A key thing to understand with regard to anarchists is the nature of our rejection of authority. Cynical naysayers like to jump on this as a way of "proving" that we're a bunch of utopians, saying, "if there's no authority, then there will only be chaos; what if a child ran into a busy intersection? Would you have the 'authority' to intervene, or is that being too authoritarian? If a doctor says I have cancer, am I to reject his opinion on anarchistic grounds?" And so on, ad nauseum.

"The political arena leaves one no alternatives, one must be either a dunce or a rogue." /Emma Goldman If you believe everything you read, see, and hear, you'd think we're in the freest, most democratic world that has ever been. In some senses, this is true: compared to the cultures of the past, people today are freer than their forebears.