[Kaj]

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Not that my opinion will be taken seriously, but I strongly agree with Kaj. ACers (here at least) hurt their own position by dogma, refusal to concede points and absolutist thinking. I've seen people make ridiculous claims like akin to "no business could ever want to rip off customers in the abscence of a government" on the one hand and then on they'll accuse statists of "holding ACism to a higher standard than statism". You hold it to a higher standard yourselves when you defend unreasonable claims. I'm not saying all ACists here do that, just some. The absolute morality and legitimacy things are hard sells too. These attitudes would be off putting to me if I was a strong supporter of libertarian principles (should be your target audience). I'm not though so I'd be unsympathetic to AC either way.

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Do you understand how incredibly difficult it is to argue against the status quo? Especially one so firmly entrenched? Its the ultimate crutch. Just look at what people think would happen if the state went away. You can get them to list hundreds or thousands of atrocities or inefficiencies or problems with statism but then they just immediately default back again to "well I'm alive and breathing, and I live in a statist society, so everything is basically great and BIG SCARY CHANGE!!" Its a ridiculously unfair playing field. I think it might be legitimate for the ACers to be granted a little leeway.

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WTF does this post mean?

I am a staunch opponent of the status quo and very sympathetic to AC theory but am saying that the mangling of anarchist thought by ACists through their absolutist value system which they believe to be an objective standard hurts the cause of liberty (as well as reason).

So why should we give those who have a blind spot to their own theory which causes us to go round and round the same worn out circle some "leeway"? This board would be 10 times better and we could really have some interesting debate if those ACists in question just recognized that their absolutist "morality" is just... not.

Edit: This forum sucks because ACists give each other too much leeway. And other groups give too much leeway to those with their own beliefs. You are all divided up into little camps. People like pvn and Boro and the like all come running out to jump on statists but rarely if ever challenge each others views because that would be "attacking" each other and we must stand united for the cause, right. Well bull [censored]. If the cause is reason and meaningful debate, we need to stop giving those with like-minded views so much "leeway" and start challenging our own biases. That is why I respect AlexM and hmkpoker above all other posters here.