@Carlton Banks I am speechless. You are obviously a lot more intelligent than I originally thought, your understanding runs deep and you clearly know what you're talking about. I apologize if I offended you in any way, it was not my intention.
On that note I will respectfully remove myself from this discussion.
Really? I am a little wary of unlikely sounding apologies, but you do seem sincere.
I wasn't offended by what you said, although I was of course being pugnacious. I certainly didn't intend to offend you, but I am all too happy to denigrate that particular argument, regardless of who makes it.
The point is that I see the issue of where and how rules/laws apply to modern societies to be a contentious one, whereas you presented the prevailing model as a fait accomplis. I would be happy to debate the merits of top-down prescribed order v.s. bottom-up emergent order, but we're going way off-topic here.