[geeks] Liber-fascism

[Jonathan Groll]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 05:25:15PM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
>>> I pay my taxes happily and, guess what?  I'm willing to pay more if
>>> my children live in a better world as a result.
>> Why would you rather pay for services under the threat of force
>> instead of voluntarily?
>
>I didn't write the double-quoted text above, but it seems obvious to me
>that the answer tothe single-quoted text is "nobody has found any other
>way to support the kind of population density that's inevitable at
>today's population without that".
>
>There's a quote, which entirely from memory (I'm too lazy to look up
>the details, because they don't matter to what I'm saying) goes
>something like:
>
>	Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the
>	others that have been tried.  --Winston Churchill
>
>Yes, governments suck.  But all the indications (including times when
>people have tried to live without it in more than tiny numbers) are
>that absence of government rapidly sucks even worse.  The farm you
>cited as an example works only because there is a government, with its
>threat of deadly force backing it, preventing the local brigands that
>would otherwise overrun your farm from existing.
>
>Indeed, the local brigands - and the banding-together of people to
>defend against their ilk - are the first rudimentary governments.
>Today's governments are just the same thing, grown to the scales
>necessitated by the number of people invovled.
>
>If you don't like governments, I suggest you leave.  Somalia might be a
>good place; there isn't much of a government there.  Or perhaps
>somewhere out on the high seas.  Just don't expect anyone to come to
>your rescue when a bigger - or better-armed - band of people overrun
>you; that's something governments do.
>

..and yet we all need to be extremely vigilant for the scenario where
the 'elected' government becomes the biggest gang of them all (as in
Zimbabwe at present).

Cheers,
Jonathan