Re: Re:[OT]Governments was: [FT] UNSC (emotional rant), etc etc etc...

Oh I don't know about that. Maybe they'd wipe each other out, and there
would be an end to two bad things at once<G>.
----- Original Message -----
From: <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 5:14 AM
Subject: Re:[OT]Governments was: [FT] UNSC (emotional rant), etc etc
etc...

> >Absender: siefertma@wi.rr.com
> > > One could go on about the fact that governments didn't
> > > spontaneously generate... they were created by people for good
> > > reason, and we (collectively, if not individually) choose to keep
>
> > them there.
> >
> >	Ah.. but I didn't create my governemnt.
> By what procedure do you suggest to do that if not by some kind of
> election process ?
>
> > And dispite my  participation in the electorial process, I don't
> > statistically have much of a say.
>
> You will be hard put to 'statistically have much of a say' in a nation
> of close to 200 million people. Perhaps you should emigrate to
Andorra?
> Or get your county to declare independence ?
>
> > > One could say that by choosing to live in a state that has
> > > taxation, you buy into that social contract.  If you don't like
> > > it, get out.
> >
> >	Contract?  I don't remember signing any contract.
> >
> >	Besides, saying "if you don't like it, get out" is a pretty
> > "maifiaesque" response.  I should have to put up with the laws of a
>
> society, no matter how wrong they are, or find somewhere else to
> > live?
>
> The proper response should be to work to get the rules changed if you
> don't like them. Of course if most other people are happy with the way
> things are, you may not get far.
>
> > > One could say that the benefits of government are clearly
> > > demonstrated by the fact that we don't live in caves, we have
> > > lightbulbs, etc.	The benefits of no-government are quite clearly
>
> > demonstrated by certain portions of our world in recent history.
> > > Say, mid-1990's Somalia.
> > > Mogadishu.  Rule of the gun.  Great place to live...
> >
> >	The lightbulb wasn't invented by government, but a entrepenuer
> > by the name of Thomas A. Edison for...dare I say it... PROFIT.
> > Indeed, much of what we call "progress" is the result of "greedy"
> > capitalists who sought to make money.
>
> Adrian didn't say anything for or against capitalism or profit. You
are
> responding to what you imagine his ideas to be.
>
> A free-market/capitalist economy needs a stable political environment
> and the rule of law to work. Look at anarchic places like the Somalia
> quoted above, or Albania, or Russia or... Foreign investors shun
states
> with poor governance with good reason. You have to bribe a lot of
people,
> you need 'security services', and if you cross the wrong people you
still
> may lose everything (even your life).
>
> >	As for anarchism...  I'd like to think that most rational people
> > neither want to rule nor be ruled.
>
> Now, there are many kinds of 'Rule', from the guaranteed-rights,
> rule-of-law, elected-governments of stable democracies, over the
less-stable
> emerging democracies in, say, Eastern Europe, over relatively mild
> dictatorships such as used to be common in Latin America, to
totalitarian
> dictatorships such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or North Korea,
and
> such blood-thirsty caricatures as Idi Amin's Uganda or Khmer Rouge
> Cambodia.
>
> All normal people prefer a stable and free state to one of the nastier
> ones. And it is our duty to take care that our country stays in the
> healthy range.
>
> But I think most thinking people prefer a reasonable government to no
> government, precisely for the reasons discussed by Adrian.
>
> > However, a sizable number of people on this planet are not so
> > driven.  For whatever reason (money, religion, ideology, or just the
> > plain, naked, lust for power) people feel it necessary to exert
> > power over their fellow  man.
>
> That's precisely the reason democratic governments with
> balance-of-power institutions are designed the way they are. They
channel
that
> ambition, giving power-hungry people something to strive for, but
hedge
them in
> by giving all people a say in the matter and by  distributing the
power
> among many wolves.
>
> Such rows as the recent troubled US presidential election are a case
in
> point. You may or may not like the result, but having Gore and Bush
> fight it out in the courtrooms is certainly preferable to having
Democrats
> and Republicans fight it out in the streets with automatic rifles.
>
> Greetings