Who Is IOZ?: In a Universe Where Nothing Is True, Nothing Is Permitted

Thursday, October 29, 2009

In a Universe Where Nothing Is True, Nothing Is Permitted

Via Prof Crispy, a suprisingly interesting article on the Twitter Anarchist. Any additional commentary would be supurfluous, so I'll just pass on this bit of wisdom from my uncle, a trial lawyer in Pittsburgh. We both worked Downtown and used to carpool together. I once asked him if, in his experience, the clients he defended were more often guilty or innocent. He said: "They're all guilty. Everyone is guilty. This is America. The only question is: are the guilty of what they've been accused of?"

28 comments:

Anonymous said...: Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero!; 11:14 AM
Anonymous said...: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski? Is it a willingness to do whats right, no matter the cost?

What's a pederast, Walter?; 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...: He's a pervert, dude.; 12:13 PM
Montag said...: so not only can you not yell "fire!" in a moviehouse, you also cannot tweet "cops!" in a hotel room?

i've got news for you. the supreme court has roundly rejected prior restraint!; 12:19 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm so happy that anarchism is once again the new Iranian Martin Luther Kingdom.

So happy, in fact, that I'm going to start a riot in my office breakroom at 12:31 pm. Tweet me, yo.; 12:20 PM
Christopher M. said...: I like the part where they seize, as "evidence", bumper stickers and political posters in his home. Evidence of thought-crime, right there on the wall!; 12:38 PM
zencomix said...: The possession of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer dvds should land him 3 to 5 years, with time off for good behavior, if he's lucky.; 12:40 PM
Justin said...: off topic:
"I keep asking people what the motive is for all this. Is it shock doctrine, greed, fear, political strategy, slave mentality ... what? What is the real reason that, at every step of the way, the government has not just enabled the Masters of the Universe, but actively, openly protected and promoted them?"
Digby

Ioz, does this sort of question tempt you to walk back your pledge on not hammering Digby?; 2:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Chris M -- the "political poster" in question, was, in fact, a picture of Lenin.; 2:19 PM
Christopher M. said...: Oh, well, that explains it, then. I'm fine with the prosecution of political opinions as long as they're naughty political opinions.; 2:21 PM
Montag said...: i am the walrus.; 2:26 PM
Montag said...: should i get rid of the kitschy Mao medallion my friend brought me from his trip to China? and what about my "Giblets is my copilot" bumper stickers?; 2:29 PM
AlanSmithee said...: Mongo only pawn...in game of life.; 2:33 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...: Justin, will Miss Digby ever get a clue?; 3:07 PM
The Medium Lobster said...: will Miss Digby ever get a clue?

Digby is allowed to vote for a clue every two-to-four years, but feels the need to dutifully limit herself to major-party clues, as it would be irresponsible to throw her vote away on clues from a third party.; 3:36 PM
Keifus said...: Well, he does look suspiciously like Nicola Sacco. Didn't he have a partner?; 4:08 PM
erin4iraq said...: How Dictionary.com defines "Anarchy":

1. a state of society without government or law.
2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.
3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
4. confusion; chaos; disorder: Intellectual and moral anarchy followed his loss of faith.

Anarchists' lawyer's argument:

"The warrant's vagueness and lack of specificity encouraged the agents to use their own discretion and their own views of the political universe to seize, or not to seize, items which they thought were evidence of a violation of the federal anti-riot statute. The law and the Constitution do not allow this."

Mr. Madison may need to reexamine his politics.; 4:21 PM
Justin said...: Well, I wouldn't hold onto much hope for the Sex Pistols tapes ... or the tape deck.; 4:31 PM
Montag said...: Mr. Madison may need to reexamine his politics.

indeed. what a hypocrite!

it would have been a lot simpler if he'd been arrested in an anarchist utopia, instead of getting himself arrested in whatever the fuck this is we have here. a REAL anarchist would forgo a "lawyer" and attempt to confuse the system with chaos. maybe Jonathan Lee Riches could help.; 4:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Yeah but do you think Smerdyakov cares? Now gods, stand up for bastards!; 4:36 PM
erin4iraq said...: Montag, I agree, Madison's response to this course of events, asserting his legal rights and expressing indignation against a government that is ignoring its bedrock principles, makes no sense whatsoever.; 4:45 PM
Enron said...: Look, we all know who is at fault here, what the fuck are you talking about?; 4:52 PM
Fledermaus said...: Let me check with the boys down at the crime lab, they got four more detectives working on the case. They got us working in shifts.; 5:02 PM
Leonard said...: Didn't he have a partner?

Sure, his wife Vanzetti was mentioned in the article.

Me, I'm loving the irony of an anarchist social worker. Clamp down hard on the government teat; that'll show the Man! But of course I kid. His being a social worker is as utterly unsurprising as his wife being an urban planner (anarchist urban planners!) or her having a revered family portrait of Lenin.; 5:48 PM
Christopher M. said...: An anarchist who has not entirely divorced himself from non-anarchist society? For shame! If he had any real principles, he'd be in a shack in the woods, living exclusively off berries and hunted game.; 11:05 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...: erin, here's a better example for you:

"I'd always wanted to write a song for that old man. He never wanted one about
him - he's that way - but something mulched up out of his thought, his
anarchist thought. Anarchist in the best sense of the word. Oh so many times
he stood up in front of Federal District Judge Ritter, that old fart, and he'd
be picked up for picketing illegally, and he never plead innocent or guilty -
he plead anarchy.

And Ritter'd say, "What's an anarchist, Hennacy?" and Ammon would say, "Why an
anarchist is anybody who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do." Kind of a
fundamentalist anarchist, huh?

And Ritter'd say, "But Ammon, you broke the law, what about that?" and Ammon'd
say, "Oh, Judge, your damn laws the good people don't need 'em and the bad
people don't obey 'em so what use are they?"

Well I lived there for eight years, and I watched him, really watched him, and
I discovered watching him that anarchy is not a noun, but an adjective. It
describes the tension between moral autonomy and political authority,
especially in the area of combinations, whether they're going to be voluntary
or coercive. The most destructive, coercive combinations are arrived at
through force.

Like Ammon said, "Force is the weapon of the weak." "; 8:51 AM
NutellaonToast said...: Wouldn't standing around with a sign getting in the way of people be force?

I mean, piss ass weak force, yeah, but force none-the-less.

So, if force is evil but we're currently being forced to do things via force, can we use force to destroy the force? Is there a good side of "the force?" Does every force have an equal an opposite opposing force?

These are questions the anarchists need to answer.; 1:08 PM
Montag said...: These are questions the anarchists need to answer.

no. these are questions that people and institutions that use violent coercive force need to answer.

"piss ass weak force," especially in the form of standing around with a sign in peoples' way, kinda pales in comparison when the other side, say, forcibly steals one third of your income and spends most of it on military supremacy and conquest.

"force is evil" is a pretty fucking broad characterization of an anarchist worldview. though as a straw man, it's equally effective on the anarchist that firebombs a Nordstrom's as the one who hits a nail with a hammer or goes bowling.; 7:53 AM

Thursday, October 29, 2009

In a Universe Where Nothing Is True, Nothing Is Permitted

28 comments:

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