From: Jim Dixon <jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 12:06:38 PDT
To: ravage@bga.com
Subject: Re: Voluntary Governments?
Message-ID: <7605@aiki.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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In message <199408231846.NAA08977@zoom.bga.com> Jim choate writes:
> You strike me as a person who trusts governments.

Thank you.  I am an American who has spent has most of his adult life
outside the USA because (a) bureaucratic errors ruined my career
prospects, (b) my involvement in the Indochina wars left me sickened
by American stupidity and convinced for life of the futility of
large-scale government enterprises, (c) [later] certain elements in the
Federal Gov't had it in for me (they had me up in front of a grand
jury at one point), (d) certain political bureaucrats at other
levels of government felt the same way and sued me for millions, and
(e) American blindness to the outside world is sometimes very hard
to take.

I trust the government to extort every penny they can from me and
then to waste it on idle bureacrats and in the pursuit of votes.
I trust government to be arbitrary and stupid.	Need I go on?

However, I also understand that government performs certain essential
functions.  Where I grew up in California, there were still people
living who could remember Mexican bandits raiding across the border.
And I teach my children that if they are in trouble they should look
for a policeman.  And they go to school to learn things that they
can't or won't at home.

But the discussion was about the use of certain words, including
"government".  There are people on the list who insist on using the
word in an abnormal way and then attack those who use it in a normal
way.  My preference for clean and simple English does not make me a
lackey of "the government".
--
Jim Dixon