed and mislead individuals who used the same measures the government does. [In addition to these, I add the recent summary assassination of Osama bin Laden.]

    Which brings me to what initially inspired the first notion to write this article.  I was given an anarchy magazine that one can find in the basement of the Pearson House (English building of Webster University).  The things I read were repellent.  In the name of anarchy, these hedonists were committing acts of trespassing, vandalism, theft, physical harm; they supported Marxist ideals, which in actuality are only possible by means of the most despotic government; and were otherwise faux-intellectuals.  These detestable people do not despise the government because they hate its use of force, but because they are jealous of its monopoly on it, just as it is itself.

    For one to truly be an anarchist, one must not fight fire with fire: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master," to quote George Washington.  One must renounce the fire itself, to remove the mantle of force.  Though I am against government, I deplore the violence visited upon its members, such as Congresswoman Giffords, because it only perpetuates the problem, because "blood will have blood"; to use force would make me that which I abhor.  Therefore, just as surely as government is aggression, anarchy is peace; do not let upset, deranged, or narcissistic people let you think otherwise.