Letters to the Editor
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mte...
"However, the third stage would be more problematic, no protection agency, public or private, would have any special rights; their members would have the same rights as any local individual, or any community militia members..."
Spare me the theorizing. Is that how the breakdown of central government has worked out in cases like Waziristan, Somalia, Liberia, or the Colombian countryside?
Given a set of conditions like that, it doesn't matter what you want. It doesn't matter what reasonable and moral people want, or what mothers, children, or the elderly want. It doesn't matter what the vast majority of "the community" wants. What matters is the views and mandates of those who have superior firepower & cold-blooded skills required to annihilate anyone defined as the opposition, down to the faintest whisper of dissent. Meet the new boss...the regional warlord. He'll teach you what you need to do to survive...point the rifle over there and pull the trigger, that guy over there is being used for target practice. And if you don't, you'll join him.
It's like that.
Nonetheless, I'll grant that the scenario of my earlier message is far-fetched, in some respects. For instance, it would be highly unlikely that the electric power grids would be in working order, much less the high-technology facilities of a modern university.
In gold rush era San Francisco, the most benign historical case of anarchy of which I'm aware, the potholes grew big enough to drown mules. A dozen eggs were worth $10-50 c.1850 U.S. dollars in gold dust. One apple cost $1-5 dollars. plywood boards stretched between sawhorses were rented out as beds for overnight lodging. People slept with one eye open and pistols in their hands, of course.
The arrangement undoubtedly had its adventurous aspects, especially for young, able-bodied young men in the appropriate mindset. You know...just in from the gold fields, ready to be somebody and/or beat somebody, prowling the muddy streets with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a Bowie knife in the other, not a cop in sight, looking for a whorehouse...paradise on earth.
But it was no place to raise a family. And it couldn't last. It was intolerable. http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hbtbcidx.htm