Freedom to bear arms under Libertarian Communism?

Who defines 'risk' or 'as long as'?

Paedophiles insist that they do not pose a risk to children. By your measure, our commune wouldn't be able to intervene in child abuse, because we 'do not have the right to regulate one's sexuality', and they'd self-define it to suit their own purposes.

The individual who takes it upon themselves to enter into a relationship which is free of coercion and exploitation; that to me is not available to the Commune to regulate. The Commune may advocate this as a freedom in a symbolic expression and as a means of minority protection, but to restrict it? No.

I still think the idea of different strokes for different folks applies.

Lets say I live in a community where individual gun ownership is ok. You live in one where it is not, and any guns that the community possesses are held communally and require consensus for access.

I walk into your community with my gun on my hip. You approach me and say I don't recognise you but we have a bit of a thing in our community that we are aginst individual gun possession and would you mind while you are in town keeping your gun in our communal safebox?

Now I might bring up all sorts of reasons why I might not be comfortable with that and we might debate those back and forth ad nauseum. I might say I understand but I'm not willing to hand over my gun but I'll gladly leave town. I might also say I'm not handing over my gun and I ain't going anywhere. At this point I am sure you would deal with me in the same manner that you would deal with a member of your own community who had obtained access to a communal weapon without permission and was refusing to give it up or leave town. The provisions for which you would surely have already adressed in your decision to keep a community cache.

What worries me is how do you regulate community access to communal weapons without creating some kind of authoritarian elite? That's why personally I go for the different strokes for different folks approach to community development. If gun control is that important then I am sure you could find enough people who share your ideas to establish a successful geographic community with.

Personally I'd rather live in a community which is completely free of firearms or one where there is a pistol unmder every pillow haha than one where there are a few guns regulated with an inequality of access.

That being said though I imagine that in an increasingly successful libertarian communist or anarchist society fewer and fewer people are likely to want guns. I might be wrong on that. Its just my hunch.

Same-sex relations aren't pedophilia LBird, I know that you're aware of my opinion on it.

If the Commune can determine that same-sex relations pose a risk to humanity, we're pretty much fucked.

I'll be pretty fucking out of here quick smart if this is the kind of forum where same sex relationships are frowned upon or argued against with any great frequency. Or for that matter if moderation tolerates it at all.

Who defines 'coercion and exploitation'?

'How'? Democratic accountability, perhaps?

And I haven't suggested that they are, no.25!

FFS, I'm asking a political question. If you let individuals define 'consensual' sex (which, as you say, allows 'same-sex relations'), then surely other individuals can self-define paedophilia as 'consensual sex'?

Talk about 'strawmanning'!

Aren't any of you 'individualists' able to have a political discussion?

It's about 'who decides?', not 'same sex relationships'.

Why do any of you think a democratic commune would ban same sex relationships? Do you also have conservative fears of 'the mob'?

Sorry I didn't mean to straw man. My queer angst got the better of me... I apologise. Although I wasn't suggesting that you were inferring anything homophobic. Just perhaps rather to abruptly making the point. Again I apologise.

I'm open to a political discussion. But politics has to be practiced. What do you mean democratic accountability?

I mean physically how would you set up a communal gun cache? It would have to have a key right to protect children (in the same way that they need to be protected from paedophilia)? Who has the key? Do all responsible adults get a copy? Is it a good idea to have so many keys to the gun cabinet lying around? Or do you just keep it open which raises problems for the safety of children?

That's all i'm saying. That is politics: organisation.

Personally I would rather have 100 different guns with 100 different safe boxes and 100 different keys in a town, than 1 safe box with 5 guns and 5 different keys shared between 100 people, or even 5 guns in 1 safe box with 100 diferent keys between 100 people.

Although like I said I'd most like to live in a community with no guns.

Sure fine, positive liberty and all that jazz, but the moment the Commune attempts to regulate these relations that are both free of coercion and exploitation with regards to a specific minority, it has overstepped its boundaries and assumed a form which can no longer be considered as 'libertarian.'

And like I said, I know that you're familiar with how I feel about pedophilia, i.e. the Commune should indeed prohibit it through force if necessary.

Lol, I'm so proud to be in the individualist camp now, it seems as if I have stumbled into a Vietnamese tiger pit. By the way, I don't fear the working class.

No problems! Thanks for the apology. I have to emphasise again that the central political issue here is 'who decides?', rather than what constitutes a list of subjects which some people as individuals think should be kept away from communal accountability (guns, sex, reading The Beano...).

Who defines 'free', 'coercion' and 'exploitation'? You, no.25, or the commune?

If the Commune decides that my sexual relations which are objectively free of exploitation and coercion are to be prohibited, ME and all those who can identify with my dissent.

This isn't about pedophilia.

You're catching on fast, no.25!

If only the others were as quick as you, we could have a political discussion about 'who decides?'.

[quoted=LBird]I have to emphasise again that the central political issue here is 'who decides?

Who decides is only one of the central issues. Another is how are decisions implemented practically. Its all well and good to say the commune decides who and who may not keep firearms, but I refer to my previous post:

These questions of implementation will vary with the nature of the subject around which decisions are being made, but the variable nature of questions of implementation makes them no less important than questions about who makes the decisions that motivate them. I'm still yet to see a practical explanation of how community access to something like a weapon (which I am sure most would agree require locking away for the safety of children) can be regulated without creating an authoritarian elite (no matter how small), or a situation which is for all practical intents and purposes in terms of access no different to people having their own weapons locked away in their house?

In the same way that you ask who defines "free" or "coercion", I would ask who defines "democratic"? Assuming that your answer is the same to the previous questions - the commune - then how does that commune remain libertarian while peoples desires that do not negatively impinge on other peoples physical, emotional or spiritual freedoms are being regulated against (in this case I would ask that you not use paedophilia as an example)?

Yes, but how can we move to 'practical' issues without clarifying our 'ideas' first?

The method that ignores 'theory' and advocates 'practical' activity without prior clarification is a conservative method.

This is because starting from the world 'as it is' and just dealing with immediate, 'practical', day-to-day issues inevitably means that the status quo ante is favoured: hence, favoured by conservative philosophers. Don't we, in contrast, wish to revolutionise the world? Shouldn't we discuss it, first?

Well, perhaps you missed it earlier, but I suggested 'democratic accountability'. The community controls access to its weapons. This is not 'an authoritarian elite', unless you define any social authority as 'elitist', which I don't.

You don't get it, do you? The 'access' is different: its 'community-based', not 'individual-based'. But if the community decides that its 'community-based' policy is to distribute weapons to be held in each household...

'Libertarian' means 'social' liberty, not 'individual' liberty. That's why we suffix it with 'Communism': y'know, LibCom. We're not 'individualists'. We demand accountable social structures, not a free-for-all beloved of AnCaps. If you define 'Libertarian' as 'Individual Libertarianism', as do the Right, why call yourself a Communist?

Who defines 'negatively impinge'? Each individual, or the commune?

'Paedophilia'? Is the example too revealing of the mess we'd be in if we followed your preferred method of political decision-making, of complete individual freedom?

If you prefer, you suggest an activity which is, to you, me and most others, beyond the pale, and I'll use that example instead.

Jesus between the "meetings about meetings" and the "healthy gun culture", anarchist communism is going to suck the proverbial bollock.

~J.

Just want to say I’m in general agreement with LBird on this thread. It appears to boil down to this:
a view that my idea of free communism should allow me the freedoms I think defines my ideal; or given that other people may well have different ideas as to what constitutes free communism how other than by collective decision making can we co-exist?

If we reject direct democratic decision making, surly a blacklist of topics not open for discussion will be needed. The problem then is how to select which topics is individual choice only! If we insist on dealing in absolutes common sense evaporates.

For the record, I think guns will be generally available, until for example, the first person too zonked to know the difference, starts shooting the local dogs in the belief that a wolf pack is roaming the commune.

Auld-bod nails it. Sorted

i don't see why the militia, weapons club, what ever can't delegate some members to mind the armoury and make sure that al members have access when they need it, these roles could be rotated regularly to prevent a build up of power and the formation of an elite.

Right, I'll leave it now to Auld-bod, Serge Forward and radicalgraffiti to field any more questions.

I think I've made plain what I consider the democratic Communist position to be, and there appear to be enough posters here, who agree with me, for me to give it a rest.

Perhaps someone else re-formulating the answers, with better examples or analogies, will help to persuade our other comrades.

LBird, I have answered who decides every time you ask it. I refuse to answer it, ad infinitum, simply to please you because I am not here to serve you. I'm trying to serve the discussion at large.

If you'd like (or if Serge or Auld would like), the questions I've asked before are still on the table. How does a society based on the democratic process as described here not potentially justify a class society?

Second, how is any construction of individuality irreconcilable with communism? I ask because any time someone raises a concern, you seem to jump from "communes shouldn't regulate what I read" to "I'M A GOD DAMN INDIVIDUAL AND I DO WHAT I PLEASE! RON PAUL 2012!!!11!!!"

Then again, you could just be making a giant straw man.

Been following this thread and playing spot the American posters. Interesting cultural differences.
Personally, I don't have any touchy-feely sentiments about guns - the bodies pile up where I live, what with ongoing mafia wars, trigger happy cops, school shootings. A couple of years ago a neighbour shot and killed his wife and kids. However, I assume that in a communist society, at least as I envision it, the factors which lead to these gun deaths won't exist, so gun ownership is unlikely to cause the same problems as in this culture.
Having said that though, it's not unreasonable that a community would require people to safely store them, in exactly the same way that anything else which is potentially dangerous should be made safe. i.e. electricity substations should be well grounded and fenced off so not to electrocute random passers-by, don't go for lunch and leave your chainsaw in the playground. I can't see it as an abhorrent restriction on my personal freedom to lock them away so that kids don't play with them. I can't imagine many circumstances where I would want one though. I've done enough damage to myself chopping vegetables and putting up flatpack furniture, best not put a lethal weapon in my hands. Especially glad I didn't own one last year, when the neighbours spent the whole summer blasting out Michael Buble in their back garden. Everyone has a breaking point.

I might not agree with every single point made by LBird but I am in broad agreement.

For libertarian communism to make any sense, it has to be free and accountable to the members of such a society; in other words, directly democratic, mandated, recallable, with rotation of responsibilities, delegation, and free from any kind of social or economic inequality or exploitaition, i.e. from each according to ability to each according to need. And if it doesn't do that stuff, then it ain't libertarian communism, anarchism or whatever we want to call it.

Whether a commune remains armed after a revolutionary event will certainly be up to those involved. So, if they collectively have good reason to do this, then they'll stay armed... but this won't be because of some 2nd amendment stylee 'individual's right to bear arms' nonsense but because it'll be what the commune/society in question needs at the time.

Now you tell me in what way this constitutes class society cos I'm fucked if I know.

BP, you dont ask why anyone should regulate anything per laws on territory (aka build a new state), you ask who should be the one regulating because there is so obvious need for consentual authority that there doesnt need to be any argument for it, ever. If there is the seeming of an argument it always goes like this:

1. Take a moral issue from bourgeois society.
2. Pick a side in moral issue from bourgeois society.
3. From the contradiction of the 2 sides derive a need for rules.
4. From the need for rules derive the need for political decision-making
5. Now you can talk about the best METHOD to define authority which is always the most legitimate and thus, around here, democracy of 1 human 1 vote or simple majority.
6. Congratulations, you may now turn every question about society in communism into a question of representation and produce the image of an answer when you were just talking about your democrat soul.

point 2 is of course opitional, but youll see why its in the list when you read through the threads here, people seem to think theres some use-value to picking a side in that.

Though not many reflection came to my previous post, the issues are re-iterated, so I try to clarify what's my problem with the approach of LBird and those who support the democratic view of the communistic society.

The first problem occurs with the interpretation of the original question. It is about bearing arms, right? Now, bearing arms hurts exactly nobody. Using a weapon on the other hand, does. I don't see why it is individualist to say that the collective processes should only deal with things that involves more than one person.

So, deconstruct the original topic, "bearing arms" involves potentially others on the two differentiable ends of it. Once, when you produce/aquire a weapon, and on the other end, when one uses it (including threats to use it). Let's go with the production first, because it is more likely to be the concern of others if one would like to produce fire arms. Also, examining this scenario is tightly connected how people on this forum conceive communism as a different paradigm of material life.

First of all, there's the extent of resource and amount of expertise is required to this production process. In fact, I believe this is the exact moment where decision making kicks in, assuming the requirements of the project take significant proportion of other functions. In this scenario yes, the originator of the idea must make his case to the others. As it is involves everybody in the commune, simple majority voting isn't enough. First there's the question that whether all those, who would be required in the production are willing to contribute. And if all those are in line for it, there's the question of the materials/time/expertise needed, which involves other processes, like food production, clothing, whatever that collides with the new project. In other words, such a collective decision making is necessary only when it comes to scarcity, scarcity of those resources, infrastructure that constitutes the commune itself. I don't mind if that collective decision making is voting, but it has nothing to do in my mind to democracy because it isn't a forcing anyone against their will to do anything that they aren't willing to. It is not about what is allowed to being done, but providing the collective power over a matter which perhaps isn't in the interest of all. In most of these matters, the collective decision should not be about majority: it should be about complete agreement of those involved. Potentially the commune if the commune resources, the member's efforts are involved. This means that no individual will can be superimposed on the efforts of the commune as such, unless the whole commune is willing to participate.

Just briefly about using a weapon. Fire arms are nothing different from other weapons, when they are used as a weapon (you can use a shotgun as a hammer, however unlikely, in which case it isn't really "using a weapon"): it is a tool for killing, for threatening, for paralysing. If the commune needs anything of these activities, it will require weapons. Thus it either engage in weapon production, counting on those who already possess their weapons (as long as it is in the interest of all commune members to engage in the activities mentioned above, like hunting as an example). If there's a split on the matter, there is already something wrong with the commune itself, and perhaps it has to come to end, resulting splits.

If cooperation, satisfactory social life is the aim of the organisation of our future society, or indeed, of our current conditions, it should resolve the dichotomy of individual and the collective, rather than assert one over the other. I'm arguing against LBird, because as he put it, it make me recall the good ol' Hobbes' requirement for the state, in the form of the "majority".

I don't know, what's kinda bothering me the whole time about this thread is the question, where do personal liberties end and where does the "tyranny of the majority" begin?

Especially if one rejects the notion of "objective absence of exploitation" like no25 imagines it - in other words, where is the line drawn where a commune is just exercising their morals? Remember the feminist slogan, 4 out of 5 enjoy gang rape.

Now I would imagine a post-rev commune to have derided its morals from a once revolutionary, liberatory consciousness but you never know, right. Things rarely go according to plan.

Maybe I'm just struggling with the ethical and moral foundations of post-rev decision making in general, I mean I largely agree with collective decision making as laid out here (especially in relation to guns) but there are occasional doubts at the margins...

My question is in relation to the commune's supposed ability to ban books, guitars, bicycles, dildos, guns, and anything else because an acceptable decision is tautologically (as pointed out by arbeiten) acceptable if made by democratic mandate.

Now I broadly agree with everything you stated above, and everything I have to say about guns specifically was pretty much summed up on page one of this discussion. I've been trying, and failing, to get people to deal with the internal contradictions in their conclusion that all is well if there's a democratic mandate.

That line of thought is dangerous and much closer to US Libertarian Party ideology than anything I've been saying. Rather than "all rights are property rights" or an obsession with contract theory, the sentiment around here seems to be that all rights are democratically mandated, and there's an obsession with democratic process.

Throughout this thread there are countless examples to answer to, and I've given my answer enough times to realize it's looking pretty lame. So I'd like people to add on rather than call me an individualist for disagreeing with LBird. But apparently, as LBird suggests, communes are allowed to ban books, have an armed elite, regulate sex, regulate sleep schedules, regulate the distribution of goods that are non-scarce and non-dangerous and still be described as libertarian communist.

And what if the commune/society decides to guarantee an individual's right to bear arms?

And all of this leads me to question number two, which is why is any construction of individuality irreconcilable with communism? It seems like if anyone says that an individual is, then they're automatically a bourgeois individualist.

I'm not sure tyranny of the majority really exists, but that may be because I believe minority populations have the right to freely associate (or disassociate) when necessary, form their own communes, and do as they please. I don't think binding solutions do much to solve anything, because if you must mandate a relationship, it's probably not a good relationship. Nothing can be achieved without the collective will to do so.

I take libertarian culture, or ethics if you prefer, as the starting point, as any process is useless without it. If we take it to be true that institutions are an extension of the culture, or ideology if you must, of a society then it seems more important, at least from where I am, to build that culture off the bat before going into how the process should work.

The biggest problem I have with discussion of post-rev anything is the presupposition of the desired process with the culture taken as granted, so you get stupid questions about 'capitalists in disguise' or 'gun-toting maniacs' all of which are contradictions within the framework of libertarian communist society. Post-rev pontification basically boils down to a comment on how the current culture framework is opposed to libcom (duh) or a question of how do we build a society with a cultural framework that is not in opposition to it. When you can simply add "with tanks" to the end of a proposed solution, my guess is that those speaking aren't doing enough thinking.

My guess is that, as much as it makes me BOURGEOIS, to answer a question like that at some point you're going to have to deal with a construction (not the construction as it stands) of individuality and free will. Otherwise its just a matter of getting enough of us with tanks and making everyone into a communist, which doesn't do much for distancing ourselves from Leninism.

False dichotomy. We are not choosing between either an all-powerful commune that has no regard for individual liberty and 7 billion societies of one person. There are a plethora of options in the middle. For example, we could create an assembly/commune that has a mandate to decide things that affect everyone but has no power to regulate the color I choose to dye my hair or whether I read Conquest of Bread or Atlas Shrugged. I am fine with "social rules" but I am not fine with a commune which can decide what individuals can do even when those individuals' behavior does nothing to negatively effect the rest of the community.

This is a strawman, and you know it. Sure, I'm all for Kiddie Porn being banned (OBVIOUSLY). That's not even an issue. If this kind of degrading snuff film/porn stuff turns up, than clearly the makers of it have fallen outside of the "do what you want but don't hurt other people" dictum and can be justifiably punished. That's not what we're talking about here at all. We are talking about giving the "democratic" commune more power than the state currently has to regulate individual behavior that harms no one else!
What if you're Commune decides to ban Nabakov's Lolita? Would you view that as perfectly legitimate?

Yet another strawman. You should learn to debate without resorting to those.

I do not "object to democracy"! Direct democracy is the best way to make decisions which effect everyone in the community. It seems obvious to me that such a decision making body should not have power to regulate individual behavior that is of NO CONCERN to the commune, such as a consensual homosexual relationship. Even the most strident supporters of democracy believe that individuals have certain unalienable rights WITHIN democracy. To me a system that empowers the commune to decide things about ME that effect NO ONE else and force me to conform is open to all kinds of fucked-up abuses.

First of all, I am all for democracy, I just think it should be applied to only those areas of life that effect the whole community. I propose that if my commune steps over that line and attempts to regulate behavior of mine that harms NO ONE ELSE, I should have the right to ignore them and view them as an illegitimate, anti-libertarian body. So unlike LBird, if my commune banned masturbation and pre-marital sex I would ignore them, unlike LBird who would apparently submit to any regulation "democratically decided on" no matter how fucked up and tyrannical it may be!

Second of all, its entirely possible that a community would reach a high level of class consciousness without being developed socially. Just as an example lets say America was the country where the revolution breaks out first; it seems probable that you will have communes in many rural parts of the country, especially the South and Midwest, where the majority of the commune, despite being class conscious revolutionaries, are still Christians and somewhat socially conservative. It's perfectly possible for revolutionaries to still have fucked up social ideas (indeed, less than a hundred years ago many anarchists talked about the "manliness" required to be an anarchist and how homosexuality was "bourgeois"). So yea, even after a revolution against capital we will still have to contend with regressive social ideas, everyone will not just be magically converted to a secular-enlightened, pro-gay, feminist, anti-xenophobe. This is why it is important to articulate some (socially constructed and recognized, not state enforced) individual rights that the communes should have to respect.

Let me go ahead and give an answer for LBird:

"First, you used the word 'individual' at least four times. So you're clearly a bourgeois individualist.

And this is a political question, mate! Who decides what doesn't hurt anyone else?

For me, it's my democratic commune. Clearly some of our individualist comrades are too married to bourgeois society. You should consider being a democratic communist."

When addressing LBird, just copy and paste the quoted passage above and replace everything after 'who decides' and before 'for me' with an arbitrary quoted passage from your message. Then proceed to hit your head against a brick wall until this sounds like an answer.

Yeah, those would be sociopaths, and must be dealt with accordingly.

I'm in total favor of a socially conscious direct democracy, but there are instances in which the democratic authority would not be intrinsically legitimate, and I feel that disobeying these decisions would indeed be justified.

Sure, the Commune can determine what exactly constitutes relations that are free of domination generally, i.e. positive liberty, but if it were to narrow these definitions down to where it's implementing reactionary measures against minorities, while it may retain a democratic structure, it's no longer 'libertarian.'

Maybe I was too hasty to agree with LBird that we should go along with communal decisions once they've been made. Maybe we're both guilty of assuming post-revolutionary perfection of proletarian consciousness.

Then again maybe we're not, maybe the process of social revolution will revolutionise proletarian consciousness. Who can say? We won't really know till we've done it.

Let's say there's still a bit of work to be done post-revolution, and communes enact ridiculous bans of private behaviour like masturbating or being nice. (Despite the fact that masturbators and people who like being nice will have had the opportunity to convince their communes of the social virtue or neutrality of these behaviours).

I think there would be room for dissent. I think you could masturbate with total disregard for the communal opposition. You could be nice, and hold your head up high.

I just doubt we'll achieve the revolution we're after, yet somehow in the process remain, or become capable of such nonsense.

So it seems to me like this argument is about an unknowable future outcome, and there are some pessimists and some optimists. If so, there seems no point. People will have to judge for themselves whether they're happy with communal decisions and decide for themselves whether they wish to dissent and possibly face whatever consequences that leads to. Conflict will still be possible.