Big "A" - Small "a"

When I said I doubted that anarchist's authenticity, I meant that I didn't think there was such a thing as an anarchist anymore, I thought they went out of business a long time ago. Now that I think of it, though, I don't remember if he said he was an Anarchist with a big "A" or an anarchist with a small "a". Of course anybody can call themselves an anarchist with a small "a" if they want to, just like they can call themselves a libertarian with a small "l". Now I wonder if there ever was an Anarchist organization with a big "A". You certainly know more about politics than I do. Was there ever?

I have heard reference to the social contract before, but I don't know if that's a real thing or just a figure of speech. I don't remember ever seeing a copy of anything called a social contract, so maybe they're talking about an implied contract, in which case it wouldn't be worth the paper it wasn't printed on. It's like when people say that society says this or society says that. What they mean is they want me to do or not do something, and there is no law that says I have to, so they invoke this mythological society that has no real power.

I tend to agree with you that governments evolved over time. The first governments were probably families, then clans, then tribes, then coalitions of tribes. I don't think the Earth was very crowded during prehistoric times, so it seems like anybody who didn't want to be told what to do could just give his boss the finger and strike out on his own. Of course then he would have to defend and provide for himself, which is probably not as easy as it sounds. I saw a TV show about wolves once. They were explaining about wolf hierarchies, and they showed this one lady wolf who was on the bottom of the totem pole. The other wolves were always picking on her, and I wondered why she put up with that shit when she could just drop out of the pack and become the iconic lone wolf. The narrator answered my question in short order, he said that the reason she sticks around is that her chances of survival are better with the pack than without it. I don't suppose the lady wolf cognitively knew that, it was more likely some kind of instinct that told her what side her bread was buttered on. Maybe that's what they mean by "women's intuition".

What you said about governments being half way between helping and hurting people makes sense, but it might be more accurate to say that they are helping some people at the expense of other people. If the government protects my property from thieves, it is helping me but hurting the thieves. If the thieves didn't like that, they could try to take over the government. Of course there are already some thieves in our government, but I don't think you could say that they are running it because one of them gets caught and goes to prison every now and then.

I don't think that the Libertarian Party is against all wars like the Quakers are. They are certainly against no-win wars like Vietnam and Korea, but I don't think they would have been against World War II. I don't know what they currently think about the Middle East but, seeing as it's looking more and more like Vietnam all the time, my guess is they would be against it.