The Founding Fathers and Anarchism
From my Anarcho-Capitalism MySpace group:
Beethoven’s 10th (Ⓐ$) wrote:Something I wonder is, why weren't the founders of the U.S. Anarchists? They seemed to be pretty opposed to the concept of government, & you'd think that such intelligent & educated people would be able to see through the gaping paradoxes in Statism. So, why didn't they found an Anarchy, instead of a Republic?
Consider the opening sections of the Declaration of Independence:When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...
[...]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Who knows what the founders would have thought about modern-day AnCap ideas...but given the words above and given that they took on one of the most powerful nations in the world, I bet they wouldn't be as reflexively against it as so many people are today.
Comments
The founders would be spending less time talking about the destruction of the American way of life (not you, but the radio shows that ceaselessly decry the state of things but engage in no action) and more time throwing tea in harbors -- or something similar.
Posted by: TQ | January 5, 2008 11:11 PM