Originally Posted by
Swordsmyth
I was not referring to technology, the Romans conquered all of the tribal peoples within their reasonable reach with no significant technological advantages, it was their superior organization.
I know you weren't referring to technology. You were trying to argue that Statist organization offered superior form over anarchist social forms. I pointed out that this isn't true, it is technology that allowed such advances.
The Romans had serious technological advances over the mostly Germanic tribes of Europe, including steel armor, weapons, siege weapons, even Greek Fire. Even with those they were never able to take anything past the Rhine or north of Hadrian's Wall. Rome was very successful at defeating variously organized states -Carthage, Egypt, the city-states of Greece, Persia, etc.- but never was able to truly pacify the tribes of Western Europe -the Germanics, Ireland, Scotland, etc.- or the Eastern European tribes -such as the Huns, Magyars, etc.
The only thing that delayed the conquest of some North American Indians was the Europeans chosen pace of expansion
Yeah, and that thing that set the pace? Native American resistance.
America's "small wars" are not significantly different from anarchy and we have had far less crime and tyranny at home than anarchy or tribalism would have produced, and you are ignoring other countries like Switzerland and the many cases of major atrocities committed by anarchic or tribal societies.
Statist wars are always different from anarchy. Indeed, most of America's "small wars" were highly organized military campaigns ordered by the central national authority.
Far less tyranny? Tell that to the millions of slaves with no rights, the millions of women held just higher than slaves with few to no rights, to all those forced into subservience and poverty by Jim Crow and burned alive for the crime of talking to a white woman, those who have suffered and died since the planting of Fascism in America during WWI and the establishment of American Fascism during the Great Depression, the millions drafted and murdered by the State for its pleasure and power, the 317 million today who live in a police state. Far less tyranny? You're delusional. At no time has America ever been a "free" country.
I'm not ignoring the limits of anarchist society. Anarchists aren't utopians. They recognize that humans are capable of great evil. Which is why you don't give them power in the first place. The only one ignoring the reality are those utopians who keep trying to justify the existence of the State.
Anarchy can't last and is rife with injustice and tribal societies are always tyrannical, therefore you must create a government designed to limit tyranny in order to come as close to perfection as is possible in this corrupt world.
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