what is government? why its your family of course.

[Anon136]

No its not an agency of legitimized coercion. Its your family. It just loves you and wants you to have strong teeth.



http://truthstreammedia.com/u-s-elementary-school-homework-teaches-kids-government-is-family/

[herzmeister]

nanny state u mean, amirite

[b!z]

Government is not bad. They can be good.

[Bees Brothers]

I'm going to give this quiz to my kids and see what their answers will be 

It just so happens that last night at dinner we were discussing Government/Family as someone had just finished reading 1984.

Pretty sure their answers would put them (and myself) on Uncle Sam and Big Brother's watch list...

but maybe there answers would get an invite from Prof. Hoppe to be a future student of his 

[Anon136]

Government is not bad. They can be good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

[Mike Christ]

Government is not bad. They can be good.

Government can be anything and do anything.  The problem is, when you put people (not super-humans, or heroes, or messiahs, but regular people) in complete charge of other people, the people given power tend to use that power for personal gain at the expense of the others.  Because of this trait in human beings, who, when given both power and a varying freedom from being relieved of that power (democracy vs. dictatorship), thus resulting in a complete lack of responsibility of that power, tend to abuse that power, if not at first, later in their rule.  Governments generally act in a way that is, at best, inconvenient to the lives of the many, and at worst, fatal.

So, although government can potentially do only good, or at least mostly good, recall that government is made of normal people, who have proven, time and time again, that when coupled with power and lack of responsibility to maintain that power, will become corrupt, and only more corrupt the more power they are given.  Hoping for a perfect nation with a perfect people and a perfect government is unrealistic, and especially pointless once one comes to the conclusion that a "one, true government" is not necessary, nor desirable.

Certainly, the proxy killer who has less deaths under his belt is not more preferable than the proxy killer who has more; they're both killers and undesirable.  If given a choice between one type of cancer and another type of cancer, we don't ponder the benefits of having the lesser cancer; we instead decide we don't want any type of cancer at all; there is no "lesser of two evils" when we acknowledge the idea of having no evil at all.  Much like the atheist came to the conclusion that no religion is likely to be any more correct than the other, as much as each is comparably and almost equally far from the truth, the anarchist identifies the many types of government as detrimental, and realizes it is preferable to be ruled by his conscious and natural consequence than by the coercion of a coalition of sociopaths.

[b!z]

Government is not bad. They can be good.

Government can be anything and do anything.  The problem is, when you put people (not super-humans, or heroes, or messiahs, but regular people) in complete charge of other people, the people given power tend to use that power for personal gain at the expense of the others.  Because of this trait in human beings, who, when given both power and a varying freedom from being relieved of that power (democracy vs. dictatorship), thus resulting in a complete lack of responsibility of that power, tend to abuse that power, if not at first, later in their rule.  Governments generally act in a way that is, at best, inconvenient to the lives of the many, and at worst, fatal.

So, although government can potentially do only good, or at least mostly good, recall that government is made of normal people, who have proven, time and time again, that when coupled with power and lack of responsibility to maintain that power, will become corrupt, and only more corrupt the more power they are given.  Hoping for a perfect nation with a perfect people and a perfect government is unrealistic, and especially pointless once one comes to the conclusion that a "one, true government" is not necessary, nor desirable.

Certainly, the proxy killer who has less deaths under his belt is not more preferable than the proxy killer who has more; they're both killers and undesirable.  If given a choice between one type of cancer and another type of cancer, we don't ponder the benefits of having the lesser cancer; we instead decide we don't want any type of cancer at all; there is no "lesser of two evils" when we acknowledge the idea of having no evil at all.  Much like the atheist came to the conclusion that no religion is likely to be any more correct than the other, as much as each is comparably and almost equally far from the truth, the anarchist identifies the many types of government as detrimental, and realizes it is preferable to be ruled by his conscious and natural consequence than by the coercion of a coalition of sociopaths.

And what would the solution to this be? Anarchy?
Without government, who would keep society "civilized"?

[Mike Christ]

And what would the solution to this be? Anarchy?
Without government, who would keep society "civilized"?

People already keep themselves civilized; we adopt a set of customs to treat each other with, and in turn expect to be treated in a similar fashion--this is commonly referred to as the "golden rule".  We create rights for one another; if I believe I should have the right to free speech, I must allow you the right to free speech; if I believe I should have the right to step on your toes, I must allow you the right to step on my toes.  If I don't want you to step on my toes, I shouldn't step on your toes; rights in a nutshell.  The less government there is, the more people rely on each other to understand what is right and what is wrong, thus leading to more rules we agree to follow; the more government there is, the more those people behind government are above those rules, and often will violate those rules as they have no reason to follow them; after all, they have a monopoly on security, and can use that military in whichever way they see most fit, against foes overseas, and domestic.  If we take a look at what is happening in NK, they have maximum government control; because of this, their leaders can basically do whatever they want, such as starve and enslave entire families and torture people at a whim, without any remorse or responsibility for their actions; with all that government, rules disappear, which is ironic, because that's what we expect to happen when government disappears.

Take a look through this book; it'll explain a lot more than I could hope to.

[Anon136]

Government is not bad. They can be good.

Government can be anything and do anything.  The problem is, when you put people (not super-humans, or heroes, or messiahs, but regular people) in complete charge of other people, the people given power tend to use that power for personal gain at the expense of the others.  Because of this trait in human beings, who, when given both power and a varying freedom from being relieved of that power (democracy vs. dictatorship), thus resulting in a complete lack of responsibility of that power, tend to abuse that power, if not at first, later in their rule.  Governments generally act in a way that is, at best, inconvenient to the lives of the many, and at worst, fatal.

So, although government can potentially do only good, or at least mostly good, recall that government is made of normal people, who have proven, time and time again, that when coupled with power and lack of responsibility to maintain that power, will become corrupt, and only more corrupt the more power they are given.  Hoping for a perfect nation with a perfect people and a perfect government is unrealistic, and especially pointless once one comes to the conclusion that a "one, true government" is not necessary, nor desirable.

Certainly, the proxy killer who has less deaths under his belt is not more preferable than the proxy killer who has more; they're both killers and undesirable.  If given a choice between one type of cancer and another type of cancer, we don't ponder the benefits of having the lesser cancer; we instead decide we don't want any type of cancer at all; there is no "lesser of two evils" when we acknowledge the idea of having no evil at all.  Much like the atheist came to the conclusion that no religion is likely to be any more correct than the other, as much as each is comparably and almost equally far from the truth, the anarchist identifies the many types of government as detrimental, and realizes it is preferable to be ruled by his conscious and natural consequence than by the coercion of a coalition of sociopaths.

And what would the solution to this be? Anarchy?
Without government, who would keep society "civilized"?

Well first its important to recognize where civilization comes from. it doesnt come from government, it comes from people working to gather for mutual benefit, it comes from voluntary exchange. government is just an entity in a society that is widely believed to have the right to break the law. for example everyone knows that extortion is illegal, unless the government does it then its called taxation, even though its fundamentally the same set of physical actions. So anarchy is not lawlessness, lawlessness is what we have now, laws dont apply to government. ironically anarchy is the proposition that we should end lawlessness.

ok so if we have a society where the majority of the population are violent barbarians, than anarchy cant be expected to work well. but then of course neither can a statist society. a bunch of violent barbarians are not going to elect wise reasonable rulers and then obey them and solve the problem of having a violent barbaric society. so any hopes for either a statist or an anarchist society that would look even remotely desirable to you or i are going to rely on the assumption that most people are reasonably honest, cooperative, orderly and respectful.

If you go knocking door to door where i live these are generally the sorts of people you meet. i know in the cities its not like that and thats mostly because of the incentives crafted by welfare dependency and single parent households which are also largely a product of state involvement in courts and and the enabling effect of welfare. so unfortunately this generally civilized nature of people in general is being changed by the state but it isnt too late yet.

ok so if we have 10-20% of the population that is dishonest and uncivilized and 80-90% who are civilized than the solution is simple. If an individual is honest than it is very cheap for him to buy assurance. Since assurance is very cheap for honest decent people we can resasonably expect most decent honest people to have assurance. This means that if you encounter someone who does not have assurance, you can reasonably expect him to be some sort of scoundrel. This means that if you encounter someone who does not have assurance than you will tend to refrain from contracting with him since there is likely someone else near by offering the same service who does have assurance. In affect this means that people who are unassurable are cut out of the economy. This reverses the incentives for people who would be willing to engage in fraud, and makes it so that even though they would be willing to engage in fraud, it is no longer in their interest to do so.

this solves the problem with 99% of criminals. all criminals who are interested in crime for the sake of improving their status or increasing their material influence. it does not however deal with the problem of the proverbial "axe wielding maniac". A person who is not interested in status or material gain, but rather sees causing harm to others as the end rather than a means, can not be controlled by assurance. For this sort of person you buy insurance. Say you have a policy that will pay out 10 million dollars if you happen to be the victim of an axe attack. This puts incentives in the right place for the insurance company to find the most cost effective way of addressing the axe murdering problem. It may be the case that police patrols are the right answer, and if they were than we would have police patrols, but i doubt it.

the last and hardest crime problem we have to deal with is war, that is the aggressive neighboring nation. again this problem roughly falls into the same catigories as the former only on a larger scale. assurance may be effective to some extent but mostly we would rely on insurance. if you dont want something to happen to you, then buy insurance against it. the insurance companies, not waning to pay out on claims will find the most cost effective way of preventing aggression by other nations. this would probably boil down to border control and lobbying. the anarchist society would most likely have the best funded lobbying presence in the world in statist societies. it would most likely dwarf even the pharmaceutical lobby. if there is one thing we can learn from statist societies its that lobbies can control governments. Of course i could be wrong maybe it would find a standing army to be more cost effective deterrent, but i highly doubt it.

in the event that you are about to scream pubic goods problem!, public goods problem! then here is a youtube video about how to fund public goods on a free market. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQvjZ12Vpko

[Anon136]

And what would the solution to this be? Anarchy?
Without government, who would keep society "civilized"?

People already keep themselves civilized; we adopt a set of customs to treat each other with, and in turn expect to be treated in a similar fashion--this is commonly referred to as the "golden rule".  We create rights for one another; if I believe I should have the right to free speech, I must allow you the right to free speech; if I believe I should have the right to step on your toes, I must allow you the right to step on my toes.  If I don't want you to step on my toes, I shouldn't step on your toes; rights in a nutshell.  The less government there is, the more people rely on each other to understand what is right and what is wrong, thus leading to more rules we agree to follow; the more government there is, the more those people behind government are above those rules, and often will violate those rules as they have no reason to follow them; after all, they have a monopoly on security, and can use that military in whichever way they see most fit, against foes overseas, and domestic.  If we take a look at what is happening in NK, they have maximum government control; because of this, their leaders can basically do whatever they want, such as starve and enslave entire families and torture people at a whim, without any remorse or responsibility for their actions; with all that government, rules disappear, which is ironic, because that's what we expect to happen when government disappears.

Take a look through this book; it'll explain a lot more than I could hope to.

your argument in microcosm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeryaK22ntw

look at the anarchy! cars smashing into everything! pedestrians being mowed down like blades of grass on a suburban lawn! 

[Mike Christ]

your argument in microcosm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeryaK22ntw

look at the anarchy! cars smashing into everything! pedestrians being mowed down like blades of grass on a suburban lawn! 

This is an excellent example of what to expect with anarchy; without an outside force dictating what people should do and when, they are forced to rely upon themselves and each other to define the rules they'll follow to ensure their right to safety is upheld; a person does not want to be smashed into, and so they avoid smashing into other people.  In this case, we see that, even without government-created law and regulation, order is not only possible, but more efficient when handled by not the few, but the many.

I was a little scared tbh, when I first saw the traffic lights were out, because I was worried someone would crash into someone else.  Whenever the lights are out in my area (with that flashing red thing they do), I always slow down and make sure nobody is coming, which is just exactly what the people in this video were doing.  I was amazed that they were so efficient without the traffic lights; I would also argue they were less likely to wreck, for a green light may mean "Go", but it makes people much less aware of the person who might be ignoring their own red light; instead, without lights, people must always be aware of their surroundings, no matter the circumstance, and would more likely be able to catch the guy not taking his turn, or the pedestrian crossing the road at the wrong time.

But the poor bastards are driving on the wrong side of the road!  Nobody said anarchy was perfect

[Anon136]

your argument in microcosm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeryaK22ntw

look at the anarchy! cars smashing into everything! pedestrians being mowed down like blades of grass on a suburban lawn! 

This is an excellent example of what to expect with anarchy; without an outside force dictating what people should do and when, they are forced to rely upon themselves and each other to define the rules they'll follow to ensure their right to safety is upheld; a person does not want to be smashed into, and so they avoid smashing into other people.  In this case, we see that, even without government-created law and regulation, order is not only possible, but more efficient when handled by not the few, but the many.

I was a little scared tbh, when I first saw the traffic lights were out, because I was worried someone would crash into someone else.  Whenever the lights are out in my area (with that flashing red thing they do), I always slow down and make sure nobody is coming, which is just exactly what the people in this video were doing.  I was amazed that they were so efficient without the traffic lights; I would also argue they were less likely to wreck, for a green light may mean "Go", but it makes people much less aware of the person who might be ignoring their own red light; instead, without lights, people must always be aware of their surroundings, no matter the circumstance, and would more likely be able to catch the guy not taking his turn, or the pedestrian crossing the road at the wrong time.

But the poor bastards are driving on the wrong side of the road!  Nobody said anarchy was perfect

yea im that guy who isnt careful at all when the light turns green. i like stoplights because i like to accelerate as fast as i can . but the point remains valid.

[ktttn]

What is the family but a governmental body?
I suppose family needs to be distinguished in this sense from community in that a family is a Man, his wife, his offspring and perhaps any attached "moochers," such as grandparents, uncles and aunts and any living or nonliving property such as land or animals the Man owns.
Dismantling this obviously worthless structure we call the family is as urgent as dismantling the government. I'm no Marxist. However, this might be worth skimming.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm
It develops out of the pairing family, as previously shown, in the transitional period between the upper and middle stages of barbarism; its decisive victory is one of the signs that civilization is beginning. It is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later to come into their father’s property as his natural heirs. It is distinguished from pairing marriage by the much greater strength of the marriage tie, which can no longer be dissolved at either partner’s wish. As a rule, it is now only the man who can dissolve it, and put away his wife. The right of conjugal infidelity also remains secured to him, at any rate by custom (the Code Napoleon explicitly accords it to the husband as long as he does not bring his concubine into the house), and as social life develops he exercises his right more and more; should the wife recall the old form of sexual life and attempt to revive it, she is punished more severely than ever.
We meet this new form of the family in all its severity among the Greeks. While the position of the goddesses in their mythology, as Marx points out, brings before us an earlier period when the position of women was freer and more respected, in the heroic age we find the woman already being humiliated by the domination of the man and by competition from girl slaves. Note how Telemachus in the Odyssey silences his mother. [The reference is to a passage where Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope, tells his mother to get on with her weaving and leave the men to mind their own business – Ed.] In Homer young women are booty and are handed over to the pleasure of the conquerors, the handsomest being picked by the commanders in order of rank; the entire Iliad, it will be remembered, turns on the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon over one of these slaves. If a hero is of any importance, Homer also mentions the captive girl with whom he shares his tent and his bed. These girls were also taken back to Greece and brought under the same roof as the wife, as Cassandra was brought by Agamemnon in AEschylus; the sons begotten of them received a small share of the paternal inheritance and had the full status of freemen. Teucer, for instance, is a natural son of Telamon by one of these slaves and has the right to use his father’s name. The legitimate wife was expected to put up with all this, but herself to remain strictly chaste and faithful. In the heroic age a Greek woman is, indeed, more respected than in the period of civilization, but to her husband she is after all nothing but the mother of his legitimate children and heirs, his chief housekeeper and the supervisor of his female slaves, whom he can and does take as concubines if he so fancies. It is the existence of slavery side by side with monogamy, the presence of young, beautiful slaves belonging unreservedly to the man, that stamps monogamy from the very beginning with its specific character of monogamy for the woman only,but not for the man. And that is the character it still has today.

[Anon136]

im sorry but how is it obvious that family is a "worthless structure". i get a lot of benefits from living with and taking care of my daughter, and she, i believe, gets a lot of benefits from living with and being taken care of by me. we both are made better off by the arrangement that is characterized by the word family.

i think you probably just had bad relationships with your family and are sub-consciously projecting as some sort of psychological defense mechanism. for that i am sorry. perhaps if you found a husband and made a child and developed a relationship with them you may come to understand the value of family.

[Foxpup]

im sorry but how is it obvious that family is a "worthless structure".

She means, I think, that the structure itself is worthless, not its members. It is, after all, the ultimate goal of every child to eventually become independent of its parents and move away from the family group and make its own life for itself. This is why a government is exactly like a family.

[Anon136]

im sorry but how is it obvious that family is a "worthless structure".

She means, I think, that the structure itself is worthless, not its members. It is, after all, the ultimate goal of every child to eventually become independent of its parents and move away from the family group and make its own life for itself. This is why a government is exactly like a family.

Yes i think that i was addressing the value of the structure, not the independent value of its members, when i explained the reciprocal relationship between my daughter and myself. obviously i think that both of us are valuable independently, but i feel that our relationship with each other is valuable also.

Also saying that family is worthless because the ultimate goal is to become independent, is a bit like saying the bottom rung on a latter is worthless because the ultimate goal is to reach the top. which would be a silly thing to say  

[herzmeister]

The family as we know it today indeed is an invention of the old authoritarian institutions of empires and religion to keep society better organized, numbered and controllable. That's also one of those things that conservative US-"libertarians" don't get.

Natural (indigenous) people live in tribes. Often the communities are matrifocal, i.e. women live close together and raise all their children and provide important social functions. And a man was not tied to one woman either.

[Anon136]

The family as we know it today indeed is an invention of the old authoritarian institutions of empires and religion to keep society better organized, numbered and controllable. That's also one of those things that conservative US-"libertarians" don't get.

Natural (indigenous) people live in tribes. Often the communities are matrifocal, i.e. women live close together and raise all their children and provide important social functions. And a man was not tied to one woman either.

well for starters tribes were basically extended families. also having a man with multiple wives is not the absence of a family. it just means that man has several families.

[herzmeister]

all of our genes can be traced back to the same Eve, so the whole world is an "extended family"  

i think you probably just had bad relationships with your family and are sub-consciously projecting as some sort of psychological defense mechanism.

same could be mused about you. Freud would probably say you're angry at your father, but at the same time idealize him, so you project your anger at the supposedly evil gubberment instead.

[EFS]

Government can -and do- kill you or your family/friends. You can't do anything.