EXTINCTION REBELLION: ANARCHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY

 

ANARCHY:- 

a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems

absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal

a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. The word Anarchy was first used in English in 1539, meaning "an absence of government".

There is no doubt that the above concept is widely known to most in theory if not in practice.  Where its ideals have been translated into action the results have gone from causing inconvenience to revolution with the murderous results that those activities inevitably cause. 

Extinction Rebellion is just the latest form of direct action by those who believe that they have a god given right to disrupt society in which way they think better furthers their cause. It could be termed in general anarchy 21st century style.  Perhaps older readers will remember the words Greenham Common and what took place there as an example. The case of Imogen May is an example of what in practice is truly anarchy for the 21st century.  Another example which many magistrates have probably experienced is the prosecution of the same offence, non payment of Council Tax, of those who call themselves Freemen on the land.  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The freeman-on-the-land (FOTL[2]) movement, also known as the freemen-of-the-land, the freemen movement, or simply freemen, is a loose group of individuals who believe that they are bound by statute laws only if they consent to those laws. They believe that they can therefore declare themselves independent of the government and the rule of law, holding that the only "true" law is their own interpretation of "common law".[3] 

These deluded defendants I suppose compare themselves to historical figures  like Joan of Arc or Wat Tyler a leader of the Peasants` Revolt of 1381 who was killed before the uprising was crushed. They do not have an occupying army to oppose or a sovereign who sanctioned virtually  a slave`s existence for the population under his feudal system.  They see themselves as martyrs to the cause.

Anarchy has always posed a problem for a benign legal system in a democratic society. It is a binary choice between a carrot or a stick; adopting the former to reduce tensions or wielding the power of the state to punish. But we have a government that doesn`t know what its policies are between Monday and Tuesday and whose ministers and spokespersons try to be all things to all people. And so the courts must do their best under the law sometimes risking opprobrium from those who ought to know better.   Perhaps it`s all summed up by the old adage attributed to Abraham Lincoln; "You can fool some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time but you can`t fool all of the people all of the time."  For Boris Johnson et al it`s just a matter of time.