I have mentioned, more than once, my complicated
thoughts about the state… and I have changed my viewpoint
about the state, three times… from birth to about 21,
I was a moderate Democrat, simply just following the
political beliefs of my parents… as children do…
I had no reason to doubt or challenge my beliefs…
at the election of Ronald Raygun, in 1981, I was 21, I
had my first political change… I saw how Raygun damaged
California during his governorship… and I didn’t want that
extensive damage to go national… it did and we still are
trying to recover from his failed policies… Raygun is perhaps,
the third worse president in American history…
after some thought, I became an anarchist… I was tempted
by communism and I read a whole lot of Marxist thought including
Marx… but in the end, deciding for Anarchism… and I agree with that
choice even 40 years after the fact…
and I was an anarchist until the mid-nineties, when because
of a changing environment, personal change, I change to a
more moderate position… but still a radical democrat…
where I am today… but as I have mentioned before, I am rethinking
my current position…
so I have a long and complicated relationship with the ‘‘state’’
now some seem to think my position with the state is
monolithic and one-sided, but in reality, it is varied and fractured…
I hold to situational ethics and I too hold to situational government/
state… the uses and abuses of the state is situational…
in some instances, the state/government is the single best way to go,
and in other cases, not so much… I disapprove of much of what
the state does… and I approve of other aspects of government/state…
depending on the situation…
for example, I agree that the state should be used to equalize
the economic situation of people…poor people should be
helped to a better situation in life… and the wealthy and rich,
should be controlled and held accountable for their actions 'and
wealth… one way of thinking about this is the saying,
“Tax the wealthy and corporations, not the poor”
and I believe in this and why? because I hold in the basic
American ideal that “all men/people are created equal”
and government is needed to enforce and hold people
to this basic human reality… that “all men/people are created equal”
virtually all my political beliefs stem from this one basic human
reality, “That all men/people are created equal” and if you don’t
understand this about me, you will fail to understand my
political beliefs…
Now is this a “Universal/all existence at all times belief”? NO, no it is
not, but I do hold to this because no other political belief makes as much sense
as this “truth”… but I can justify this belief better than all other political beliefs…
now do I support the state in all instances, in all matters, NO…
the Government is wrong quite a bit of the time… ’
examples for me that the government being wrong is in
capital punishment, acts of violence over diplomacy, treating
individuals as in the wealthy or powerful or corporations as
as another, separate class over the average person as being wrong…
attacks on a class of citizens, for example the ‘‘just say No’’
of the 80’ties is a not so disguised attack upon blacks and
other minorities…
to some extent of public safety, for example requiring people
to wear masks, is an excellent example of government being
right…and the Governmental attacks on gays or LGBTQI or whatever that
abbreviation is, is wrong…the value of government is in protecting
the rights of its citizens…
and if we hold to the government being a situational government,
with the guiding principle being, “all men/people are created equal”
then we have a more perfect government… a government/state
that will take into account the maxim of
“all men/people are created equal”
and by doing so, will be a fairer, kinder, more just government …
Kropotkin