Speakout: The battle between law and anarchy

Lisa Jones, Special to the News

Published December 2, 2005 at midnight

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When government seems hopelessly corrupt, who can resist the edgy allure of anarchy and the fundamental re-ordering of society it promises?

Throw out the bums and dismantle the apparatus of war, oppression, pollution and bad vibes. Peel their filthy laws off my body and my bank account. Sounds so simple, so obvious.

Reminds me of the ironic slogan: "Anarchy rules!"

I saw it on a bumper sticker in Los Angeles in the late '80s, so it may have been a punk rock thing.

Still, it rings true. Anarchy isn't about no rules.

It's about new rules. And they aren't necessarily your rules or mine.

I wonder if most political debates today aren't between right and left, but between anarchism and rule of law.

By rule of law I mean the U.S. Constitution and our system of representative democracy. I mean Equal Justice Under Law, as inscribed on the Supreme Court building. Not that we necessarily have equal justice under law in America, but that's the plan. And it's a better plan than any I've heard from an anarchist.

Among the many flavors of anarchy is Christian anarchism, which preaches that secular laws unjustly impinge upon God's law. Heroes of the left like Thoreau and Tolstoy have articulated Christian anarchism. But its Siamese twin on the right is the religious fundamentalist movement that would, at its most extreme, ban homosexuality, contraception and abortion.

Maybe that sounds heavenly to a few, but I don't want to supplant the U.S. Constitution with biblical law. I don't see how a lesbian Buddhist like me could live freely in such a society - which may be the point.

Green anarchism sounds good, like a lush overgrown garden. But its proponents are anti-civilization.

Civilization is inherently exploitive of the environment and of human beings. To free us all and save our planet, civilization must be subverted.

I like museums, coffeehouses, medical science and symphony orchestras, as well as more mundane expressions of civilization such as indoor plumbing.

I usually feel freer after I've had a shower.

Besides, many green anarchists support monkeywrenching, a euphemism for vandalism and burning down ski lodges. I distrust any movement that justifies violent or destructive means to an end.

Oh, but they call it "defense of Mother Earth," so that makes vandalism OK, and a load of righteous fun to boot!

I distrust those who say that aggression and coercion ultimately result in benefit. So maybe I'm like the anarcho-capitalists who oppose government conscription and the use of military force unless it's a clear, contractually defined case of self-defense.

But anarcho-capitalists also oppose taxation and the very existence of the state. They want to privatize all public institutions, such as schools, and rely on a self-regulating competitive marketplace instead of government.

They must mean self-regulating in the sense that foxes are self-regulating in a henhouse.

Plus, I don't mind chipping in for public roads, schools and sewer systems. Insofar as tax revenues are used wisely for the common good, I support limited taxation.

Naturally, there are anarchists who claim that capitalism itself is evil and therefore must be abolished. These are usually the same people who want a do-over of Maoist tyranny to prove that collectivism is, really, when done correctly, a wonderful system.

Once more with feeling, comrade.

Anarchism is most often associated with people whose politics are informed by inexperienced idealism, disdain for authority and the ingestion of drugs. But these are the easily dismissed anarchists.

The ones who scare me are those who sit in Congress or the legislature or corporate boardrooms and declare their contempt for government. They talk of drowning it in the bathtub. Dismantling legal protections like habeas corpus, for example, isn't conservatism. It's a step toward anarchism.

To help protect us from the worst impulses of human nature and from the excesses of government, laws are necessary. Under the current system, I have some say in those laws. I can vote, challenge laws and their enforcement in court, protest in the street and talk smack to my heart's content. It's a workable system.

The philosophical divide in this country is not between left and right, but between those who want to work within our system of legal checks and balances and those who want to take the system apart for whatever reason.

It's a choice between equal justice under law and "Anarchy rules!"

Lisa Jones is a writer in Denver. Reach her at HeyJones@gmail.com.

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