Mike,

>>Well, I understand the busy part but you did bring up the phrase and I thought it would be good to get your definition. Perhaps you just haven't really decided how you define it yet..... <g>
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>There's a certain type of anarchy, I'm pretty sure, that looks at life like nothing that happens around them is logical. People are being controlled by marketers and the media instead of a real government, and while this anarchy is going on around them, they just decide to go along with the ride cause its no use fighting. Maybe I'm wrong... if I am, I should probably start a cult.

Hmm.. I understand your not wanting to be controlled as you suggest. We see eyeball to eyeball on this one. Essentially my response to you has been to what I see as an incorrect use of the term anarchy. I think you're applying it a little too broadly and perhaps that's the issue..

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>So when I joked about becoming an anarchist I meant just going with that mindset when we talk about this business in a couple years because you brought up the fact that its all in the marketing.

Ahh.. You were joking? I didn't see any visual indicators to that. Perhaps you're one of those acronym-minimalists.. <g>

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>It was very interesting to see your response to that comment. Have you been a dabbler in anarchy in the past?

You bet. Not in a formal sense but I've looked at them in more than a casual fashion. Something akin to Libertatians on steroids.. <g>

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>And I'd still like to hear your answer to my other question. How is "not hurting others" self centered? Sounds like the opposite to me.

Sure.. Good question.. The fundamental presumption here is that we aren't all connected in some fashion to other people. The typical phrase "I'm not hurting others" I have heard over the years has been predominantly related to and coming from those who advocate the private useage of so-called 'harmless' drugs like marijuana. Typically it goes like this; "I can use marijuana as long as I don't hurt others." Well, there's no way that an individual can live their life as an island and not hurt others.

The 'trick' it seems to me is in your definition of what constitutes "not hurting others". I define that this way: The only way I can avoid hurting others is to have my life's priorities absolutely properly set up. The only way to do that is to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and body and secondly to love my neighbor as myself.

That may sound like a strange answer but it really isn't. It is based upon the notion that each and every single human being on this planet is at some point in their lives hopelessly (in the eyes of God) self centered. By this I mean the insistence of placing one's will before the will of God in any given situation. Chriatianity calls this sin; the exercise of my will contrary to God's will. We all do this. Anarchy, as a philosophy, seems to me to essentially elevate and glorify self will in a formal sense. The key word is "I".

So, from that basis when I hear the phrase "I can do what I want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else", I know immediately that the indiviual saying this is either completely unaware of human nature or are willfully disregarding it.

That is why top-down governmant control will really never work and why man's governmental systems and philosophies will someday all fail, inculding the philosophy of anarchy...

Does that help?

I'm not being cynical here, just realistic. Candidly, apart from the hope I get from my faith I don't know what I'd do as I have been unable to find any hope whatsoever in the philsophies of man.