I would disagree with that. It is not as if we didn't have two world wars, a cold war that threatened annihilation of civilization, many small wars and skirmishes. Not to mention police states that have come and gone with some still here and continuing hostilities and do not forget all the terrorism. And that is all before oil supplies really start getting tight.Quote by: Athena
Starboy
Quite. Nice non-response. Care to debate without being negative about other participants and addressing their points?According to the media.
I see they've programmed you well
I base my observation on Somalia - as you say, a 'tad too unregulated' - that'll be those militiamen with roadblocks around the capital extorting money from all who pass, the recent assassination attempt on the PM....but hey, that's not chaos, is it?
Other examples - Afghanistan pre-Taleban, DC Congo, Kyrgyzstan...you can take your pick of any of the European nations that experienced 'revolutions' in 1848, the collapse of Yugoslavia...and many, many others. That's what's called 'historical data', not 'media programming'.
I'll admit, there have been occasions where lack of government in itself has not led to chaos - the 'Orange Revolution' in the Ukraine, the 'Rose Revolution' in Georgia - but that has generally only been because there have been strong alternative power brokers ready to step in.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.
-George Best, on being asked what he did with his footballing fortunes.
Authority-free Somalia makes modern gains
By Alexandra Zavis The Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia — In a crowded Internet cafe, women in flowing veils and men in jeans and T-shirts catch up on the news and chat with friends around the world. Across town, a nervous learner takes her turn at the wheel for a drive around an abandoned stadium.
Through 14 years of often-violent anarchy, life has carried on in gun-riddled Somalia. There may be no government, but for those who can afford it, there is electricity at the flick of a switch, wireless Internet access, a university education and even driving lessons.
Somalia has been without any effective central authority since clan-based warlords united to oust dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then destroyed a U.S.-led military mission trying to relieve rampant famine and pacify the nation of 7 million.
Somalia became a patchwork of heavily armed fiefdoms that still clash periodically.
A new government was formed last year after tortuous negotiations among warlords, clan elders and civil-society leaders. But it has no budget and meets in neighboring Kenya because it considers Somalia too dangerous.
Yesterday, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi made their first trip homesince forming a government in exile last year. They are assessing whether it is finally safe enough to move their government to Somalia and run their country from within.
"We need a government," read placards held up by some of the hundreds who lined a road in the central Somali town of Jowhar to welcome the leaders. Other signs read: "Peace is our life, anarchy is our death." After Gedi's return to Kenya the government would decide where it should be based and where African Union troops should be deployed.
Officials say Mogadishu may be too dangerous initially.
The government, Somalia's 14th attempt at effective central administration since 1991, is trying to arrange sufficient protection to enable it to establish its authority and begin disarmament of the country's many militias.
Yusuf has asked African and Arab states to supply 7,500 peacekeepers to help disarm militiamen roaming the capital.
With no state to provide services, private initiative rules.
Parents, nostalgic for a time when education and health care were free, scrape together what they can to pay their children's teachers. Schools range from informal classes under a tree to a rapidly expanding university in Mogadishu, the capital, that offers degrees in nursing, business management, computer science and other subjects to some 2,000 students.
Somali doctors working abroad have returned to work at several private hospitals. With no government support, all are forced to charge the equivalent of a few U.S. dollars — the currency of choice here. But even that can be prohibitive for Somalis who have lost everything in successive bouts of fighting and drought.
"If you don't pay, nobody will see you at the hospital," complained Asha Ali Abdi, lifting her veil to reveal her infant daughter, with the shrunken limbs and ginger-tinged hair that betray severe malnutrition. Abdi fled fighting in the south for a makeshift camp of cardboard and wooden shacks in the northern port city of Bossaso — one of many such camps across the country.
Mogadishu's harbor stands idle and camels graze at the national airport. But business is booming at private airstrips and natural harbors, with gun-toting militia fighters on hand to take their cut.
Private companies providing power and running water to a few hundred households apiece have mushroomed across towns.
When Somalia still had a government, Faduma Mayow bought her water off a donkey cart for about $1.50 a barrel. It was expensive, sometimes contaminated, and never enough, said the mother of eight.
Now Isaf Water and Electricity Supply has installed a faucet in her courtyard from which chlorinated water flows for less than half the price. The chlorine comes from UNICEF, but otherwise ISAF is privately funded.
The same company powers lights and electric mixers at the family bakery, at 65 cents per outlet per day.
"Before, we used to mix everything by hand," said Mayow's husband, Abdallah Kasim Mohamed. "So now that we have mixers, we are making big business."
Isaf installs the cables and pipes as well as street lighting using neon strips wired to old lampposts.
Somalia's telecommunications are among Africa's best. With three companies competing, a land line can be installed in 24 hours. Local calls are free with the $10 monthly fee and international calls cost 50 cents a minute.
Cellphones are widely available, though Somalis are cautious about chatting in public lest a gunman help himself to the phone.
For 18-year-old Omar Ali, an Internet cafe is a cheap way to stay in touch with friends abroad.
"I come here every chance I get," he said, typing quickly so he can get home before night falls and the streets get dangerous.
Outside the national stadium, car owners run a driving school, letting adults and children drive for about a dollar a turn.
"Right now, we don't have particular rules," explained Farhaan Mohamed, a former bus driver. "As long as you can make the tires turn, you can go."
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
That is chaos to you?
LOL!
Then I BEG for that kind of chaos to come to the US!
Albert Nock said this in 1935:IF WE look beneath the surface of our public affairs, we can discern one fundamental fact, namely: a great redistribution of power between society and the State. This is the fact that interests the student of civilization. He has only a secondary or derived interest in matters like price-fixing, wage-fixing, inflation, political banking, "agricultural adjustment," and similar items of State policy that fill the pages of newspapers and the mouths of publicists and politicians. All these can be run up under one head. They have an immediate and temporary importance, and for this reason they monopolize public attention, but they all come to the same thing; which is, an increase of State power and a corresponding decrease of social power.
It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn. Therefore every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power. There is never, nor can there be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power...
Heretofore in this country sudden crises of misfortune have been met by a mobilization of social power. In fact (except for certain institutional enterprises like the home for the aged, the lunatic-asylum, city-hospital and county-poorhouse) destitution, unemployment, "depression"and similar ills, have been no concern of the State, but have been relieved by the application of social power. Under Mr. Roosevelt, however, the State assumed this function, publicly announcing the doctrine, brand-new in our history, that the State owes its citizens a living. Students of politics, of course, saw in this merely an astute proposal for a prodigious enhancement of State power; merely what, as long ago as 1794, James Madison called "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government"; and the passage of time has proved that they were right. The effect of this upon the balance between State power and social power is clear, and also its effect of a general indoctrination with the idea that an exercise of social power upon such matters is no longer called for.
It is largely in this way that the progressive conversion of social power into State power becomes acceptable and gets itself accepted. [1] When the Johnstown flood occurred, social power was immediately mobilized and applied with intelligence and vigour. Its abundance, measured by money alone, was so great that when everything was finally put in order, something like a million dollars remained. If such a catastrophe happened now, not only is social power perhaps too depleted for the like exercise, but the general instinct would be to let the State see to it. Not only has social power atrophied to that extent, but the disposition to exercise it in that particular direction has atrophied with it. If the State has made such matters its business, and has confiscated the social power necessary to deal with them, why, let it deal with them. We can get some kind of rough measure of this general atrophy by our own disposition when approached by a beggar. Two years ago we might have been moved to give him something; today we are moved to refer him to the State's relief-agency. The State has said to society, You are either not exercising enough power to meet the emergency, or are exercising it in what I think is an incompetent way, so I shall confiscate your power, and exercise it to suit myself. Hence when a beggar asks us for a quarter, our instinct is to say that the State has already confiscated our quarter for his benefit, and he should go to the State about it...
"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense." -- John Adams
tman
You wish our country would be like somalia? That country has been condemned by every civil rights group in the word. The standard of living in somalia is horrible. Why don't you move to somalia (after immancipating yourself - I know you're just a kid) and see how you like it. My guess is that you get shot. It's an incredebally violent country.
I'm a libertarian too - so I know where you're coming from, but you need to temper the ideology with a little maturity and life experiance. It is people like you, and the "macho libertarian flash" that you employ, that causes people to view us as unrealistically radical and dogmatic.
Fixed ideas are like a cramp in the foot - the best remedy against it is to tread on it.
-Søren Kierkegaard
I'm jealous of their unregulated free market. That's what I want for America. Not their standard of living, for christ's sake.
I think someone needs an education. Understanding human nature, requires more than paying attention to today's media. Understanding good government, requires more than paying attention to today's media. When I entered these forums, it was with concern of what is happening to our democracy, and I am moving from concern to panic. Could anything be worse for civilization than a population that knows no more than what is happening today?
I speak controversy so we have something to talk about. Don't take me too seriously.
You are not going back far enough in history if you disagree with what I said. The part of the world we call Europe was not civilized when Rome fell, and these areas had a terrible time getting to civilization. The religious wars they had after gaining a degree of civilized development was also terrible, and then the clash of civilizations is also terrible, but at least at this point people could enjoy relatively good security in their homes and communities, in between the wars. Not as things were before a degree of civilized development had been achieved.
What is social order? There is the family, then the tribe, then religious groups which are almost synonomous with cities which begin assimulating surrounding land and people. It is at first religion which holds this all together, and then there is a shift to bureaucratic law.
What is happening the US today, is bureaucratic law is no longer balanced by human rights, and the bureaucracy is violating individual rights, and has crushed individual liberty and power. This was predictable from the beginning, but unfortunately people who relie on the media, know too little of human nature, culture and government, to be aware of what is happening. They know so little, they are reliant on today's media which gives them no prespective to understand anything. Without knowledge, they are relying on their feelings to understand right from wrong, and I fear this is the end of our democracy.
I am so depressed by the decission to take a man's property just to make more money on the land, that I don't even think, understanding the importance of family in keeping this political power under control, will save us now. I am afraid, nothing is left but to throw off the bureaucratic structure above us, and then because of the lack of education, there will not be enough leaders to put us back together again. If Humpy Dumpty is shoved off the wall, no one will be able to put him back together. But we can not tolerate the direction we are going either.
I speak controversy so we have something to talk about. Don't take me too seriously.
Tman - so you've addressed Somalia (ish). What about the rest of my cases? Seriously - historically, chaos is more likely to occur in an anarchic state.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.
-George Best, on being asked what he did with his footballing fortunes.
Maybe it is more likely to occur. Probably not.
That doesn't prove that anarchy and chaos have a cause/effect link.
It doesn't prove it, but it certainly makes a strong case. Obviously, different regional factors will come into play - but practically every region in the world has the underlying tensions that can give rise to violence when 'government' disappears.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.
-George Best, on being asked what he did with his footballing fortunes.
So?
It's everyone's personal responsibility to make sure that these violent outbursts don't cause harm to their life and property.
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