The intent of self-proclaimed anarchists to orchestrate street demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention prompts some kind of joke about the compatibility of anarchy with large-scale mobilization.

And here is that joke:

If anarchists organize other anarchists to promote anarchism in some choreographed form, will the world explode?

Not much chance of that, if the haplessness of Denver’s generally clueless anarcho-loiterists is any indication:

“No pictures!” shouted an officer from behind a perimeter fence.

“Why not?,” asked Chas Robles, of Ridgecrest, Calif.

“Because the Secret Service says so,” the officer replied.

“That’s not right. You’re not my mom,” Robles said.

“Then go home to your mommy,” the officer retorted.

Robles, who leads a conservation crew in the Mojave Desert, and his compatriots moved on.

“Where are we going guys?” asked Brendan, a Norman, Okla., resident who asked that his last name not be used so he can’t be identified. “I’ve been antsy to see something all day, and we haven’t seen anything.”

“You’re not my mom”?? Some revolutionary cry of defiance that is. It’s less a metaphor against statism than it is a Freudian slip.

All in all, Denver’s looking like a piss-poor showcase for the political system of anarchism. These jokers remind me of standard-issue libertarians — perhaps not surprisingly, since their avowed political goals are actually pretty close (libertarians still want a state, just a bare-bones one). But in both cases, the labels wind up being co-opted by malcontents who simply want any outlet at all for their agendas, which often have nothing at all to do with the ideology with which they’re supposedly aligned.