From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   Libertarians, objectivists and some conservatives all make the same error.   
   They see federal government as an organ of corruption and oppression, and   
   nobody else as such.   
      
   In fact there are many organs of corruption and oppression that aren't the   
   federal government. Violent husbands. Oppressive religions. Suffocating   
   communities. Corrupt networks in law and medicine. In Western countries, these   
   exercise far greater levels    
   of corruption and oppression than does the federal government.   
      
   In Western countries, the governments are elected, official, and made   
   accountable to the public. The same is not the case for these other entities.   
   This results in them having an unchecked potential for brutal, corrupt and   
   oppressive practices. And while    
   the libertarians are out there hunting for corruption potentials in the   
   federal government, real corruption sprouts up under their noses and puts them   
   in its service.   
      
   You may ask my friend Celeste, an MD who had three of her relatives murdered   
   in American medical health system. Corrupt doctors enlisted corrupt coroners   
   and corrupt lawyers to bury the evidence and draw away from her any lawyer   
   that she would hire. Or    
   you may ask any number of women who escaped serious domestic violence in the   
   American South, only to see the courts award their children to the   
   perpetrators.  Or you may ask someone I know who tried to escape from   
   Jehovah's Witnesses, only to see his    
   family commit him indefinitely in a mental hospital and manipulate him to   
   become hateful and abusive to his loving and generous girlfriend.   
      
   Biden did not do this. Corrupt local entities did.   
      
   What is more worthy of authority: An entity that is official, accountable,   
   checked and balanced, or entities that are unofficial, unaccountable,   
   unbalanced and unchecked? There is no official check on the power of   
   communities and religions. There is no    
   official check on the power of corrupt entities in law and medicine. There is   
   no official check on the power of Jehovah's Witnesses. The problem gets no   
   attention at all from the libertarians, as they spend all their time and   
   energy scrutinizing the    
   federal government. And thile they are out there spouting New World Order   
   conspiracy theories and claiming “statism” or “socialism,” real   
   corruption and real oppression grows up in their hometowns. The entities that   
   are responsible for this    
   corruption, being the manipulative little shits that they are, then,   
   ridiculously, direct the energies of the libertarians toward fighting those in   
   the government who seek to fight this corruption under the false – and   
   ridiculous – claim that in    
   doing so they are protecting values and freedom.   
      
   Values and freedom that they violate to a far greater extent than does the   
   federal government; and which violations, with the energies of the   
   scrutinizers spent on the federal government, goes unnoticed and unchecked.   
      
   That an entity is unofficial does not make it any less capable of corruption   
   and oppression than the official entities. Indeed, being unofficial, it is   
   un-scrutinized; which gives it an unlimited potential for corruption and   
   oppression. This is the case    
   with the doctors who murdered Celeste's relatives; this is the case with the   
   community courts that award children to child rapists and batterers; this is   
   the case with Jehovah's Witnesses; this is the case with many others.   
      
   A person truly interested in defending liberty and integrity will do so from   
   all entities that infringe on these things, whether they be official or   
   unofficial. A true libertarian will be just as willing to take on private   
   corruption and oppression as to    
   take on public corruption and oppression. Once they do, they will have earned   
   their title as defenders of freedom. And until they do, they are cowards and   
   hypocrites who attack an entity that is easy to attack while doing nothing to   
   fight real wrongs.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)