XPost: alt.anarchism, alt.politics, alt.politics.socialism   
   XPost: alt.politics.liberalism   
   From: jamesd@echeque.com   
      
   uri wrote:   
   > > How do you define government? The way i see it   
   > > government is a monopoly on coercion in a given land   
   > > or territory. Government has the power to create and   
   > > enforce laws, rules and regulations within groups,   
   > > organizations and institutions.   
      
   Paul Bramscher   
   > That's pretty good.  But you need to go a little   
   > further than this. There's a directedness about the   
   > coercion.  Governments throughout time, of all sorts,   
   > are coercive proxy vehicles for the society's elite.   
   >   
   > Regardless of how vast the gap between rich & poor,   
   > government is there to ensure that it remains so.   
   > It's the socialization of social control, making the   
   > poor and working-class pay, in part, for their own   
   > pacification.   
      
   You cannot make social injustice part of your definition   
   of government, for if you do, you are going to wind up   
   arguing that Lenin, or Pol Pot, or whoever is the latest   
   hero of left, is not a government, but anarchy in   
   action.  There were no rich under Pol Pot, and in Cuba   
   there are nominally no rich, though some people have   
   considerably greater command over the property of the   
   state than others.   
      
   --   
     ----------------------   
   We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because   
   of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this   
   right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.   
      
   http://www.jim.com/      James A. Donald   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)