RESPONDING TO ROMANS 13

As a christian and an anarchist I often find myself under attack by members of both parties that I live by. It would be difficult to tackle both arguments at once so here is my response to Christians that oppose anarchy.
A Christians most basic response to an anarchist is to cite Romans 13: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." This is, in many peoples mind, concrete proof that God approves of the state. Under any amount of scrutiny however, this argument falls apart. If we as Christians are to obey the governing authorities, then shouldn't have Bonhoeffer kept his his mouth shut during the Nazi's brief reign in Germany? Shouldn't the Russian Christians in communist Russia silently accepted their fate as their churches were burned and their property seized by the state? 'Of course not. That was different, it was the Nazi's and Stalin, they were tyrants.' So if we have established that this passage does not apply to tyrants then we only have to ask : What makes a tyrant? The common understanding of 'tyrant' is someone who ignores the voice of the people, or one who suppresses the freedoms of the people. Our government is guilty on both counts. Not in such extreme cases like Nazi Germany, but the principle is very much the same. If you define a tyrant by one who ignores the desire of the people, then by your own definition, the government is my tyrant. I have no desire to be ruled by anyone on capitol hill and yet, because they will throw me in jail if I don't, I am coerced into submission. 'Well then, make a change. Get involved.' As I have stated in previous articles, democracy doesn't listen to the people, it listens to the majority and a republic is just a different spelling for the same principle. As an anarchist I have absolutely no voice in the house of 'representatives.' If I were to make a call, or write to, my congressman and demand that they make a proposal to the senate to revoke all labor laws, taxes, police/ military forces, and the entirety of the U.S. government, it wouldn't make it past their receptionist and certainly not the senate floor, because if they WERE to propose such a bill it would harm their chances of getting re-elected. I have no voice. The government ignores me because I am in the overwhelming minority of the political spectrum.
 Christians love reciting Romans 13:1 but they don't ever seem to remember verse 3:  "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended." Paul was a wise and intelligent person, so I would like to know what he was thinking when he wrote this. How many times had he been imprisoned and beaten by the Romans and Jewish leaders for preaching the grace of Christ? And how on earth does any government (let alone our own) fit this description? Time and time again the government has punished those who have tried to warn us about what the government really does (Bradley Manning, Daniel Ellsburgh etc.) How on earth can we live free from fear when there are so many cases of police brutality? Anarchists are regularly called 'idealists' but everyone else seems to think that a government that doesn't abuse its power can exist. Anarchy doesn't need a society of angels, it just can't have an institution running around saying "I can make everything better and you are all under my authority whether you like it or not."

WHY I DON'T SUPPORT THE TROOPS

In a society manipulated by patriotism and empty rhetoric there are many vague sayings. One of the more popular is the yellow ribbon you see on car bumpers that say "support the troops" or american flag magnets that say "support our soldiers" etc. It is common place in our society today to hero worship soldiers and police as the brave defenders of peace and freedom while in reality they do nothing of the sort. If we can remove the blinders that patriotism and other forms of indoctrination have placed on us, we can see that those in the armed forces are much like mercenaries. They agree to go to war and fight for a paycheck. "No, they fight for their country, they fight for us, etc..." Really? How many men and women would be in the armed forces if they were not drawn in with such tempting college scholarships? How many would volunteer if they were not payed at all? Unless they were conscripted, nobody in their right state of mind would go to war for free. Besides this, what on earth does the army do that we should support? Occupying dozens of foreign countries? Preforming night time raids/kidnappings in attempts to find terrorist members? Killing people? Rape? There were 3,374 rapes in the military last year, a 6 percent increase, and an estimated 26,000 sexual assaults. The problem has been mostly ignored by the military. And yet in the face of all the evil that the army does, people still "support the troops."

 It doesn't surprise me either. I was once a conservative. I thought the war in Iraq was justified. Then I watched a documentary "No End in Sight" This movie didn't go into the philosophical argument about weather or not we should have gone, but it just showed the cold hard facts about how badly we damaged that nation. The bureaucratic inefficiency and the military's hard handed tactics combined to damage that country and its people deeper than we can understand. Because of the government and everyone that stood behind it (myself included) an entire generation of Iraqi people will grow up knowing that it was America that did this to them. The people of the middle east have a culture that never forgets and is slow to forgive, if they do at all. At the end of it all however, it was the soldiers that carried out the governments orders, as it always is. How many lives would have been spared if the army just refused to go? Unfortunately since day one of their military career, it is drilled into every man and woman's head to follow orders immediately and without question. Undoubtedly this makes them better soldiers but it doesn't help prevent wars.
 There are however, quite a few veterans who have turned from statism to become anarchists or libertarians, most notably the anti-war protesting vet Adam Kokesh, and it is these people who give me hope that everyone can see the light through the haze of patriotism. It is not because I think all the troops are baby killers, but because I can see the immorality in what the military stands for, that I can say with confidence that I do not support the troops. I despise, not the individuals, but the organization that they choose to work for and everything it stands for.