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SOMETIMES TELLING THE TRUTH makes you seem like a moron or lunatic, at least people tend to think so. This is perhaps the reason anarchists are thought of as lunatics. But the logic is clear: why would you need an army unless to fight wars? Why do the police need guns unless to scare and intimidate the public?
I carefully avoided using the word “march” in the title, though I had thought of using it. Perhaps I have entered into a fallacy, now? But I didn’t want that association with war. With “the troops”, with their horrible, official uniforms, arms, and incitement of murder. I hate war. I hate governments, too. Governments are aggressors. An aggressor, we would all agree, is somebody who tries to control the actions of another; and they do this through force, most often violent; only rarely is the threat of violence not followed up upon. This is true of Governments; but Governments are far worse. Governments enforce their aggressorship through the terrorist organization known as the police. A terrorist organization is a group of people whose job it is to scare people into doing what they want. The policemen and policewomen do this by wearing guns to scare you into obeying them. The police, being linked with Governments (the police is the terrorist arm of the aggressor Governments; they are there merely to ensure that the will of Governments is carried out), are therefore aggressors, too.
People go to prison for minor things. Prison as an institution is as wrong, corrupt, and pointless as those of the police and of Governments. Prison cannot and does not work for the simple fact that recidivism is at an all-time high; in other words, people who come out of prison more often than not end up back there again shortly afterwards. Prisons provide books and educational materials so that criminals can be smarter upon release. Prisons also provide gyms and provide mandatory exercise, so that criminals can be bigger and stronger upon release. Do you see something happening here? To return back to my point of people going to prison for minor things: for example, if a poor man stole a loaf of bread, this would be seen as breaking “the law” (an act of rebellion against the tight rules of Government). For breaking “the law”, he would go to prison. “The law” (I refuse to view it as anything more than a temporary measure; this cannot surely last, for reasons I will go into later), made by Government, also mentions that it is wrong to steal, wrong to kill. The man who stole a loaf of bread because he was poor is sitting in prison. Yet the real criminals are enjoying trips all over the world; the real criminals work in Government, and they sanction theft and extortion through taxes; they sanction murder through acts of war and the army. Some say that the army is necessary to maintain the peace. But why should I continually believe in war to achieve peace? This is wrong, and is self-apparent. Having an army is also likely to increase the likelihood of going to war, too; and it is the countries with the biggest armies that wage the bloodiest wars. The army is nothing more than a factory which trains once-ordinary people that it is okay for them to kill people. “To protect the peace,” or “To help others who need it.” Even if there were no enemies, the army would have to invent some, because otherwise they’d not be able to justify their existence. And, to me, it is by making up so-called threats that forces many people into believing that an army is necessary. “They’ll protect me if we go to war.” But this sounds as if going to war is not a prerogative taken by the army; when, in fact, it evidently is. The army is not interested in protecting citizens like you or me. The army is interested only in protecting its cause, and as I said, does so by creating threats that make people think they need to depend upon the army. Wrong!
The law-making system is supposed to have a sense of justice. Many people do have faith in their law systems, in their courts, in their bureaucracy of bullshit. But, as we already know, governments are aggressors: they want to control all the people who live under their rule. Governments don’t just make law; they are the law. And the police act out the will of Government, necessarily by wearing guns to scare you into obeying them. It is clear, then, that “justice” in relation to Governments really means a wanting to set up and rule over man; necessarily dividing them. This isn’t justice. Justice should be a thing between equals: between those who do not have rulers, and those who do not rule. That the system of today involves rulers, and that it involves those being ruled (the second class is far bigger than the first: a relatively tiny minority rule over a huge majority), isn’t and can never be justice. Even if Governments (“the law”) say that it is what exists.
If anarchism is not on the increase, then party dealignment certainly is. For example, in the UK, in the decade 1950, voter turnout of those eligible to vote in the General Election was higher than 85%. By 2001, 85% had plummeted to 56% turnout of all of those eligible to vote in the General Election. This is just in the UK. Probably most countries that have had for a long time the so-called “gift” of being able to vote have suffered a decline in voter turnout. As I said: anarchism may not be on the increase (there are no statistics for this), but party dealignment certainly is (there are figures, and plenty of them, for this; huge money is made by people who write books about General Elections, and they have all of the statistics required for your knowledge in them). As for those countries where voting isn’t a “gift”, e.g. where it is “forced” upon them, it’s a similar thing. And in any case, any vote for a Government is a vote for enslaving yourself, if, indeed, you vote (or even if you don’t; it is inevitable that, somewhere, somebody will vote to enslave you “on your behalf”; and they’ll call it “democracy”, not “slavery”, because “slavery”, they claim, has been abolished in the West for many years, and is deemed unacceptable; we’ve just got a new system of slavery, which under the guise of ballot-boxes and slips of paper and people rolling around in battle-busses, is apparently a thing that is okay).
Some people consider anarchism to be unrealistic--a “pipe dream”. Some people say that “Governments are necessary”. And so they are!--if you believe it is necessary to make peaceful people do what they don’t want to. As we know, laws exist to make them do so. But laws are pointless; as Ammon Hennacy said: “Oh, Judge, your damn laws! The good people don’t need them, and the bad people don’t follow them, so what use are they?” How are Governments necessary for freedom? They’re not. They’re necessary to coerce, to make you do what you don’t want to. How can laws serve justice? They can’t, because first of all, simply by there being laws, justice is killed and replaced with the same word: “justice” . . . and if the second word sounds phoney, that’s exactly because it is. If anybody can persuade me otherwise, then I’ll give up my right to call myself an anarchist.
The truth is so simple that people tend to overlook it or miss it completely. Armies are pointless. Simply by being in existence, they encourage war. When they're actually doing something, they're killing. Governments coerce people into doing what they do not want to do; and they make sure you do it by having policemen and policewomen, who wear guns to scare you into obeying them, enforce their will. People go to prison for minor things, while the biggest criminals (the heads of State, Government) enjoy trips all over the world on chartered jets. These biggest criminals steal from and extort people through taxes, and permit murder through war and having an army; and the voters tell them through their vote that this is okay. I don't think it is. I am a human being, and I want what is rightfully mine: freedom. I wrote this essay because of that.
by Jamie Poole
 
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