Anti-government extremism is not one coherent ideology or organisation. It can encompass sovereign citizens, conspiracy theorists and others who come to see government institutions as fundamentally corrupt, illegitimate or actively working against ordinary citizens.
(emphasis mine) shit cuz they’re onto me :p
Our research points towards an approach known as procedural justice. “Procedurally just” governance is about how governments exercise their authority. It means treating citizens with respect, making decisions fairly and without bias to prevent benefiting one special-interest group over another, being transparent about motives for legislation or new government processes. It also means giving people meaningful opportunities to have their voices heard.
Importantly, our study found that when people perceived government as more procedurally just they reported lower levels of anger and were less likely to perceive the government as illegitimate.
This relationship was evident among both conspiracy believers and non-believers. It means procedural justice shouldn’t be dismissed as merely good public relations. It potentially forms part of Australia’s strategy for preventing violent extremism.
[…]
Rather, governments need a two-track response. They need to identify and disrupt people moving towards violence. But they also need to reduce the conditions that can make that violence attractive in the first place. These include alienation, anger and a belief that public institutions exercise power without listening to people or treating them fairly and equally.
I thought this was a good and thoughtful piece to have been put out so soon after what appears to be an attempted political assassination of a politician who, near as I can tell, wanted more government transparency and accountability.
Not really a great sign of the times. With government building out some of the largest surveillance machines in the world I suspect we can conclude what the response will be. As the author highlights though, restoring trust and a sense of justice is more important to get back to a society where we feel our concerns can be dealt with non violently.
fuck the government, we don’t need masters
In Australia we generally view government as our servants not masters. We don’t elect a tyrant to rule us. We elect a local member who we can meet and talk to and ask for help with problems.
I disagree with my local member’s politics but I don’t regard him as a bad person or someone out to get me.
I really don’t understand this. Any group of people living together inevitably creates rules and governance to serve their common interests. How are the roads going to be maintained and garbage collected without people contributing money into a pool and electing someone to administer it.
There is a cultural belief that we elect people and it’s good and fine and works, but that’s observably false. It’s a fantasy idea of what government is supposed to be, not what it is in practice.
The reaction to people wanting their “representatives” to actually represent them has been an increase in oppression, things like ramping up police violence and introducing anti-protest laws.
The people in my community have been hospitalised, deported, raped and even killed because they wanted things to be better. We’ve gone through all the officially sanctioned channels, we’ve used protest to make ourselves heard, but we’re only being beaten.
As you said, any group of people are going to create rules, but they don’t need to create hierarchical government to effectively enforce those rules, or organise the day to day activities of society. We’ve organised without government plenty of times before.
We’re not just saying things purely out of anger, there’s a massive amount of theory behind it. If you really do want to understand, then if recommend you read some of the anarchist faq or any leftist theory tbh. At the very least, you’ll likely find the ideas interesting even if you don’t agree with everything. I tend to find most people who seriously engage with these ideas agree with a good deal of them. All we’re asking for is society to organise in a more just and equitable way, while disabling or limiting the avenues for corruption to take hold.
I once thought the same as you, we’re literally drowned in propaganda from birth so it’s extremely hard to break out from the dominant ideology, but there are better ways if you decide to evaluate the alternatives on their own merits and not pre-concieved notions of what they are.
I want to live in a society where we are least likely to suffer at the hands of despots. There is no realistic path away from democratic society that doesn’t return us ultimately into the hands of kings and warlords. Democracy is imperfect but it’s the best chance we have to live the lives we want.
Not opposed to Marxist critiques of capitalism but left and right, authoritarians and anarchists both form a horseshoe. The end game for either tends to be a single party state controlled through force by a corrupt elite.
Social democracy or democratic socialism can both be made to work. Libertarianism and syndicalism deny human nature and experience.
I’m really not sure how anarchy leads to any kind of state when it’s specifically stateless. I’d say it’s far more resistant to corruption and centres around a more robust and empowering form of democracy than any representational system, which is inherently corruptible.
Horshoe theory is silly
Let’s goooooo
The disappointing community response to Covid-19 in 2020 demonstrated why we do need rules and enforcement of them.
Faced with an outbreak of a contagious disease, too many Australians refused to wear a mask, quarantine or distance until it was legally mandated.
we don’t need a government to do those things and be organised as a community
Uh covid very clearly showed that yes we fucking do.
When left to their own devices to do the right thing, way too many aussies went “Fuck yas” and put us all in danger
Can you explain why a government is the only way to keep people in line?
People will continue to be problematic, but we don’t need this one specific structure to deal with it. Imo it’s actually a particular ineffective and often cruel way to go about it.
Having a formal behaviour enforcement structure with codified rules and a supportive scaffolding prevents things like lynch mobs.
We don’t need a government for that
But we kinda do. Because you can’t expect people to act reasonably or rationally.
I know a guy, let’s call him Bob, who got a warning from the police for aggressively looming over a man at the supermarket who was wearing a mask and trying to maintain healthy social distance.
Because Bob didn’t believe in masks or social distancing he percieved that behaviour as the other person being judgemental of him. When the other guy, rather reasonably, pointed out that he has cancer and didn’t want Bob, who was wearing his mask over his chin at the time, to be so close to him, the confrontation was on.
Bob still maintains to this day that he was just standing up for his rights as an Australian…
He is also firmly of the belief that Anthony Albanese is a traitor to the country and that John Howard is the best Prime Minister we have ever had…
I don’t quite understand what your example is meant to demonstrate, but I think you’re confusing me with a libertarian (the weird fascist kind) or something which I am absolutely not.
We don’t need a government to keep everyone in line, that’s a fact. We can organise, decide rules, enforce them and have actual justice without a violent system of domination built on hierarchical power.
My example? That there are people who refuse to act rationally or reasonably? This was someone who needed an intervention from an authority to motivate him to act in a way that cost him nothing but that he was ideologically opposed to.
Governments are always going to have a strong advantage against other frameworks that seek to decentralise power, trying to overthrow a centralised power structure is likely to be extremely violent and bloody. We aren’t there yet.
I have read Alastair Reynolds and I would love to be a Demarchist, but I don’t see that being feasible in the forseeable future.
Right, that’s what I thought you might have meant, simple misunderstanding then. I’m not saying we don’t enforce things, just that we don’t need hierarchical systems of authority to do so. Someone putting the community at risk like this can be stopped without the use of violent state thugs, probably with much better outcomes too.
Sure, revolution isn’t on our doorstep, but I still want things to be different. I don’t think there’s anything wrong or objectionable about aspiring to a better society. Why would we talk ourselves out of the idea just because change isn’t right around the corner?
Demarchist? I afraid I’m not familiar with the term, so I won’t make assumptions. Regardless I still don’t think we should give up so easily.
Democratic Anarchy, it is a system that would rely on a couple of generational leaps in computers and mind machine interfaces before we could even aspire to it. Nowhere near as appealing as the Culture would be, but also only dependent on moderately Clarke tech computers not massively Clarke tech.
Anyway I’m not defeatist, more just realistic. This guy would fall pretty squarely into the capitalist bootlicking Libertarian camp. He only really responds to violence (or the threat thereof) as motivation, in other words your typical boomer small business owner. He is never going to comply without some form of threat to back things up.
Its great to be idealistic, but I sincerely doubt we will see change in my life time, or that of my kids. We as a species are wired to listen to the ape that shrieks the loudest too much.
Ah right, I guess I hadn’t heard the name but I know the vague concept (imo it’s a bad name because anarchy is usually democratic) Is it just the idea that instead of organising locally and then at larger and larger scales, you just have everyone everywhere voting without the intermediary steps? Even with the technology to do that, it seems like a bad idea.
When I say we would still enforce rules, I’m not saying we just ask nicely, there are still consequences for breaking rules and this person would have to face them. I’d say the idea that someone only responds to threats of violence is probably more a product of police almost exclusively using violence and violent threats. That said, it’s not like violence is a tool we can’t use, but I’m not well versed enough in the theory for community defense/justice to get into details.
Being idealistic is one thing, but there’s plenty of us here who are actively building anarchist communities, I’ve been heavily involved in one myself. There’s work that can be done to move things forwards, I hope we see something better in my time even if it’s operating within/alongside the current system rather than replacing it.
Anyone who says government isn’t needed is either a giant piece of shit or completely ignorant of what that would actually mean…
It rarely matters which is right, neither should ever be listened to under any circumstances
Yeah, 'cause we’re doing so well right now with governments everywhere, right?
Good to see DJ Khaled still getting work
bit of a non-sequitur
Let me rephrase then: I think the government is fundamentally corrupt, so we should abolish it regardless of whatever half-assed attempts they make to placate the majority. They’ll undoubtedly continue to assault and disempower the same oppressed people that they currently do, for the profit of a select number of corporate elites.
Because that’s what I mean. It can’t be fixed, they can just put in measures to retain power.
I’m a goddless commie but random killings of politicians doesn’t seem useful and has established itself as having a deathtoll potentially in the millions[1].
Incoherant rage only furthers fascist ends and I don’t think it’s a bad thing if the government tries to be less shit. Accelerationism hasn’t got a shiny track record, and at any rate Australia isn’t on the cusp of revolution waiting for our moment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand ↩︎
You’re putting words into my mouth that I didn’t even remotely say.
I never said we should go around murdering people, I never said I wanted to accelerate fascism. I kind of want to avoid both of those things actually, they’re among my main complaints with the government.
Things have needed to change for a very long time, these people have been inflicting violence on a frankly absurd scale against first nations people, immigrants, sex workers etc etc.
One politician being attacked being the trigger for “change” is insulting given the context of what they’re inflicting on the populace. They don’t care about being less shit, they just want a licence to continue brutalising the innocent without consequences.
Call it incoherent rage if you like, but I’m allowed to express frustration and anger by commenting relatively meaningless things. You can read into it more if you like but can’t someone just be upset and express a desire for real radical change without it turning into a huge debate?
I’m not having a go, chill out a little. Just discussing the article.
If you say so, but I don’t think there’s a read of your reply that comes across that way.
In that spirit, I don’t much care for the article given the way it frames all dissent as violent extremism from the far right. There’s no meaningful discussion of legitimate criticism from those of us on the left who want the government gone. We’re just lumped in with conspiracy theorists and sov-cits as “others”.
Not to mention the whole idea that they just need to do things a little different is laughable, for the reasons I’ve stated previously.