From: Jim Dixon <jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 94 12:06:47 PDT
To: elton@sybase.com
Subject: Re: Voluntary Governments?
Message-ID: <7607@aiki.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In message <9408232042.AA18345@fnord.sybgate.sybase.com> Elton Wildermuth writes:

> Here's the closest applicable dictionary definition of "government",

The closest "applicable" definition is not the SOLE definition, it is
only definition 1 in your dictionary, and even then [I won't go into boring
detail] the dictionary meaning is wider than the narrow reading you are
trying to apply to it.

> "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."

Have you never admired someone so much that that person's displeasure was
a compelling force?

> >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?

Uh ... you _do_ understand that that is a silly comment, yes?  I was
illustrating some of the common uses of the word.  Linguistic arguments
are best met with linguistic replies, not political bullshit.

Your insistence that there is only one 'true' government in the United
States, and that all other governments are in some sense derivative,
does not agree with my reading of the US Constitution, but this is not
a matter that I, for one, will pursue.

> Here, someone will surely object that by this definition, the Mafia can
> be considered a government.

Well, yes, of course.  It has quasi-governmental functions in southern
Italy.

>			       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?

This is supposed to be a revelation?
--
Jim Dixon