Comments Elsewhere

‎@Anok: “if you read what he wrote you would understand that he uses the word “crime” for immoral behavior”

Well, no he doesn’t, not that I can see. If you see a place where he does make this identification, feel free to point it out, but he…re is what I found him saying about criminality and morality:

(1) “If there are, then you merely disagree with my particular view of what is criminal and what isn’t. You say it’s a crime to abuse someone, I say not. … Now the reasoning on my part is quite clear: there’s no physical violence involved. Crime allows for force to be used. I think the abuse is a bad thing, but cannot be countered with force.” (2) “I do not like the word morality, because it is very tainted with prejudice from older times, and also, it spreads the idea that there’s a way that people have to think. I only try to think about what people can and cannot do.” (3) “Actually, to me, as abuse is not a crime, any use of force is necessary disproportional and unjustified. I think social pressure is more adapted to this scenario.”

(1) states the view that an act is criminal only if “physical violence [is] involved,” and further that there are some bad things — in particular, abuse is “a bad thing” — which are not criminal (thus, not answerable with force). (2) states the view that he’d rather not use “morality” as the term to describe what people can and cannot do. (3) restates the view that abuse, though bad (hence, answerable with “social pressure”) is not criminal (hence, not answerable with physical force), and further that to use force against someone who is not guilty of a crime is “unjustified.

As far as I can tell, this pretty clearly suggests that he is using the term “crime” to describe a SUBSET of “bad things.” (I’d be happy say immoral actions, but I don’t agree with Marcel about (2), so.) He says, or at least strongly sugges…ts, above that all crimes are wrong (immoral, if you please), but not that everything wrong (or immoral) is a crime. But the conditional “If abuse is not a crime, then it is not an immoral behavior” would only be true if you made a claim he hasn’t made — and in fact has specifically rejected (that all immoral actions are crimes).

‎@Anok: “He further states that self defense against abuse is wrong because abuse is not a ‘crime’.”

Sure; the claim is that you shouldn’t use force against people unless they are guilty of crimes. I don’t think that’s a particularly nutty v…iew. I happen to think that he’s right about that. (I don’t know if I would agree with his reasons for it; my reason, anyway, is that I’m against all forms of hierarchy and domination. And I consider controlling people through aggressive violence to be both hierarchical and dominating. Even if those people really are terrible assholes.)

@Anok: “And regardless of how he uses the word abuse is considered both a legal crime and a moral crime by the majority of non nutter societies.”

Well, I don’t much care what the majority of societies, nutter or non-nutter, think about it. Do you? If I were basing my moral convictions on opinion polls as to what the majority of societies think, I certainly wouldn’t be an Anarchist.