On the G20

[illusionofjoy]

One would hope that this is the final day of madness. I've been home all week long, going ever-so-slightly stir-crazy with no set routine to keep my brain in order. Like many businesses in downtown Pittsburgh, upper management at my place of employment decided that it was better to let the majority of employees stay home for the week rather than try and maintain normal operations during the G20 Summit. I'm happy about that, as downtown has been fortified while world leaders play pinball with the future of the economy.

Of course, it was never the world leaders who worried me. It was the radicals opposed to whatever you could throw at them. While most protesters are content to walk around with a placard while chanting - and, really, there's nothing I find objectionable about that - there are always fringe elements intent on getting violent and destructive. In cases like these, I have no sympathy for the so-called "protesters." In fact, I take the very callous stance that the police should taze and tear-gas the lot of them. Exhibit A: a video where a woman throws her bicycle at a police officer for no other reason than she was being told to move along. She was rightly arrested for her actions.

And then we have these jagoffs (allegedly from the "G20 Resistance Project") rolling dumpsters at police cars:

That scene was recorded yesterday afternoon in Lawrenceville, a blue-collar neighbourhood east of downtown. The Resistance Project made a big deal about how they were going to march downtown without a permit, only to end up stopped by police in Lawrenceville to never make it to their destination. Prior to the march, a representative of the group made a claim to local news station KDKA that they were not there to incite violence but to simply "allow individuals to resist the G20 in any way they saw fit." I dare note that he said nothing about preventing violence or discouraging a mob mentality.

It was last night, however, where the actions of the malcontents reached a fever pitch. Numerous businesses in Oakland were damaged, including the locally-owned Pamela's Diner. I can't condone smashing out the windows of any business - at best, it's counterproductive to getting one's message across (assuming one actually has a message in the first place) - but it cuts particularly deep when a sole proprietorship gets hit as capriciously as a multi-national corporation. Is this an act against globalisation, capitalism in general or just run of the mill domestic terrorism?

And I am forced to wonder: do these kids - as most of those involved in the property destruction and vandalism are college students - really know or understand what they are doing or what they think they are fighting against? From my (admittedly safe) vantage point these all look like rebels without a cause or a clue.

Here's the cold, hard truth: anarchy, like communism does not work. There can never be a true anarchist society like there can never be a true communist society because the selfishness and violence inherit to human nature will always prevent such things from happening. The display of violence last night and yesterday afternoon attest to that. You are fighting against that nebulous concept of "the man" for what? To "live free" in the rubble? You're an idiot.

Any system of government or economy is not inherently evil. Good and evil are human concepts and human reactions to the consequences of a human application of said system or resistance therein. I've heard the phrase "no gods, no masters" applied to the anarchist philosophy and I'd have to amend that to correct for intent: no gods or masters save for oneself. If anything, anarchy seems to be libertarianism on steroids.

A few months ago I attended a town hall meeting held by Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA18). The subject was health insurance reform and, as expected, there were plenty of misguided people decrying "socialised healthcare" and claiming that the government never does anything right and that government programs never work.

While not getting too much into why the Obamacare bill (HR3200) doesn't even remotely resemble socialism and that the Medicare for All act (HR676) should be the bill Congress passes, I'd like to make a list of failed socialistic government programs:

The Interstate Highway System
Ever been caught in traffic during your commute to work? Well, komrade, you can blame that red Dwight Eisenhower for your woes. It was President Eisenhower who signed the Interstate Highway Act into law, thus enslaving millions of good Americans to the tyranny of state-owned highways and the horror of free-flowing communist transportation. Everyone knows that roads are best when owned by private corporations on the free market and drivers have to pay a toll in order to use them.

Police and Fire Departments
Public safety is a most pernicious socialist program. If your house is robbed, why report it to the police when a private security company would be much more efficient. For the right price, Blackwater is available to aid in all of your home security needs. Meanwhile, should your house catch on Fire, don't you dare call those red stooges at the fire department! Contact the your homeowner insurance company - they would be more than happy to send their own fleet of fire trucks to douse the conflagration, so long as your premiums are paid up. Just make sure they don't use any of that socialised water from the nearby government fire hydrant - all good Americans have their own wells dug on their property.

Public Schools
Rick Santorum is dead right: home school your children so they don't get indoctrinated by President Obama's obvious communist sympathies. What's that? You have to go to work and you can't home school your children? Bring them to work with you and have them learn the family trade - it worked in the 19^th century.

The Postal Service
Who needs this socialised, government-run package delivery service when FedEx, UPS and DHL are fine, upstanding private enterprises which deliver a package just as well, if not better? Free yourself from the tyranny of the red letter (if you haven't already with email).

I trust you've seen the sarcasm there. The point of the matter is that the same people at that town hall meeting getting their shorts twisted over "socialised healthcare" and "government interference" would likely balk at the suggestion that they get the government out of their lives by starting their own anarchist commune.

I see the anarchists in Oakland last night and I think of the Tea Party people; both groups, though different in approach and demographics are cut from the same clueless cloth: they think beating at the outside of the system will change it. This isn't the case. There is only one way to change the system: become part of it and begin altering it from the inside, much in the same way a virus invades a cell and restructures the DNA sequence of the cell nucleus. Of course, given how misguided so many of these people are, I fear the day any of them manage to get into "the system" to start altering it.