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Decision Overturning Bloomberg's "Big Gulp Ban" Upheld By NY Appeals Court

The Donkey

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Another solid blow landed in the fight for liberty! The Court holds that the New York City Department of Health usurped legislative authority in banning sugary drinks over 16 oz. when it enacted the ban as an administrative "rule" instead of a ordinance passed by the city council.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns leader Michael Bloomberg is a clear example of why there needs to be curbs on executive powers to legislate through administrative laws.

Links to this and other interesting articles/decisions here:

https://www.facebook.com/GreidingerLegalWorks

And now . . . into the four digits on OCDO. :banana:
 
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Citizen

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Another solid blow landed in the fight for liberty! The Court holds that the New York City Department of Health usurped legislative authority in banning sugary drinks over 16 oz. when it enacted the ban as an administrative "rule" instead of a ordinance passed by the city council.

Mayors Against Illegal Drugs leader Michael Bloomberg is a clear example of why there needs to be curbs on executive powers to legislate through administrative laws.

Links to this and other interesting articles/decisions here:

https://www.facebook.com/GreidingerLegalWorks

And now . . . into the four digits on OCDO. :banana:

Said the closet-socialist lawyer who's all for vast amounts of government regulation and intrusion in other areas.
 

The Donkey

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Said the closet-socialist lawyer who's all for vast amounts of government regulation and intrusion in other areas.

My Dear Sir --

I am not, nor have I ever been a socialist -- as my many Democratic friends who consider me something of a right winger would tell you. You may never get around to asking them because the gulf between reasonable people on both sides of present day ideological/partisan divides might make a genuine conversation without such ad hominim difficult. But I am planning on giving a presentation on firearms issues later this year to which I am going to be inviting people I know across the entire spectrum. I will be bringing some of the collection, and will endeavor to present ideas that I hope will lstimulate and annoy people on all sides. I hope that you will consider coming to the outing.

I suppose you might think of me as socialist because I support Obamacare, progressive taxation, raising capital gains taxes, and other stuff like that. If you consider things like Medicare and taxation to be inherently "socialist" I am not going to convince you otherwise. But there are many people with a libertarian bent like I have who nevertheless believe as I do that it is foolhardy to try to roll back government to the 1850s. If you can't bring yourself to stop calling us names -- because such stuff brings so much pleasure -- it will make it more difficult for us to work together, and all of us will be less likely to get our way on the things we agree on. Can we not agree, for example, that it would have been wrong to let Bloomberg administratively outlaw big cups of fizzy drinks?

As to being a "closet lawyer," I fear we have known each other on this forum to long for that charge to hold any weight. Ain't no closet big enough . . . .
 

sudden valley gunner

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My Dear Sir --

I am not, nor have I ever been a socialist -- as my many Democratic friends who consider me something of a right winger would tell you. You may never get around to asking them because the gulf between reasonable people on both sides of present day ideological/partisan divides might make a genuine conversation without such ad hominim difficult. But I am planning on giving a presentation on firearms issues later this year to which I am going to be inviting people I know across the entire spectrum. I will be bringing some of the collection, and will endeavor to present ideas that I hope will lstimulate and annoy people on all sides. I hope that you will consider coming to the outing.

I suppose you might think of me as socialist because I support Obamacare, progressive taxation, raising capital gains taxes, and other stuff like that. If you consider things like Medicare and taxation to be inherently "socialist" I am not going to convince you otherwise. But there are many people with a libertarian bent like I have who nevertheless believe as I do that it is foolhardy to try to roll back government to the 1850s. If you can't bring yourself to stop calling us names -- because such stuff brings so much pleasure -- it will make it more difficult for us to work together, and all of us will be less likely to get our way on the things we agree on. Can we not agree, for example, that it would have been wrong to let Bloomberg administratively outlaw big cups of fizzy drinks?

As to being a "closet lawyer," I fear we have known each other on this forum to long for that charge to hold any weight. Ain't no closet big enough . . . .

Yes because big central government has only had our best interests at heart.........

This is also a fallacy argument, who is arguing to bring it back to 1850's? I say that human and societal evolution should bring us into a state of anarchy.......
 

The Donkey

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Yes because big central government has only had our best interests at heart.........

This is also a fallacy argument, who is arguing to bring it back to 1850's? I say that human and societal evolution should bring us into a state of anarchy.......

An anarchist you say? I admire their style. Specifically, I was told by my Russian history teacher that in the 1860s, when anarchism went "top of the pops" in urban Russia, its young adherents popularized a look involving blue tinted sun glasses and capes. Awesome! I do not think the anarchist hippies of 100 years later, or the anarchist punks of 120 years later ever quite matched this, but they also defined "cool" in their times. I suspect that in our lifetimes, we will see at least their stylistic reappearance, and I'll bet they will look as cool as ever.

Generally, "anarchism" has been given an unfairly bad name by the likes of Nechayev, who, like Lenin and Stalin, would say pretty much anything to trick his young followers into pursuing his violent revolutionary ends. I have found some wisdom in the works of Mikhail Bakhunin, whose works I have temporarily misplaced, but some of whose quotes on Wiki I suspect from your writings that you would agree with, such as:

"The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual."

Thus, the laws of nature, recognized by a man, may be consistent with his consumption of a 40 oz. Big Gulp. And:

"But I recognise no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such individual, I have no absolute faith in any person."

. . . including -- obviously -- Bloomberg. And:

"Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subbordination. This same reason forbids me, then, to recognise a fixed, constant and universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable of grasping in all that wealth of detail, without which the application of science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of social life."

I am not sure that it takes an expert anymore to understand the connection between consuming sugary drinks and diabetes, (see the Court decision available through this Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/GreidingerLegalWorks ) but that doesn't mean, picking up your critique of "strong central government," that we ought to allow the bureaucrats to arbitrarily rule us, even if they start in on matters as trivial as soda sizes:

"The "State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class: a priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class. And finally, when all the other classes have exhausted themselves, the State then becomes the patrimony of the bureaucratic class and then falls—or, if you will, rises—to the position of a machine."

So you should be saying "Bully for the New York Appellate Court!"

Understand, though, that this anarchist doctrine is revolutionary -- not evolutionary. So as you are waiting around for the very long time for "human and societal evolution" to bring about your social anarchist utopia, it makes some sense to not only to keep an eye on Bloomberg's autocratic decrees about cup sizes, but to dealing with the realities and pains of life we all face in the meanwhile, like illness, growing old, and the greed of those who use their privileged positions to avoid doing their fair share as they amass tremendous wealth and power at your expense.
 

sudden valley gunner

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An anarchist you say? I admire their style. Specifically, I was told by my Russian history teacher that in the 1860s, when anarchism went "top of the pops" in urban Russia, its young adherents popularized a look involving blue tinted sun glasses and capes. Awesome! I do not think the anarchist hippies of 100 years later, or the anarchist punks of 120 years later ever quite matched this, but they also defined "cool" in their times. I suspect that in our lifetimes, we will see at least their stylistic reappearance, and I'll bet they will look as cool as ever.

Generally, "anarchism" has been given an unfairly bad name by the likes of Nechayev, who, like Lenin and Stalin, would say pretty much anything to trick his young followers into pursuing his violent revolutionary ends. I have found some wisdom in the works of Mikhail Bakhunin, whose works I have temporarily misplaced, but some of whose quotes on Wiki I suspect from your writings that you would agree with, such as:



Thus, the laws of nature, recognized by a man, may be consistent with his consumption of a 40 oz. Big Gulp. And:



. . . including -- obviously -- Bloomberg. And:



I am not sure that it takes an expert anymore to understand the connection between consuming sugary drinks and diabetes, (see the Court decision available through this Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/GreidingerLegalWorks ) but that doesn't mean, picking up your critique of "strong central government," that we ought to allow the bureaucrats to arbitrarily rule us, even if they start in on matters as trivial as soda sizes:



So you should be saying "Bully for the New York Appellate Court!"

Understand, though, that this anarchist doctrine is revolutionary -- not evolutionary. So as you are waiting around for the very long time for "human and societal evolution" to bring about your social anarchist utopia, it makes some sense to not only to keep an eye on Bloomberg's autocratic decrees about cup sizes, but to dealing with the realities and pains of life we all face in the meanwhile, like illness, growing old, and the greed of those who use their privileged positions to avoid doing their fair share as they amass tremendous wealth and power at your expense.

Well I have faith in general humanity. It shouldn't be the job of a central government to make rules or condemn rules of other governments....we should simply nullify those rules.
The problem with your fixes, healthcare etc....is that they are socialistic/communistic/fascist/mercantalistic etc....it compels people to comply or die.
 

The Donkey

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Well I have faith in general humanity. It shouldn't be the job of a central government to make rules or condemn rules of other governments....we should simply nullify those rules.
The problem with your fixes, healthcare etc....is that they are socialistic/communistic/fascist/mercantalistic etc....it compels people to comply or die.

Not here. In the US, generally, there are very few "comply or die" rules, and I suspect those are the ones you agree with.

On healthcare for example, it will mainly be "comply or pay" for both businesses and individuals. For individuals, the direct penalties for noncompliance start out so low that it costs less not to comply. Compliance is still a good idea though -- and is way more public spirited -- just as it is more public spirited to have health insurance right now, rather than imposing yourself or your family in a crisis on the good graces of some hospital's budget.

I am not a fan of many rules, although I live in a world of them. But I usually find tagging them with ideological labels unhelpful in trying to change them, in recognizing the good ones, or getting rid of the bad ones.

Take section 7 of the Privacy Act of 1974, for example -- a very popular federal law among the readers of this board, which prohibits state and local governments (as well as the federal one) from denying rights and benefits to individuals in some circumstances for failing to provide a social security number. This law is the product of a "strong central government" imposing its will on states and localities. Yet in this case, by limiting local bureaucratic over-reach, the federal government increases the freedom of the individual. Would you label this law "fascist" because it imposes on state's rights, or "socialist" because it supports the legitimacy of social security, or libertarian, because you can wield it against the despicable bureaucrats?

Rather than getting lost in ideological labels, it makes more sense to look at such things with a classicist's eye. As Hannibal Lecter remarked:

"First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? . . . ."

 

Citizen

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SNIP I am not, nor have I ever been a socialist

Oh, I am sorry. My mistake. I guess I mistook all those times you used every rhetorical trick in the book to promote liberal candidates, including Obama. You see, I misunderstood. I thought that socialism was identified by the function, not spin names used by its promoters such as yourself to hide it.

Silly me.

But, I'm willing to be wrong. Lets have a look at your post history, shall we?
 

sudden valley gunner

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Not here. In the US, generally, there are very few "comply or die" rules, and I suspect those are the ones you agree with.

On healthcare for example, it will mainly be "comply or pay" for both businesses and individuals. For individuals, the direct penalties for noncompliance start out so low that it costs less not to comply. Compliance is still a good idea though -- and is way more public spirited -- just as it is more public spirited to have health insurance right now, rather than imposing yourself or your family in a crisis on the good graces of some hospital's budget.

I am not a fan of many rules, although I live in a world of them. But I usually find tagging them with ideological labels unhelpful in trying to change them, in recognizing the good ones, or getting rid of the bad ones.

Take section 7 of the Privacy Act of 1974, for example -- a very popular federal law among the readers of this board, which prohibits state and local governments (as well as the federal one) from denying rights and benefits to individuals in some circumstances for failing to provide a social security number. This law is the product of a "strong central government" imposing its will on states and localities. Yet in this case, by limiting local bureaucratic over-reach, the federal government increases the freedom of the individual. Would you label this law "fascist" because it imposes on state's rights, or "socialist" because it supports the legitimacy of social security, or libertarian, because you can wield it against the despicable bureaucrats?

Rather than getting lost in ideological labels, it makes more sense to look at such things with a classicist's eye. As Hannibal Lecter remarked:


[/FONT][/COLOR]

And if you refuse to pay?.....sorry don't buy it...asking for laws from government is asking for violence in your life....even seemingly innocuous laws like J-walking....don't comply and carry out that non compliance as far as you can and you will more than likely die.
 
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Citizen

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And if you refuse to pay?.....sorry don't buy it...asking for laws from government is asking for violence in your life....even seemingly innocuous laws like J-walking....don't comply and carry out that non compliance as far as you can and you will more than likely die.

But, but, but---its for the good of society.
 

stealthyeliminator

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An anarchist you say? I admire their style. Specifically, I was told by my Russian history teacher that in the 1860s, when anarchism went "top of the pops" in urban Russia, its young adherents popularized a look involving blue tinted sun glasses and capes. Awesome! I do not think the anarchist hippies of 100 years later, or the anarchist punks of 120 years later ever quite matched this, but they also defined "cool" in their times. I suspect that in our lifetimes, we will see at least their stylistic reappearance, and I'll bet they will look as cool as ever.

Generally, "anarchism" has been given an unfairly bad name by the likes of Nechayev, who, like Lenin and Stalin, would say pretty much anything to trick his young followers into pursuing his violent revolutionary ends. I have found some wisdom in the works of Mikhail Bakhunin, whose works I have temporarily misplaced, but some of whose quotes on Wiki I suspect from your writings that you would agree with, such as:



Thus, the laws of nature, recognized by a man, may be consistent with his consumption of a 40 oz. Big Gulp. And:



. . . including -- obviously -- Bloomberg. And:



I am not sure that it takes an expert anymore to understand the connection between consuming sugary drinks and diabetes, (see the Court decision available through this Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/GreidingerLegalWorks ) but that doesn't mean, picking up your critique of "strong central government," that we ought to allow the bureaucrats to arbitrarily rule us, even if they start in on matters as trivial as soda sizes:



So you should be saying "Bully for the New York Appellate Court!"

Understand, though, that this anarchist doctrine is revolutionary -- not evolutionary. So as you are waiting around for the very long time for "human and societal evolution" to bring about your social anarchist utopia, it makes some sense to not only to keep an eye on Bloomberg's autocratic decrees about cup sizes, but to dealing with the realities and pains of life we all face in the meanwhile, like illness, growing old, and the greed of those who use their privileged positions to avoid doing their fair share as they amass tremendous wealth and power at your expense.

The funny thing about "fair" is - you have a right to make your children act fairly. One scoop of ice cream for each (for the sake of argument, I'm using this example, though I firmly believe that "fair" and "equal" are NOT the same and that a clear distinction between the two would save us a lot of trouble in talks of "fair shares"). You have no such authority to force two non-consenting adults to act in the same manner. If one has the money for two scoops, well dammit, you might not think it's fair, but such is life. You take your gun down to the ice cream parlour and try to make him split his second scoop amongst the people, and I hope he shoots you out the door. You see, the thing is, he is not your child, and you have no natural authority over him, or his money.

Also, differentiation between "comply or die" and "comply or pay" is false. You must pay at threat of coercion, which the government will always escalate to a level above the amount of resistance you provide. The "pay" is part of the "comply", with a "or die" still always being the alternative. Don't pretend our government is anything less than aggressive and violent.

As a final note... I don't think you've said a single thing in this thread so far that has a "libertarian bend" to it.

Understand, though, that this anarchist doctrine is revolutionary -- not evolutionary.
According to what? Please provide a cite for this. After your apparent complete misrepresentation of libertarian ideals, I think a cite request is warranted. I have a feeling you have a gross misrepresentation of anarchy as well. And in fact, that you'd continue your dialogue as though libertarianism and anarchism are completely different ideals is a clue to such a conclusion.
 
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The Donkey

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All you want to do is argue over labels so how can we get very far?

This thread I started is about the regulation Bloomberg had the NYC Department of Health pass to regulate the size of cups that restaurants serve sugary drinks in. In it, I agree with the NY appellate court which struck down the regulation. I am sharing it because Bloomberg's autocratic paternalism respecting firearms, stop and frisk, and other issues is deeply troubling.

FWIW, that sounds pretty "libertarian" to me.

Bloomberg shares a plutocratic bias with characters like Romney. Whether or not you vote for these jokers, you carry their water because the Republican establishment has become so expert in mobilizing the anger of people like you to serve their ends by supporting the interests of people like them. Contrary to what you might think, these ends have very little to do with protecting your guns, your liberties and your relatively teeny properties, and everything to do with making them richer, more powerful, and protecting their privileges.

If you insist on labeling me, feel free to call me a "democrat." That, at least, has the virtue of being and unambiguous. Otherwise, you are just trying to drag me into circular arguments about whether my support for programs which you view as socialist like "Romneycare" and "Obamacare" or candidates like Obama make me a socialist. I have already told you that I don't think they do. You nattering back with "green" every time somebody says "red" whose viewpoint you do not completely share belongs in the schoolyard, not in adult conversation. It is like Clarice in "The Silence of the Lambs" responding to Lector's question about the nature of the killer as "he kills women." It is circular, incidental, and will not teach us -- nor anyone paying attention to this thread or this board -- anything useful. And it is worse for you to call me and others who you merely disagree with "red" because that just isolates you, as the people you are insulting with will eventually decide that there is nothing to be gained by trying to communicate with you.
 

Black_water

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I suppose you might think of me as socialist because I support Obamacare, progressive taxation, raising capital gains taxes, and other stuff like that.

If it walks, quacks and swims like a duck, it's a duck.

I am not really interesting in batting this ball around, others have done a pretty good job already, but everything you posted and especially the above quote are all planks of communism.

So simply calling yourself a libertarian is not the same as being one.
 

The Donkey

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The funny thing about "fair" is - you have a right to make your children act fairly. One scoop of ice cream for each (for the sake of argument, I'm using this example, though I firmly believe that "fair" and "equal" are NOT the same and that a clear distinction between the two would save us a lot of trouble in talks of "fair shares"). You have no such authority to force two non-consenting adults to act in the same manner. If one has the money for two scoops, well dammit, you might not think it's fair, but such is life. You take your gun down to the ice cream parlour and try to make him split his second scoop amongst the people, and I hope he shoots you out the door. You see, the thing is, he is not your child, and you have no natural authority over him, or his money.

Also, differentiation between "comply or die" and "comply or pay" is false. You must pay at threat of coercion, which the government will always escalate to a level above the amount of resistance you provide. The "pay" is part of the "comply", with a "or die" still always being the alternative. Don't pretend our government is anything less than aggressive and violent.

In the case of Obamacare, for example, the penalty for not getting yourself health insurance will be a small tax. It is an open secret that the IRS will likely have no way of checking a claim that you are insured in 2014, so the coercive power of the government to kill you for non-payment of this tax seems somewhat attenuated at the moment.

But presumably, at some point, if you decide to pay NO tax, and as a consequence, the IRS gets a judgment against you and tries to attach your property, and, if you are a murderous idiot, you shoot at the poor shmucks who try to execute on the judgment, and somebody kills you as a result, then of course you will have been proven correct. Please follow up on this forum if that happens to you, and I will marvel at your persistence and concede your point. I will also call you a murderous idiot.

According to what? Please provide a cite for this. After your apparent complete misrepresentation of libertarian ideals, I think a cite request is warranted. I have a feeling you have a gross misrepresentation of anarchy as well. And in fact, that you'd continue your dialogue as though libertarianism and anarchism are completely different ideals is a clue to such a conclusion.

I was not talking about libertarianism there.

If you look above, you will discover that I was discussing another poster's expression of fondness for anarchism, and use that as a jumping off point for an exposition of the syndico-anarchist views of Bukharin, who became an intellectual and political rival of Communist Karl Marx in the international revolutionary movement. Bukharin expressly advocated revolution in much of his later work, as did Marx, and I am sure that you will have no problem finding a specific cite.

In any event, if one is an anarchist, it helps to have a program for getting to your anarchist utopia. As you apparently believe that we presently have a huge, bureaucratic and violent state jeolously seeking to expand its oppressive prerogatives against the will of the people, you might also be inclined to think that all that is unlikely to just disappear overnight of its own accord. That is what Bukharin thought about the Czarist regime, and other repressive european regimes in the 19th Century, and they did not have all the potentially repressive capabilities of a modern state.

I do not believe that the US will "evolve" into the decentralized anarchist utopia that Bukharin imagined in either my or my childrens' lifetime. I am very sceptical of the claims of US revolutionists. It makes sense to have a reasonable idea of what the government "of the people" should be about to help make life in the US at least tolerable as we all work toward "a more perfect union" whatever you think that looks like.
 

The Donkey

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If it walks, quacks and swims like a duck, it's a duck.

I am not really interesting in batting this ball around, others have done a pretty good job already, but everything you posted and especially the above quote are all planks of communism.

So simply calling yourself a libertarian is not the same as being one.

So being in favor of being permitted to buy fizzy drinks in cups larger than 16 oz. makes me a communist?

You look like a duck and write like an idiot.
 

georg jetson

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So being in favor of being permitted to buy fizzy drinks in cups larger than 16 oz. makes me a communist?

You look like a duck and write like an idiot.

I don't mean to pile on here, but...

Your choice of words betrays you as well. A communist thinks of the government as having the authority to permit people to do things.

A person who understands freedom thinks of the government as a necessary evil that is forbidden from requiring permission from the very people from which it was created.

So... perhaps if you would have said "So being in favor of keeping the government in its chains and not allowing it to usurp power and require permission to buy fizzy drinks in cups larger than 16 oz. makes me a communist?" You may have been believable.
 

sudden valley gunner

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In the case of Obamacare, for example, the penalty for not getting yourself health insurance will be a small tax. It is an open secret that the IRS will likely have no way of checking a claim that you are insured in 2014, so the coercive power of the government to kill you for non-payment of this tax seems somewhat attenuated at the moment.

But presumably, at some point, if you decide to pay NO tax, and as a consequence, the IRS gets a judgment against you and tries to attach your property, and, if you are a murderous idiot, you shoot at the poor shmucks who try to execute on the judgment, and somebody kills you as a result, then of course you will have been proven correct. Please follow up on this forum if that happens to you, and I will marvel at your persistence and concede your point. I will also call you a murderous idiot.



I was not talking about libertarianism there.

If you look above, you will discover that I was discussing another poster's expression of fondness for anarchism, and use that as a jumping off point for an exposition of the syndico-anarchist views of Bukharin, who became an intellectual and political rival of Communist Karl Marx in the international revolutionary movement. Bukharin expressly advocated revolution in much of his later work, as did Marx, and I am sure that you will have no problem finding a specific cite.

In any event, if one is an anarchist, it helps to have a program for getting to your anarchist utopia. As you apparently believe that we presently have a huge, bureaucratic and violent state jeolously seeking to expand its oppressive prerogatives against the will of the people, you might also be inclined to think that all that is unlikely to just disappear overnight of its own accord. That is what Bukharin thought about the Czarist regime, and other repressive european regimes in the 19th Century, and they did not have all the potentially repressive capabilities of a modern state.

I do not believe that the US will "evolve" into the decentralized anarchist utopia that Bukharin imagined in either my or my childrens' lifetime. I am very sceptical of the claims of US revolutionists. It makes sense to have a reasonable idea of what the government "of the people" should be about to help make life in the US at least tolerable as we all work toward "a more perfect union" whatever you think that looks like.

" if you are a murderous idiot, you shoot at the poor shmucks who try to execute on the judgment, and somebody kills you as a result, then of course you will have been proven correct"
You don't have to be violent you just have to resist.

"it helps to have a program for getting to your anarchist utopia"

Nope, true anarchist realize there is no "utopia", they just understand that the social utopia presented by rulers create more problems than they will ever solve.

"I do not believe that the US will "evolve" into the decentralized anarchist utopia"

I don't believe U.S. will either, the essence of a state is violence and force, the state and statist and those who want to force the will of the state whether it be a few individuals or of a majority will never give that up willingly.
What I believe is that anarchy should be and can be the ultimate evolution of human society, this can be done by education, one way is to rebut and show the fallacies of "government" even one that is supposedly "of the people".
The declaration of independence rightly declares we have the right to be governed by consent, Lysander Spooner shows us that a farmer on a farm has just as much right to secede from government as colonist as a whole had to secede from Britian.

There really is not much difference in principle between a Soda Ban for your health than a federal Healthcare program. Both requires government to enforce a rule or law upon someone they don't want. I would need more evidence that the judges decision was "libertarian" than a claim it was because he ruled against it.
 
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