Re: Voluntary Governments?

[elton@sybase.com (Elton Wildermuth)]

Right ... I had taken this offline, but it looks as though it ain't quite
dead yet.  Kindly stop reading now if you wish this subject would go away.

Consolidating two messages from Jim Dixon:

>Jason's use of the term 'tax' in a special sense is no more an abuse
>of the language than the attempt to change the conventional meaning
>of the word 'government'.

and

>You can't simply take over the ownership of words in the English
>language.  'Government' is indeed the name used for an entity that
>exercises authority or enforces laws.

Of course we can -- it happens all the time.  However, this time I
haven't usurped the meaning of anything.  Force -- the threat or actual
use of violence -- is the essence of government.  You just said so
yourself:  "enforces laws".

Here's the closest applicable dictionary definition of "government",
taken from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language:  "1. the
political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members,
citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction
of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration."
This is amplified by looking at "govern" in the same dictionary: "1. to
rule by right of authority, as a sovereign does."

"Rule", or "political ... control" are only ever exercised through force.
People keep using that word, "enforce", without looking carefully at it.
From the same dictionary:  "to put or keep in force; compel obedience to."
"Enforcement", regardless of the dry dictionary definition, is the essence
of government.  Without the power to enforce arbitrary rules, there can be
no government.

There are several methods of achieving compliance with a set of rules:
social pressure (shunning, as some religious sects do); withholding of
goods or services (the degree that Jason spoke about being denied); and
topical application of violence ("enforcement").  Of these, the first
two are related, and are commonly practiced by social units that don't
recognize the right to use force on one another.  The last named is the
only one that results in physical damage to the person being "ruled", and
is also the only one that can physically prevent that person from engaging
in the proscribed behavior.  The others can make life bloody unpleasant,
but they won't terminate it.

One other thing:
>I grew up in a small town of 5,000.  It had a city government.	The
>county government was in the same town.  No one denies that California
>has a government, I think.  And then there was the US government.  And
>we had city police, the sheriff's office, the Highway Patrol, and the
>FBI paid an occasional visit.

Uh ... you _do_ understand that that's a specious argument, yes?  What
do you suppose the outcome would be if your home town were to legalize
marijuana, and then attempted to prevent the DEA from enforcing the
overriding federal law?  Yes, we have a distributed government, with
each layer operating under the authority of the next layer up; but each
layer can only add restrictions, never remove them, and each enforces
its restrictions by the same method as the layers above it:  main force.
Further, each attempts to prevent other agencies from enforcing sets of
rules counter to the ones they themselves enforce.  That's what makes
them true "governments", rather than some other social institution.

Here, someone will surely object that by this definition, the Mafia can
be considered a government.  Well, if they can successfully kick the
existing thugs off of some plot of ground, and then defend it against
all comers, then yes:  that's exactly what they'll be.  How else do you
suppose that governments become established?

			-- Elton