Bitcoin Forum

Recently we have seen a lot of government failures and scandals.
What is your opinion, do we need the government or not?

Let's see....what a government is?A group of people that governs a community or unit. It sets and administers public policy and exercises executive, political and sovereign power through customs, institutions, and laws within a state....so a group of people...people like you and me ....who got corrupt by the power and money ....so do we need them?

Depends what we mean by "need".  Would the human race survive without government? yep.

I feel in order to remove government and not go all mad max we need infrastructure, systems like bitcoin and the internet are perfect examples.  More decentralized systems needed.  

Do we need government ? yes
Do we need big government ? no

No, we do not need a government.  A government's sole purpose is to govern, to control.  They are tyrants by definition, one cannot exert power or control over a population with coercion.  They only way a govern can exist is through force, violence.

The only way to truly have freedom and peace is to govern ourselves and live freely, without the law of man and tyrants restraining your natural rights as a human.

The only law we need is love, karma.  If everyone respected each other, we would have world peace.  The government will never bring peace, once they get in power they will only crave more power and domination over the world.

Governments are not natural.  The law of karma is.  You reap what you sow.  In an anarchist state, you can do whatever you wish, but if you choose to take a negative path, don't be surprised if you mess with the wrong person and get your karma.  Half of households in the US own guns, if people chose to become tyrants their selves, they would very quickly eliminate each other.

A government only has as much power as we give them.  If we stop using money and stop fearing their armies, they have no power.  It is negativity that drives them.  If we find peace between our own neighbors and the world, then governments become obsolete and have no ability to impose their force against us.

Life is so miserable because it is constructed to be that way.  Once we stop thriving off greed and differences, we will unite as a planet and reap untold amounts of happiness that you didn't know existed.

Imagine everyone sharing and building off of each other's happiness.  The positive feedback loop would have no limits.

Cool story bro, i'm also libertarian but i know all government of this planet will not fall in the same time. If a rich zone is without government it will just be invaded by another government.

Do we need governments? No.
Do governments make people believe that we need them? Yes.

Fixed.

Not in their present form's we don't.  Smaller government seems to be in order with scaled back influence.  I think could do most countries alotta good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUS1m5MSt9k

You've been conditioned to believe we need a government. Bitcoin is one of the first systems that obviates the need for government. When everything a government does is done in the private sector (in a better way, cheaper, etc.) then people will realize that they don't need a government. But not before then. The government of course will try to make things free aka paid by the taxpayers to still have a monopoly in things. This is probably the most serious problem. But there is no reason why we shouldn't go towards a smaller government now.

We need the government but the extent to which we need it is debatable
I don't mind if they set standards safety regulations giving people jobs building infrastructure.

The question is when they start invading privacy and monitoring every piece of information.
Some government is ok but like all things too much is bad for you and too little as well although I am referring to a federal government
Territorial/State Provincial governments are different than a municipal one so it matters what type of government the OP had in mind.

I assume the Federal one.

I agree with you, there is no reason we shouldn't have a small government. But without government we will just be invaded by other government like Russia... As example now in eastern Europe lot of ex-USSR people fear Russia, without NATO they would be invaded, then would be western Europe... I assume you live in USA, but you really think without government you will survive a new USSR ?

You have this dead on.

We do need government in order to provide services that individual citizens cannot provide. Things like Police protection, Fire protection, consumer protection, national defense are all things that consumers cannot reasonably purchase for themselves.

Things like education, and housing are things that citizens can and do purchase for themselves, and government involvement (outside of consumer protections) is nothing more then income/wealth redistribution

1.Private protection is a solution, when government become big police do not protect you, they are here to enforce submission of people.
2.Assurance can do that, without coercion
3.Label can do that, without coercion
4.Sure,
5.If the effect of a bad decision is collectivized (national defense) people don't take care, but if the effect is individualized people take care for themselves.

Smaller without a doubt.

Thanks for posting this video. I didn't know about it yet.

Don't be an idiiot. BTC can't obviate government. If America  will have no government because of Americans have a virtual currency it will be conquered by Russiand or Chineese.

Right, i would add that in cold war USSR spend 50% of GDP in army. More your government is respectful of citizen and don't tax them high more your military alliance need to be rich.

if your enemy have a 1000 billion GDP and spend 25% of his wealth in army cause it's a violent socialist country you need to have at least 5000 billion GDP to spend the same amount at 5%.

Small and weak government will invite all kind of attack from neighboring country.

My government spend 2% GDP in defense and 55% in a lot of useless stuff. I think a small government with 10% GDP spending can do defense...

We need only read the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution to understand why a government is needed: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." We need government to keep the territory held together (more perfect union). We need government to protect us from law breakers (establish justice). We need government to keep our day-to-day lives stable and safe (domestic tranquility). We need government to protect us from foreign invasions (provide for the common defense). We need government to help the exchange of money, goods, and trade with other countries (promote the general welfare). The purpose of a government is to provide for the safety and protection of the citizens. It protects the nation from foreign and domestic enemies and violence, provides services like post office, fire protection, state and local police, armed forces, and regulates things like interstate commerce and trade with other nations. A government also has the obligation to protect the rights of the citizens, though not all governments do that. A national government must protect the rights of citizens and of states' rights. The government's functions are to provide social order, security, public services, and economic systems for the citizens.

The government, although deterimental in many ways, and just as flawed as any system, is very necessary for us to even exist as a society, to even exist at all.
To quote Windston Churchill, "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."And the definition of democracy is a Greek term that means "rule of the people", or "power by the people".

It's interesting to see that Greek do not elected there leader, has a lot of subsidiarity and killed politician who don't keep there promise. The Roman empire political system is also interesting. Even now in France we still have some part of there juridical system (but there was a great centralization during the nazi occupation that tried to kill this historic heritage  :-[ )

Government is not necessary for our fundamental living needs. The word Government implies "governance" over a group of people. If everyone is governing, then the word Government would no longer apply. It's like this: If everyone has power, than nobody does.

Of course we need a government. Anarchy is the worst possible form of running a country. Would you rather get taxed, or be stabbed in the street and raped? Without a government, anyone could do anything, and no one would stop them.

if we didn’t have a government, we wouldn’t have anything right now, everyone will be fighting to survive, because no more power plants, theft all the time, murder will get away with because of no justice system, and so on so forth, so ya, we need a government, because most of the people in this world will take advantage of no punishment at all, anarchy people.

1.No, it's second best after a little government
2.Government already do that pretty well... You are blind...
3.that's cool, human are mostly good people, and somebody who do something bad would be stop by honest citizen.

1.We already need to fight to survive and big government just complicate the task.
2.Are you serious ? No private company can build a power plan ?
3.Government forbid people to defend themselves while theft
4.Sure, without government or with little government there is no justice system and everybody become a bloody psychopath...
5.Thanks, i'm very happy there is superior people like you that understand how average people are biologically inferior and rule them because without you and your big government they will become animal...

That simply would not happen in an anarchist society.  With no laws, that gives the people the right to defend their selves, their neighbors and their property.  People who thought it meant they could just go around and kill people would quickly be eliminated from the gene pool.

With a government, anyone could do anything, and no one would stop them.  Especially when you're a part of the government.

Here we go again.
The real issue here is people are not all equal. The only thing I need a government for is to renew my passport, and there are a few people like me, but most people would be desperate without the umbrella of a government above their frail shoulders. We just need more people to grow up, and government will become useless for all to see.

I still think that if we had experimental zones where different governments were experimented with we could settle these issues
In practice their is just China Communist and the Special Zones which can try two different approaches
So having a few Autonomous regions here and there with different government no government systems would solve it
One can dream  ;)

But they fear we see we don't need them. Watch how big government hate the freedom of place like Switzerland...

You obviously have never been to 3rd world country or Africa continent.

If you want small government and freedom, move your entire family there.

Exactly.

People who advocate anarchy and no government obviously do not fully understand the outcome of such system.

You're forgetting that in an Anarchy people would have the freedom to defend themselves and each other, nice ultimatum there, I'm getting tired of people who are against minimal or no government using only hypothetical scenarios to make their arguments. Being for no or limited government and for freedom in general also means accepting the bad sides of humanity as well as the good because the alternative of living in a totalitarian state where every thought and action is processed and watched is much worse.

If humanity was really as bad as people like you claim, it wouldn't even matter if a totalitarian regime was in power, people would still find a way to commit crime on a massive scale.

You obviously have never been to 3rd world country or Africa continent...
Or you would know that there government don't respect there basic right...

Another stupid thing to say ?

It's necessary to the extent that children need parents to survive; point is, so long as the majority of mankind is stuck in perpetual childhood under father warfare and mother welfare, there will never be a popular opinion that government is not necessary.  We know adults can function without their parents, and we know libertarians can function without government; the worry is that others won't be able to function without an authority figure in their lives, which is a legitimate concern as children raised to be good only with the threat of violence if they acted otherwise, will become criminal once there's no consequence for breaking the law (ignorance of real consequence from the people they've harmed, i.e. the sociopaths.)

Government has a limited number of roles that can be successfully handled by individuals acting out of self-interest; government predicates on the notion that individuals cannot solve their own problems, which is true for many (not least of all due to public schooling.)  The people who advocate government as an absolute necessity have not yet themselves realized their own potential as sovereign individuals and the influence they have within an economy; they've yet to hit a philosophical awakening, a place many of us have come from and lived in at some point in time.  But I would certainly say a 'libertarian' statist is closer to this awakening than the conservative, and far closer than the "liberal" zombies.

http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/1/7/3/5/2/2/5/liberal-zombie-mantra-91201038516.jpeg