How I Became an Anarchist
I recently discovered that I am an anarchist. I never thought about it much until sometime in the last several months. I do not really know with precision the moment in time when I felt suspicious of government, but to me it seems that it was always there. After reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm when I was in the eighth grade, I think I especially became disdainful of government and the bureaucracy and hierarchy involved. Were not all men equal? To quote Animal Farm, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” This is contradictory to the beliefs and ideologies of many people.
As I stated, I have always been suspicious of government. I remember once as a child being harassed for sticking my tongue out at a police officer. This was disrespectful, to be sure, however, this simply reinforces my point. It may have been the rebellion in me, or it could have been some knowledge at a young age as to the injustices placed upon individuals by the so-called “justice system.” Growing up in a home that was poverty-stricken, I knew full well how those who are in economic distress tend to find the “law” not necessarily moral. On the contrary, I found, as I grew older, that the law is often quite the opposite.
As I mentioned in a previous post, in my high school sociology class, for my main project, I focused on the “War on Marijuana.” This was something that reflected not only my own personal tendencies toward self-medication, but also reflected my personal religious and social beliefs and ideologies. This reinforced my knowledge of the harm that the State has done to individuals for nothing but personal gain from the infringement on the rights of others. I have always known that there are going to be laws that are unjust when the will of the few is placed upon many and vice versa. This brings to mind a quote I saw once on the walls of a courtroom in Vernon County, Wisconsin. I cannot quote it verbatim, but it basically said that whatever a man desires cannot be wrong. This can be argued against in the case of serial killers and rapists, but these are such a low statistic that it is easy to say that these cases are an anomaly. I firmly believe in the good of other human beings. I think that most people just want to be free to live their lives without the crushing demands that society puts upon them. Most people want to do what is right for themselves and do not wish to infringe upon the rights of others, thus it is the State that creates criminals, not humans themselves.
This brings me to another point in my life when I truly became more enchanted by this thing called Liberty. I had been married to a drug dealer for six years, practicing agorism without even knowing it, and after the raid on our home and subsequent incarceration for “crimes” committed, I was “awakened” to the ideal of true freedom. This may be simply because I finally appreciated my freedom after spending a short time in jail. To be sure, though I still respected “law enforcement,” I was ever suspicious of the deviants that preyed upon the weak behind a badge and a gun after having been attacked and falsely arrested only two years prior, which is a tale for another post all-together.
Anyway, after being released from my incarceration, I was awakened to how much this world is becoming more and more like George Orwell’s 1984. The government has all the makings of completing Orwell’s tale and will likely do so if more of the masses do not take charge and do something about it. I was definitely interested more in restoring the United States to a Constitutional Democratic Republic than anarchy for several months until it came to me that the Constitution, democracy, and a republic, are all systems that are flawed simply through being human-created systems. I have said for quite a while now that “any system created by humans will be flawed because human beings are flawed.”
I never gave the issue much thought before my incarceration, but it seems that most anarchists just want to be free to make their own choices and live their own lives, which is what most people of other political ideologies want. So, when I think of these facts, along with the fact that the government is the foremost perpetrator of infringement on civil liberties, I wonder why people cannot understand the principles of liberty along with the notion of liberty itself. How can we be free to understand the consequences of our actions if the State will lessen such consequences for such offenses as rape and murder as opposed to use and/or sale of drugs? How can we be expected to allow the will of others to define our actions as right or wrong? As a Christian, more precisely, a Catholic, isn’t it my choice to accept the consequences of my actions on my own terms rather than those of others who deem themselves more worthy to create “laws” that only infringe on that right of choice?
