thats word

Yeah, wtf happened to that gold box?! I miss it! Cops probably stole it.

This is what's up.

The headline article you claim as a sample of "a great first sentence" goes on to complain that SPD is clueless because they don't understand that graffiti is about artistry, and then rants for 2 more pages in favor of that asshat Zeb who's tagged about 40 percent of the city with mindless repetitive vandalism. Fuck that shit. The man is a disgrace to graffiti artists everywhere, and deserves to rot in a nuthouse, and anyone who can seriously point to him as an example of a misunderstood genius is a waste of oxygen.

There's beauty in non-conformity. Hell, there's beauty in destruction, if it's done properly. There's no beauty or excitement in an unstable egomaniac defacing buildings that are infinitely more interesting than anything he's created or ever will create.

First thing I'm doing if the anarchists succeed in destroying society is shooting them all in their fucking faces, and I say that as a staunch liberal who's never owned a gun. People who fail to think through even first-order consequences of their social agenda piss me the hell off.

Not if we shoot you first.

Clever. Did you buy that retort at Hot Topic along with the anarchy stencil on your backpack?

@ TMN

"People who fail to think through even first-order consequences of their social agenda"?

What makes you say that, exactly? Are you alluding to the concept that, if the government and capitalism were to cease existing, you'd suddenly have free reign to go around shooting people in the head?

I'm not certain you're in a place to be deriding other people's replies if your first response to an anarchist is to imply that they shop for stencils at Hot Topic. Seriously. That joke has been done to death. We've all pissed on its grave. Let's move on.

I'm referring to the fact that a society with a set of laws isn't some evil conspiracy imposed on us by the "capitalist overlords". The first thing that would happen if THIS set of laws went away is that people would form a new set of laws, which would likely look relatively similar to the old set.

Anyone who seriously believes in anarchy as a viable concept after the age of 14 needs to study game theory until they understand why they were delusional, or be locked away.

@TMN

Uh, anarchists aren't against "laws", they're against capitalism and authoritarianism - or, more generally, any form of exploitation or domination that comes from the top-down. The standards and morals of a particular community aren't necessarily included in that.

Anyone who seriously believes that anarchy means lawless chaos needs to open a book, or even take a cursory glance at Wikipedia.

P.S. That's some good totalitarianism you're espousing there, "liberal". People who don't agree with you should be put in prison?

"Fuck the law!"
-Tides Of Flame #2

If they aren't against laws, they might want to phrase their newsletter a bit more carefully. I'm fully prepared to accept that this particular group of anarchists don't represent the full set of people who define themselves as such, but THIS particular group appears to show nothing but disdain for "the standards and morals of the community", and authority figures, and in general anybody that disagrees with them. In fact these guys seem to share basically nothing with REAL anarchists in the earlier stages of the movement, who I have a lot of respect for.

I'm right there with you in believing that everybody on the planet should fight against top-down domination. The simple fact, though, is that the local, state, and federal governments of the United States do not fall in that category, at least not in the vast majority of cases. Anybody can vote, anybody can run for office, and anybody can speak out in public against perceived injustices. As human societies go, we've got a remarkably fair one, even despite the many cases where the system does fail.

What completely blows my mind is that anarchists have basically gone full circle to the point that they're in essentially the same position as the tea party. Both groups appear to want to ditch "top-down control" in favor of communities or nature or whatever other name they use as a proxy for their lack of understanding that today's government IS a community decision.

As far as my "totalitarianism", come on. If the person in question isn't out there breaking shit, they don't really believe in what these people are saying, in which case my statement doesn't apply. And if they ARE out there breaking shit, then they're breaking laws that 99% of the population agree on, and really do need to be locked away.

I'm sorry if my hyperbole was too confusing. Let me clarify the statement: anyone who actually follows through on the bullshit they're spouting in Tides Of Flame is a menace to society, is violating laws that the vast majority of people in the community agree should be in place, and should be locked away until they learn to respect the rights of the ordinary people they've hurt in the course of their misdirected tantrum.

If you consider a community enforcing broadly agreed upon rights of private property to be totalitarianism, then you're just as nuts as the people who write that dreck. (by the way, you might want to follow your own advice and read the Wikipedia article on Totalitarianism before you go slinging that one around again)

On second thought, I revise my statement. Anybody who seriously believes in anarchy as a valid concept after the age of 14 needs to go to Somalia for a couple months and see how far that shit gets them. Prison is way too orderly to instill a lasting sense of what whiny little punks they're being.

"The headline article you claim as a sample of "a great first sentence" goes on to complain that SPD is clueless because they don't understand that graffiti is about artistry,"

Wow, you didn't actually read that article if you got this out of it.

@TMN

I could make a drinking game out of the number of cliches you've spouted in that response. If I took a shot of liquor every time somebody told an anarchist to pack up and head to Somalia, I'd have died from alcohol poisoning at age 16.

The anarchists who write Tides of Flame are obviously against the particular laws that they disagree with, which would probably encompass the majority of legislature revolving around capitalist, liberal-democratic society. With that said, "fuck the law" becomes "fuck most of our current laws" rather than a refusal of the entire concept of community standards.

Even then, it's not an endorsement of a particular way of acting - regardless of whether they think that laws should be questioned or disregarded as circumstances call for it, that's not even an encouragement to go out and break laws for the sake of breaking laws.

Your absurd claim of it being "simple fact" that the United States government is not a form of top-down control is, well, I already used my adjective of choice, there.

It's a hierarchical structure. This fact alone cannot be debated.

The desires and needs of any minority, whether that minority is 1% or 49% of the population, are effectively nullified by the majority rule system.

The idea that any given individual can leverage significant influence on the political system is laughable, unless that individual has enough money and social/political connections to do so. You cannot honestly tell me that my local gas station attendant genuinely has the same amount of political power as the CEO of Chevron Corporation.

Beyond that, your generalized defense of law and order and equating such with "community standards" is downright bewildering, especially that off-the-cuff 99% statistic. Obviously, laws are not collectively decided by the whole of society - we don't gather everybody in a room and ask their opinion of each and every law, except in the rare case of referendums (which are, themselves, rendered dubious by means of the media and bloc voting).

Beyond that, obviously not all law-breakers are defying what the overwhelming majority of society wants them to do, as evidenced by the die-hard criminal malcontents of Egypt who, assuredly (according to you) in defiance of their well-meaning and orderly neighbors and the other 99% of their communities, burned down their police stations and illegally occupied public property.

Hooligans, am I right?

Marching towards Utopia one broken window at a time.

@Bandit

"I could make a drinking game out of the number of cliches you've spouted in that response. If I took a shot of liquor every time somebody told an anarchist to pack up and head to Somalia, I'd have died from alcohol poisoning at age 16."

If it wasn't so damn true, maybe people wouldn't say it so much.

"The anarchists who write Tides of Flame are obviously against the particular laws that they disagree with, which would probably encompass the majority of legislature revolving around capitalist, liberal-democratic society. With that said, "fuck the law" becomes "fuck most of our current laws" rather than a refusal of the entire concept of community standards."

Obviously, since everybody is against the particular laws that they agree with. Based on the admittedly small sample from Tides of Flame, though, this particular group doesn't have an especially nuanced approach to raising those distinctions, apparently preferring to lead of with "hah hah, pigs are stupid".

"Even then, it's not an endorsement of a particular way of acting - regardless of whether they think that laws should be questioned or disregarded as circumstances call for it, that's not even an encouragement to go out and break laws for the sake of breaking laws."

Did you actually read the article? They cap it off by obviously aligning themselves with the guy who's been vandalizing a large portion of the city, and then essentially started cheering after they described him violently attacking several police officers while in custody, after he stole a taxi and crashed it. And finished it off with "Fuck the law, Free Zeb". If that isn't an endorsement of his actions, I don't know what is.

"Your absurd claim of it being "simple fact" that the United States government is not a form of top-down control is, well, I already used my adjective of choice, there.

It's a hierarchical structure. This fact alone cannot be debated."

The claim was about top-down domination, not top-down control. Yes, the US is a hierarchy. It'd be pretty hard to run a society this size without SOME form of hierarchy (although the amount of power it should have is obviously up for debate). That fact alone doesn't mean that it's imposed on an unwilling population.

"The desires and needs of any minority, whether that minority is 1% or 49% of the population, are effectively nullified by the majority rule system."

In some cases yes. The US has a pretty large number of checks against dictatorship of the majority built into the system though... and just out of curiosity, what do you propose as an alternative? If we abolish the central government entirely, what do you think takes its place? At best you can hope for small pockets of community organization, and if you've ever lived in a small town you'll know that smaller communities almost inevitably lead to much worse "tyranny of the majority" than we have in government today.

"The idea that any given individual can leverage significant influence on the political system is laughable, unless that individual has enough money and social/political connections to do so. You cannot honestly tell me that my local gas station attendant genuinely has the same amount of political power as the CEO of Chevron Corporation."

Yes, some people have less of a voice. That's a basic fact of human culture, and nothing is ever going to change it. Do you honestly think that once you somehow take down Capitalism that people are suddenly going to sit in a drum circle and listen to what everybody has to say? There have always been people who wield more influence because they're respected, and there have always been people who weasel their way into influence because they know how to manipulate people. The form of government doesn't change that. Again, at least the US government doesn't (yet) have institutional corruption built into it like China and India and Russia and a host of other countries.

Yes, your gas station attendant is going to wield less power than a CEO. It doesn't mean he can't. If he's really interested in changing things, he can write, and speak, and organize people together for a cause. It's actually not that hard, as long as enough people like what he's saying.

I'm not saying money isn't a problem. I strongly favor abolishing all private campaign contributions, and providing all candidates for any office with equal campaign funds from the government in order to completely remove the influence of private cash from politics. But I'm also saying that you're delusional if you think that money is the ONLY thing that influences elections, or that the exact same problem would not occur under any other form of government. People like shiny things. Sticking your head in the sand or tagging a few trees doesn't change that.

"Beyond that, your generalized defense of law and order and equating such with "community standards" is downright bewildering, especially that off-the-cuff 99% statistic. Obviously, laws are not collectively decided by the whole of society - we don't gather everybody in a room and ask their opinion of each and every law, except in the rare case of referendums (which are, themselves, rendered dubious by means of the media and bloc voting)."

Right, because that would be completely unworkable. See, modern society rests on this concept known as "division of labor", which allows you to devote your time to one job instead of having to bake your own bread, sew your own clothes, and spend an 80 hour work week looking over new proposed laws at the same time.

Are you honestly trying to claim that laws in a representative democracy are moot because not every citizen got to vote on them? I'm going to go ahead and guess that laws governing murder, food safety, traffic control, theft, vandalism, public sanitation, building codes, and the amount of lead paint in children's toys are not going to get much protest from the average voter despite them not having voted on them personally, for example.

If you have a refutation of the claim, feel free to make it. I'm not saying everybody agrees on every law, obviously we do have arguments. I'm saying that a large portion of the law is generally agreed upon by most people, and the arguments occur around a small percentage of the overall legal code.

"Beyond that, obviously not all law-breakers are defying what the overwhelming majority of society wants them to do, as evidenced by the die-hard criminal malcontents of Egypt who, assuredly (according to you) in defiance of their well-meaning and orderly neighbors and the other 99% of their communities, burned down their police stations and illegally occupied public property.

Hooligans, am I right?"

Absolutely not, and quite frankly it's disgusting you would try to make the comparison. The demonstrations in Egypt were to protest a regime that had ACTUAL police brutality, lacked free elections and free speech, and was ACTUALLY under something approaching totalitarian control. Essentially they were protesting to get what we already have, and what your bunch of morons in Tides of Flame are advocating destroying.

Further, the vast majority of people involved in the demonstrations in Egypt did not burn down anything. For the most part it was a peaceful protest, only escalated to violence by the police. So please, tell me again how Zeb tagging trees and crashing stolen cars is the same as peaceful demonstrations demanding free elections.