What Anarchism is.

May Day protests in the last decade or so, have included Anarchists using violence, in Portland especially so. As such, it seems like a good time to write a little about this topic.

The news media routinely misconstrues what  Anarchism is. Under the most basic definition, Anarchists believe all things require explicit agreements with everyone, not just a majority. Absent that agreement, anything one party has done may be construed as an intrusion into another party's rights. If they refuse to get a protest permit, it is because they did not agree on the need to have protests codified into law. The government is a priori contravention of their rights.

It is the essential and core reason why the Occupy movement fell apart. Meetings would last for hours until everyone agreed upon a plan of action or rule.

Whereas we operate in a representative democracy, Anarchists operate in a direct democracy. In terms of efficiency, Anarchists are at the far opposite end of Dictatorships. Representative democracy is the squishy in-between, always in tension.

Progressives and Liberals latched onto the Occupy movement out of convenience; there were no other groups out there operating as a grassroots effort to combat Wall Street abuses re: mortgage lending and evictions. It was a lazy act, superficial, and in the end, counterproductive.

Even though there is a lot of crossover in beliefs, that does not mean that Progressives and Liberals are in the same boat as Anarchists, or otherwise support their actions. If you compare ideologies, Libertarians are much closer to Anarchists than Progressives and Liberals.

From the Libertarian Party platform:

As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others. 

From the Anarchists (they are, as you might suspect, anti-platform):

The ideal of anarchism is a society in which all individuals can do whatever they choose, except interfere with the ability of other individuals to do what they choose. This ideal is called anarchy, from the Greek anarchia, meaning absence of government.

I know, you assumed Anarchists were a mere offshoot of Liberals/Progressives. They are not. If you do not understand who the Anarchists are and what they believe in, you cannot possibly confront them and offer an argument against Anarchism.

They do not represent Liberals/Progressives. That Liberals/Progressives have sympathy or feel a kinship to Anarchists is mostly due to a laziness of thought and poor understanding.