Flint's Column

Looking for the emotional impulse. The first image that comes to your mind. And when I think Anarchy, I think bikers, revving engines and beer breath when I think Nanny state, I see white corridors and gray buildings and long lines. Just impulses, but they might get to the core of why we feel the way we feel about things.

Yesterday at 4:06am ·

I'm pretty much Anti-capitalism but i understand you need some kind of government. Gee wiz! What's behind door number 3?

Yesterday at 4:51am ·

I'd much rather wait an hour in line and get patted down before getting on an airplane, than be on one that gets hijacked because there was no security at all. The Nanny State to an extreme seems more like an inconvenience to me, wheras Anarchy would be an utter end to life as we know it.

Ever since 9-11, I've given this a great deal of thought in fact. As Americans we spend a lot of time talking about Freedom. But that raises questions.

A friend of mine from the UK asked me if the guy with a gun has the freedom to rob the clerk at a 7-11. And using the UK for an exxample (perhaps not the modern UK, but one from years ago) the citizens there (as I understand it) don't get to vote, but were still relatively OK with their lot in life....See More

Yesterday at 4:54am ·

Just looking for the pictures that come to mind. Planes blowing up versus being video groped by lumpen mesomorphs. That kind of thing. This is about raw images.

Yesterday at 4:59am ·

Fascism is a matter of perspective

Yesterday at 5:02am ·

This came from below. The Tea Party, when I think about it, is slightly scary. Not sure why. The racial epithet and spitting stuff is press hype. There's just something scary about undefined groups without leaders. Especially when they don't seem to be people who have ever done this before. Conservatives don't publicly demonstrate and nowadays ...See More

Yesterday at 5:03am ·

Think of images, positive, negative and neutral about freedom and security. Not ideology.

Yesterday at 5:06am ·

I rather live in a world ruled by Megatron, at least he doesn't hide who he is (other then in gun mode) unlike the tea party.

Yesterday at 5:25am ·

Marshall Nystrom

If it's one or the other, anarchy. Assuming nanny state is as extreme as anarchy.

Yesterday at 5:28am ·

OK, visually, I'd rather have an apartment on the Death Star, than a cave on Mad Max's world.

Yesterday at 5:48am ·

That's funny because i was going to use Mad Max as a example but since this is Flint Dille page after all, i went with Transformers.

Death Star condo will get you blow'd up twice!

Yesterday at 6:02am ·

Pam Lachmann

Anarchy...I picture total mayhem, envision throwing a birthday party for five year olds and providing no adult supervision whatsoever! At the other extreme, I witnessed a child's birthday party hosted by a control freak parent...kids were not allowed to make noise or conversation. The birthday girl was not allowed to open her gifts, the gifts had to be opened by the gift givers, then the birthday girl had to pick some gifts to give to less fortunate children. Weird.

Yesterday at 6:26am ·

Well, I was thinking only of the visual look of the Death Star's interior, not about story. I guess another place I'd live is perhaps the Techno Dome or Terror Drome or whatever that Cobra HQ was called. Nobody ever dies on GI Joe. Better?

As for the undesirable, Anarchy thing, I'll say living with the Dreadnoks would suck. They'd be scratching an itch in their armpit with my toothbrush or something...

How's that for a visual?

Yesterday at 6:26am ·

Eric Lichtenfeld

If I *had* to pick? (And if I were to forgo playing the "Define 'freedom,' define 'security'" game?) I'd pick security. Because there is no freedom without freedom from fear.

Yesterday at 6:35am ·

Mary Pendergast

The Tea Party is very scary. They are an angry group and many are racists. And indeed it is scarier still that people who would not normally act and respond this way are doing it. Not just press spin. Did you see the pcitures of posters and Obama in effigy at rallies? The press photographed them but no spin needed. Tthe signs say it all. And...See More

Yesterday at 7:01am ·

lol, I attend TEA Parties. And not once have I seen what you are describing. I know there are nuts out there. But the Left wants everyone to think all TEA Partiers are like those few.

Saying TEA Parties exist because of racism is silly. In fact, last summers TEA Party in Columbus was looked about half black and half white to me. At TEA Partiies ...See More

Yesterday at 7:20am ·

But I digress. My comments have nothing to do with visual representations of Anarchy or the Nanny State. It just seemed appropriate to briefly show the other side of the coin being discussed.

Yesterday at 7:31am ·

Anarchy is also Woodstock... Security is also a clean place when you're old.

Yesterday at 7:38am ·

Sherri Stoner

Anarchy makes me think of the vicious slaughter of the sow in "Lord of the Flies"... or even Alex and his droogs in "Clockwork Orange"....

Yesterday at 7:52am ·

Steven Grant

Anarchy isn't chaos, and it doesn't preclude clean places. In any case, choosing between a rigid binary view of the two is like asking if you'd rather be raped by Goths or Visigoths. I suspect the ideal for most of us would be a secure society where personal anarchy is possible and even encouraged. Nothing such as has yet existed on a wide scale but that doesn't make it impossible.

But given one or the other, I wanna be anarchy.

Yesterday at 8:14am ·

Sherri Stoner

Anarchy makes me think of the "you got a pretty mouth" scene in "Deliverance."

Yesterday at 8:24am ·

Steven Grant

You haven't read enough about anarchy then.

Yesterday at 8:27am ·

Janet Batchler

I've studied anarchy, and I would choose security.

Not quite an image, but somehow this reminds me of way back when Colin Powell was being discussed as a presidential candidate, and his wife wouldn't let him run because she was afraid he'd be assassinated. I have to wonder if Michelle Obama has had that talk with her husband... 'cause I think the chances are getting higher.

Yesterday at 8:38am ·

Dan Vining

Nannarchy. In other words, what we have now -- a million nannies of all stripes forcing (or trying to force) other people to do things for "the greater good

Yesterday at 9:16am ·

Roger Slifer

Shouldn't the choice be anarchy or police state?

Yesterday at 9:31am ·

David Brown

ANARCHY!

I've always been partial welding crude razor sharp spikes to my wife's Mazda and to bungee cord-based blood sports

Yesterday at 11:00am ·

Sherri Stoner

Steven... I was just answering Flint's request for an emotional response... you know the first thing that pops in your head. Dat's all...

Now a "police state" brings up images equally as scary.

Yesterday at 11:21am ·

Sanford S. Williams

I am a anarchist waiting for the signal to start the chaos.

Yesterday at 11:46am ·

Anarchy sounds good in theory, but I don't have enough faith in humanity to honestly think the theory and the reality would even come close.

For instance, I used to live next to a Frat House that had a police scanner. So when you'd call the cops, and the orders would go over the radio, they'd quit whatever it was they were doing. Unable to catch them in the act, the cops would do nothing, then leave. Then their behavior would resume.

So I think I've seen Anarchy. I think Anarchy filled the side of my mini van with air-soft pellet dents. I think Anarchy passes out in my yard, and plays loud music all through the night....See More

Yesterday at 11:48am ·

Sanford S. Williams

@Christopher: Yessir, you called it.

Yesterday at 11:51am ·

Sanford S. Williams

But within that security is freedom?

Yesterday at 12:12pm ·

Steven Barnes

If I was a single male, Anarchy. With kids to worry about, Nanny State. I don't think those things are quite poles though--unless one defines "Nanny State" as a government that controls every aspect of your life from cradle to grave.

Yesterday at 2:24pm ·

Kevin Maurice

Freedom! Selling Freedom to gain Security will result in the loss of both.

Yesterday at 6:35pm ·

Buzz Dixon

Humans are social animals. If it's either/or, then I vote for Civilization over Savagery.

Yesterday at 6:41pm ·

Alexis Luthor

Where's all the requested visual references guys? Flint how about a utopian Secure world, where computers are always scanning everything for danger, w/o actual people watching your every move? And as for airport lines and security checks, you know how computers get faster as time goes on? Well maybe there isn't even a designated area. maybe just walking through a doorway is an instant scan, and if there's a weapon, alarms go off. That would be my Nanny Society.

11 hours ago ·

Kevin Maurice

Oops, didn't catch the imagry part.
So.
'Most' people are Chaotic Good - they don't organize, ala Tea Parties, but they generally do onto others as they would have done to themselves. But CG'ers fall easy prey to LE'ers, That's Lawful Evil - think Mafia. So, an Anarchistic World will shortly fall into loose aggregations of good people that will be preyed upon by Mafiaesque cells.
The alternative is LE government, i.e. they will do unto others what they would not want done to themselves. However, LE govmnt will generally try to keep Mafiaesque groups from infringing on there turf. That is, government IS a protection racket.
SO, I don't think you CAN have a society of any size that doesn't fall prey to SOME 'security' at the expense of SOME 'freedom'....See More

11 hours ago ·

Kevin Maurice

See the following article for a 'picture' of ... ? Freedom ? Security ? I'm not sure which.
http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2010/04/08/mexico-and-the-failed-state-revisited.aspx

10 hours ago ·

Jeremiah Chechik

nanny anarchy

10 hours ago ·

Mary Pendergast

Christopher - Just to clarify, I don't think Tea Parties exist because of racism or that all members are racist. But there is a group within that feels emboldened to do or say things they might not otherwise. And that have nothing to do with the issues being protested. And I have heard no one condemn it. As Flint said there are no leaders but there are some cheerleaders who might make a statement. Racism or sexism or any other ism - they are sneaky. They require vigilance.

9 hours ago ·

Peter Marx

Churchill. Freedom.

9 hours ago ·

Robin W Enos

Freedom. From false dichotomies like having to choose between anarchy and a "nanny state."

5 hours ago ·