djranis: wasnt robin hood from UK, as far as i see it anonymous tried to play robin hood, except without helping the poor, but the poor can take care of themselves as long the corrupted are dealt with

hedwards: Sigh, I should have remember not to feed the troll.

hedwards: Paypal is frequently the only option for paying for things. As in you use Paypal or you don't buy it at all. Merchants dealing with international orders have very few options other than Paypal.

hedwards: Steam is frequently the only option for playing some games. As in you use Steam or you don't play it at all. Gamers dealing with Steamworks games have no legal options other than Steam.

Blarg: Police already do the same and have historically done the same when it comes to abusing power and operating outside the law. So does government in general. As for ordinary citizenry, the question "What would happen if people started doing it?" fails to be relevant in that particular as well. Do you speed, or jaywalk? Have you ever known anyone to fudge their taxes? Do people start fights, drive drunk, take illegal drugs? Cheat on spouses, abuse children? All these things happen regularly, and citizens need nothing to goad them into doing them. That such things are so much a part of what people naturally and daily do is the reason we need laws in the first place. People are NOT self-regulating to the extent of perfect compliance with either law or morality. Nor are institutions of any stripe, be they private or governmental.

Your "What if?" scenario lacks gravity. You wonder what would happen if people and institutions did what they are already doing all the time, always have been, and always will do. It's overreaching on the part of institutions that inspires people to protest and rebel in the first place.

The question then becomes not whether laws (or morals) hold perfect sway over individuals or society, but whether they are worthy of blind allegiance, in whole or in part, and which ones, and what should be done about it, by who and at what cost, when they are not.

My point that those who most benefit by the status quo are the least likely to object to it is an obvious one and not really up for contention. It is far from being dismissable with offhand snark or reference to how much any one of us might benefit from it at the moment. That's not the point. I'm just saying there is nothing particularly exalted about the status quo. If one must accept as a first principle that the status quo is inherently inviolable and worthwhile, no honest conversation can even be begun.

I'm suggesting instead that the status quo is merely an artifact of its time and quite open to judgment, and that it should be open to change. That idea is inherent in democracy itself. The status quo getting upset and reconfigured once in a while is necessary so our institutions and the inherent injustices institutions attempt to justify in their pursuit of power have a chance to be readjusted and their powers rationalized and curtailed. Protest is serious business inherent to the proper functioning of democracy, not trivial, and if it sometimes causes inconvenience and social disruption -- well, few good things and accomplishments in the political arena do not. Martin Luther King was socially disruptive, and so were abolitionists. Thank goodness they didn't decide to just stay home and pen letters to the editor out of fear of being disruptive and causing inconvenience.

Dischord: <snip>
Martin Luther King
<snip>

SheBear: A couple of things:

1. MLK did not always work within the law. He frequently was arrested for "disturbances of the peace" and things like that. The FBI kept extensive tabs on him and his activities in an attempt to discredit him or find something to use to bring him down. While I won't argue that he wasn't much more connected to the powers-that-be (between 1961 and 1965 MLK basically had a direct line to the White House, and the White House back to him as well), he was still a breaking laws he saw as unjust.

2. We as United States citizens glorify the Heroic Period of the Civil Rights Era and place King on a pedestal that he was not on during his life time. Yes he was lauded by liberals and radicals (well, some radicals) in the United States and the world. And yes he was "respectable" and so (white) people in the US could agree with his methods and his message (particularly if they lived in the North and didn't think that Civil Rights was a Northern issue - see the Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966 which was hamstrung partially by white backlash and violence).
While I agree that there was a lot more positive coverage of the general ideas of freedom and equality for African Americans/all people in the 1950s and 1960s United States than there has been for the goals of Anon, or Occupy, or any sort of anti-capitalist/anti-corruption/anti-overly-fascist government I would argue that that actually is because these are much more complicated - and less tangible for many people - issues than Jim Crow and voter disfranchisement.

Dischord: That the people and issues of Anonymous did not receive the same reception by the public, just might speak to its relative insignificance to them, its delivery, or both.

Dischord: It is the perception of the public that needs to be addressed then, but for whatever reason, they haven't climbed on board, which is their prerogative.

I often think of things in pretty simplistic terms. Here is a group, society, all sitting around and playing a game. Not all of them like every rule in it, but they are playing. Sometimes a group within them comes together and puts an idea forth to change the rules. All sit around and mull the proposal and decide whether or not to change them. Sometimes the rule changes are good, and sometimes they turn out to be bad and have to be removed by consensus again.

The game is going on, and all of a sudden someone else wants to play, but says they are playing by their rules and to hell with everyone else's. That person is not well received, even though they might have found plenty of agreement within the group if they had played by the same rules as everyone else within it.

I do not wish to continue in this thread, as I have done the only thing I am qualified to do: give my own opinion.

Have fun, but I think you see the point I was trying to make.

Edit to add: Perception and opinion do not necessarily reality make. The sun appears to rise in the east, and from every ground based observation could rationally be said to do so; except that it doesn't.

DieRuhe: Well said. I understand your point. I like the analogy.