Of course, anarchy as a political ideal is a stupid fantasy.
Larry Niven nailed it.
http://larryniven.net/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.shtml
Classic sci-fi by one of the underappreciated greats.
If people want to see what near-anarchy looks like in real life - just look at the Old West. That is how people behave in the absence of laws and law enforcement. The murder rate back then was insanely high. Which is the whole reason towns clamored for lawmen and law enforcement - in the absence of a "nanny state", you get a descent into violence pretty quickly.
The idea of anarchy working is based on the underlying idea that everyone will follow the basic underlying rule of don't initiate violence. But in actual fact, there's ALWAYS some asshole(s) that will have no problem at all using their "freedom" to threaten and commit violence with impunity.
This basic fact of human nature is the reason we need laws. If everyone were moral and rational all the time, their anarchy fantasy might work. But that's not reality and it will never, ever be reality. The whole reason we need laws is
not because everyone is a law breaker. It's because we have a smaller set of
consistently shitty people that have a disproportionately negative effect on everyone else because of how abusive and violent they are.
The naivety of that whole "small government" group is just breathtaking. Don't they read history? Don't they have any understanding of human nature? And if they do think anarchy or small government is so awesome, why don't they go to places like central africa or south america where there really is "small government" (because the government is so ineffective in those places)?
More likely, they would rather stay in the USA with it's much bigger nanny state in place and enjoy the benefits of strong law enforcement (ie, a low incidence of violence), and just go all complainypants about "big government". The irony is that the safety they enjoy is provided by big government in the first place! If we tear that down, we end up right back in the same place we were in the Old West or current day Africa.