I would like to comment on the posts of Lady and John, if I may.
I sense a problem in imagining things that once were and what is the reality today.
21 st century people are so far removed from the earth and having the ability to sustain ourselves . The Amish are looked upon as 'backwards' , yet a 12 year old boy knows more about the qualities of each piece of wood and the proper feasibility to use it in building, to achieve the most favorable
strength, flexibility, support and wear in each designed project. A teenage girl knows every aspect of soil preparation, seed generation, animal care, food preparation, clothes and household good manufacturing than most 50 year old 'English' men and women.
I believe I can safely say.... You would never find any millionaires clamoring to be a part of that society. It would seem revolting to them to be part of something where they have to 'serve' others, rather than to be served.
It is my understanding in the Indian culture, the 'Chief' was not like Hollywood portrayed him.... as the 'head' of the band of the camp.
He was more of an arbitrator to bring different ones together to solve an issue or address a problem. No Indian was forced or designated
to do anything he or she did not want to. If they did something that was inappropriate to the 'band', they were 'shunned ' much like the Amish do. But could come back if they redeemed themselves.
So what I'm getting at is ... Without a society based on money, hierarchy or class where there always has to be loser, a have-not or someone to look down upon for those who need to be served to feel good about themselves..... It becomes so hard to imagine
that people were behaving in a good and honest manner other than what you see today where people.....after generations of being looked down upon and abused are behaving poorly.
The Nazis achieved control over people thru constant fear and chaos to the point where father and sons were killing each other over a piece of bread.. Jesus foretold that at the end of time... All people would become Bad..
I personally believe that was misrepresented
to mean the Bad would become Worst. Which is happening today.
That is why I believe we must physically separate ourselves from the Have's in order to find Peace in this World.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment and for engaging with me on this topic.
Regarding your, "even your writings & solutions support the systems which you propose to make fair, more egalitarian. replacing one dictatorship with another is no real change. demanding another recognize, acknowledge, acquiesce, grant, honor, appease, award is still subservient, is still supremacy, is still control which can be snatched away and giving away our power," I don't understand your point. Please say what you believe is wrong with my saying that the people in a local community who oppose class inequality should be the sovereign power in that local community, and not the people who want class inequality. It seems live a wonderful idea to me; why not to you?
I never advocated that HOAs of people who want to prevent others from painting their door black should have sovereign power. What I DID advocate is that people who oppose class inequality and support mutual aid and equality and fairness and truth, and not those with the contrary values, should have sovereign power. And my article that you read is about the fact that there almost certainly will be SOME people--good or bad--who will in fact, for better or for worse, hold sovereign power. The question, therefore, is not WHETHER people should hold sovereign power but rather WHAT people.
Do you think people who want slavery should be allowed to hold sovereign power, as they did in the American South once? Do you think that the people who wish to DENY THE SLAVE OWNERS THE 'FREEDOM' TO OWN SLAVES and who use FORCE to prevent the slave owners from owning slaves are, merely because they use force against some people to tell them what they can and cannot do, therefore a BAD DICTATORSHIP, a 'mob'?
Do you think that, since it is wrong in your view for people to use force against other people because that is what a mob dictatorship does, therefore nobody should use force to prevent slave owners from owning slaves?
Sovereign power in a region is defined as simply the power in a region that is greater than any contrary power. Thus when the sovereign power creates a law, it has, by definition, the power to enforce that law and it has the power to physically prevent anybody in the region from breaking the law without suffering some kind of serious punishment. There is nothing in this definition about whether the sovereign power does good or does evil. With the one exception that I discuss in my article that I linked to earlier about government--an exception not likely to occur in our lifetime where we live--there will inevitably be a sovereign power, perhaps one that does good or perhaps one that does evil.
Therefore, the only practical way to ensure that the sovereign power does good is to do what it takes to make it be that the sovereign power consists of people who aim to do good. Otherwise the sovereign power will be composed of people who aim to do evil (such as maintain slavery or some other form of class inequality and injustice.)
To denounce ALL sovereign power as "a dictatorship of a mob" amounts in practice to allowing the current sovereign power to remain in power, since it amounts in practice to refusing to do what it takes to have a sovereign power of people who aim to do good.
Now, to answer your question "in practice how would that sovereign power be imposed upon the community? how would it be imposed upon those who support "class" or supremacy in any form?":
How about you read this fascinating eyewitness account (it is at https://www.pdrboston.org/a-local-assembly-meeting-spain-1937 ) of what I would call a "Local Assembly of Egalitarians" (which is what I advocate should be the sovereign power) that occurred around 1937 in the part of Spain that the egalitarians (who called themselves anarchists) liberated from the large landlords. They liberated it from the large landlords by forming a voluntary militia that fought to prevent the fascist General Franco from defeating the peasants and workers with his military force. Whenever the anarchist militia defeated the fascist military forces in a region (such as where the meeting with the eyewitness report took place) then the big landowners and big capitalists fled that region and went to where the fascist military was still in control, with the expectation that they would return and re-claim their large land holdings when the fascist military re-conquered that land. Does this answer your question?
You seem to be fearful of other people in general, regardless of the circumstances. You seem to want to be just left alone and fear other people whom you view as just wanting to prevent you from painting your door black. You seem to fear collective action by the have-nots to take real power, and you label it a 'mob' and a 'dictatorship.' I suggest that such an outlook renders you no threat whatsoever to the ruling billionaire plutocracy that treats the have-nots like dirt; no threat whatsoever. The billionaires love it when people fear other people this way. I am sorry that you seem to have this fear.
I would like to comment on the posts of Lady and John, if I may.
I sense a problem in imagining things that once were and what is the reality today.
21 st century people are so far removed from the earth and having the ability to sustain ourselves . The Amish are looked upon as 'backwards' , yet a 12 year old boy knows more about the qualities of each piece of wood and the proper feasibility to use it in building, to achieve the most favorable
strength, flexibility, support and wear in each designed project. A teenage girl knows every aspect of soil preparation, seed generation, animal care, food preparation, clothes and household good manufacturing than most 50 year old 'English' men and women.
I believe I can safely say.... You would never find any millionaires clamoring to be a part of that society. It would seem revolting to them to be part of something where they have to 'serve' others, rather than to be served.
It is my understanding in the Indian culture, the 'Chief' was not like Hollywood portrayed him.... as the 'head' of the band of the camp.
He was more of an arbitrator to bring different ones together to solve an issue or address a problem. No Indian was forced or designated
to do anything he or she did not want to. If they did something that was inappropriate to the 'band', they were 'shunned ' much like the Amish do. But could come back if they redeemed themselves.
So what I'm getting at is ... Without a society based on money, hierarchy or class where there always has to be loser, a have-not or someone to look down upon for those who need to be served to feel good about themselves..... It becomes so hard to imagine
that people were behaving in a good and honest manner other than what you see today where people.....after generations of being looked down upon and abused are behaving poorly.
The Nazis achieved control over people thru constant fear and chaos to the point where father and sons were killing each other over a piece of bread.. Jesus foretold that at the end of time... All people would become Bad..
I personally believe that was misrepresented
to mean the Bad would become Worst. Which is happening today.
That is why I believe we must physically separate ourselves from the Have's in order to find Peace in this World.
Just saying.....
Thank you for your thoughtful comment and for engaging with me on this topic.
Regarding your, "even your writings & solutions support the systems which you propose to make fair, more egalitarian. replacing one dictatorship with another is no real change. demanding another recognize, acknowledge, acquiesce, grant, honor, appease, award is still subservient, is still supremacy, is still control which can be snatched away and giving away our power," I don't understand your point. Please say what you believe is wrong with my saying that the people in a local community who oppose class inequality should be the sovereign power in that local community, and not the people who want class inequality. It seems live a wonderful idea to me; why not to you?
By the way, if you think that there should not be any sovereign power, then I ask you to read what I wrote about that idea at https://www.pdrboston.org/yes-we-need-a-good-government .
I never advocated that HOAs of people who want to prevent others from painting their door black should have sovereign power. What I DID advocate is that people who oppose class inequality and support mutual aid and equality and fairness and truth, and not those with the contrary values, should have sovereign power. And my article that you read is about the fact that there almost certainly will be SOME people--good or bad--who will in fact, for better or for worse, hold sovereign power. The question, therefore, is not WHETHER people should hold sovereign power but rather WHAT people.
Do you think people who want slavery should be allowed to hold sovereign power, as they did in the American South once? Do you think that the people who wish to DENY THE SLAVE OWNERS THE 'FREEDOM' TO OWN SLAVES and who use FORCE to prevent the slave owners from owning slaves are, merely because they use force against some people to tell them what they can and cannot do, therefore a BAD DICTATORSHIP, a 'mob'?
Do you think that, since it is wrong in your view for people to use force against other people because that is what a mob dictatorship does, therefore nobody should use force to prevent slave owners from owning slaves?
What do you think?
Sovereign power in a region is defined as simply the power in a region that is greater than any contrary power. Thus when the sovereign power creates a law, it has, by definition, the power to enforce that law and it has the power to physically prevent anybody in the region from breaking the law without suffering some kind of serious punishment. There is nothing in this definition about whether the sovereign power does good or does evil. With the one exception that I discuss in my article that I linked to earlier about government--an exception not likely to occur in our lifetime where we live--there will inevitably be a sovereign power, perhaps one that does good or perhaps one that does evil.
Therefore, the only practical way to ensure that the sovereign power does good is to do what it takes to make it be that the sovereign power consists of people who aim to do good. Otherwise the sovereign power will be composed of people who aim to do evil (such as maintain slavery or some other form of class inequality and injustice.)
To denounce ALL sovereign power as "a dictatorship of a mob" amounts in practice to allowing the current sovereign power to remain in power, since it amounts in practice to refusing to do what it takes to have a sovereign power of people who aim to do good.
Now, to answer your question "in practice how would that sovereign power be imposed upon the community? how would it be imposed upon those who support "class" or supremacy in any form?":
How about you read this fascinating eyewitness account (it is at https://www.pdrboston.org/a-local-assembly-meeting-spain-1937 ) of what I would call a "Local Assembly of Egalitarians" (which is what I advocate should be the sovereign power) that occurred around 1937 in the part of Spain that the egalitarians (who called themselves anarchists) liberated from the large landlords. They liberated it from the large landlords by forming a voluntary militia that fought to prevent the fascist General Franco from defeating the peasants and workers with his military force. Whenever the anarchist militia defeated the fascist military forces in a region (such as where the meeting with the eyewitness report took place) then the big landowners and big capitalists fled that region and went to where the fascist military was still in control, with the expectation that they would return and re-claim their large land holdings when the fascist military re-conquered that land. Does this answer your question?
You seem to be fearful of other people in general, regardless of the circumstances. You seem to want to be just left alone and fear other people whom you view as just wanting to prevent you from painting your door black. You seem to fear collective action by the have-nots to take real power, and you label it a 'mob' and a 'dictatorship.' I suggest that such an outlook renders you no threat whatsoever to the ruling billionaire plutocracy that treats the have-nots like dirt; no threat whatsoever. The billionaires love it when people fear other people this way. I am sorry that you seem to have this fear.
See my comment