Way to go utopianist idiot- wait, what?

I definitely agree with ending nationalism, but until corporate pollution, crime, and abuse are treated the same as street-crime, I believe the state is a necessary evil. As sickly imperfect as it is, the "state" is the only thing powerful enough to stand up against giant faceless corporations like AGM, BP, Monsanto, etc...

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by GDGD.

No violence/fear/worship, etc. if we don't teach it? ... I find 90% of this video absurd and delusional, and the other 10% ripped from Buddhism and Communism.

Accidents happen! Anger is natural! Empathy is not equally distributed in all people! People desire, and have various levels of greed and selfishness! etc.

Beyond a Borg-like, distributed collective consciousness, I can see no possible way that humans will ever "overcome" the concept of organizing themselves into societies in which certain people play certain roles, both in private/commercial/industrial and communal/societal/governmental ways. And @vaporlock brings up the excellent point that once completely unshackled the greed of anonymous private industry investors WOULD essentially be the new government. To go totally dystopian on you, what would stop wars being fought between Walmart-Blackwater LLC and Exxon-Aegis Defense Services Inc. for your city and its resources?


Anti-Statism, just another religion?

But what will replace the statism? Won't there always be humans that want to control other humans? Will there be some other new religion control people?

Boy if this doesn't have blankfist written all fucking over it, then @gwiz665 doesn't like little boy wieners.

Adding video to channels (Fear, Philosophy) - requested by blankfist.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 3:43pm PST - promote requested by blankfist.

>> ^bamdrew:
Anti-Statism, just another religion?


Atheism, just another religion?

See how that sounds?

I'm sure this chap means well, but this is not a lecture, it's a sermon.

Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith. I'll say it again....

Belief without evidence = Faith

On the other hand, we all have a good understanding of government; which types of governments work and which kinds of governments don't. We also have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these different types of civic structures. It's a known quantity, with thousands of years of evidence to draw from.

Unless this guy's pie in the sky resembles Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, he is hopelessly naive.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I'm sure this chap means well, but this is not a lecture, it's a sermon.
Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith. I'll say it again....
Belief without evidence = Faith
On the other hand, we all have a good understanding of government; which types of governments work and which kinds of governments don't. We also have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these different types of civic structures. It's a known quantity, with thousands of years of evidence to draw from.
Unless this guy's pie in the sky resembles Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, he is hopelessly naive.


"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- F.A. Hayek

^How appropriate that you would use neo-liberal scripture to avoid answering my questions.

If you are going to downvote my comment, I think I at least deserve a response or critique.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
I'm sure this chap means well, but this is not a lecture, it's a sermon.
Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith. I'll say it again....
Belief without evidence = Faith
On the other hand, we all have a good understanding of government; which types of governments work and which kinds of governments don't. We also have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these different types of civic structures. It's a known quantity, with thousands of years of evidence to draw from.
Unless this guy's pie in the sky resembles Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, he is hopelessly naive.

"It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- F.A. Hayek


Yeah, look at religion. Government, however, is a necessary evil, and would be less evil if it were less self-serving (I'm looking at all you stock-holding, lobby-swinging, corporate-pandering politicians) and more about the people's needs.

As long as one individual will use their personal strength and/or influence to take advantage of another individual, the state is necessary.

That is what the state is, at a fundamental level. It is the gathering of individuals to reduce the abuses of one against another. We give up a portion of our wealth so that we may keep the rest. If we gave nothing, there would be nobody to stop the bully from taking it all.

Of course there are problems with it. That's because it is rife with people trying to use it to their own personal advantage. The maker of this video sees an infested house and thinks the best way to get rid of the infestation is to burn the house down. Utter foolishness. The house protects us from the elements! Fight the bugs, not the house!

When human nature evolves into a mind-share (like the borg mentioned above) then we can get rid of the state, because we will all truly feel the hurt we cause others. Until then, there will be destructive selfishness that requires group action to resist, and that is government in a nutshell.

Sure, except the point I was making was that the video presented an ocean of unverified and unverifiable beliefs, worded in such a way as to seem like fact (and not opinion/belief).

Atheism is presumably the absence of belief through active rejection.


>> ^blankfist:

>> ^bamdrew:
Anti-Statism, just another religion?

Atheism, just another religion?
See how that sounds?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

^How appropriate that you would use neo-liberal scripture to avoid answering my questions.


Hayek is a classic liberal. The Neolibs may admire his work, but he was a classic liberal through and through.

^So, old testament then, eh? Don't feel bad about not being able to answer my questions. The people who made this video weren't able to answer them either, though they were more polite about it.

If you are going to make a religious analogy, focus on the pro instead of the anti. Anti-statism is not a religion, but Freemarketology is. The market is the all knowing, all powerful, all good deity that we are expected to put our blind faith in, despite it's long history of violence, coercion, exploitation, pollution, corruption and greed. In the name of the market, property and Friedrich von Hayek, Amen.

>> ^bamdrew:

Sure, except the point I was making was that the video presented an ocean of unverified and unverifiable beliefs, worded in such a way as to seem like fact (and not opinion/belief).
Atheism is presumably the absence of belief through active rejection.

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^bamdrew:
Anti-Statism, just another religion?

Atheism, just another religion?
See how that sounds?

Thanks, thats a good point. To be clear, I worded it that way ("Anti-statism, just another religion?') as a play off of @MikesHL13 's summary of the video... my point was that both statism and anti-statism (freemarketology) could be viewed as having a heavy reliance on belief,... in the anti-statism case I refer to belief about the nature of human emotions and desires, and the formation of human societies.

To be transparent, I'm a biologist (specifically a neuroscientist), so my views on society tend to be colored by reading E.O. Wilson, and my views on emotions and desires tend to be colored by a familiarity with anger/emotion/desire issues stemming from hormonal/biological/physiological/chemical/genetic/epigenetic origins. So, yeah, there's that.



>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

If you are going to make a religious analogy, focus on the pro instead of the anti. Anti-statism is not a religion, but Freemarketology is.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Without regulation, what prevents one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? He makes it clear that he does not like government, but he provides no evidence for his own utopian belief system, and belief without evidence is the definition of faith.


You want an answer. Okay. We have those things you listed now under your perfect big government system. Let's go through SOME of this list.

1. "Slavery". We have slavery or servitude thanks to compulsory taxation (aka theft), so I guess your system hasn't proved capable of stopping that.

2. "Robbing another". What does your system do to prevent robbery? Strict penalties if the assailant is caught is not preventative.

3. "Killing another". Same as robbery above. Your ideal system does nothing to prevent murder. Your ideal utopia would make killing easier as people are stripped of their rights to self defense (gun laws). They'd instead have to call 911 and hope the cops show before they were murdered.

4. "Rape" and "Child molestation". Again. Same as robbery. Your system is not preventative.

BF, please describe your system of government (or lack thereof) which can PREVENT theft, murder, rape, molestation, etc. The very idea is preposterous.

The best any society can do is pick out those individuals who harm others and isolate them. Perhaps, maybe, theoretically, they might also be rehabilitated. But even in science fiction, systems that try to prevent those crimes (ie. Minority Report) fail.

You claim to want more personal liberty, but at the same time you demonize the current system for failing to take away enough personal liberties?

Your assertion that the current system has "created more tyranny than justice" is pure conjecture at best. At worst, history shows the exact opposite. Again, how would your ideal system PREVENT one person from harming another? If it can't, then using those arguments is a total fail.

PS. It's not slavery if you can leave. Go to another country that has a system closer to your liking.

@MaxWilder, I don't have a system of government which will prevent theft, murder, rape, molestation, etc. There's none. That's my point, isn't it?

I never demonized the "current" system for those failures, only pointed out that DFT's pro-statist argument asked what other than the current government can prevent these crimes as if the current system did in fact prevent them.

No system will prevent those things. However, a voluntary society will put more control and responsibility for preventing those crimes in the hands of the people as opposed to being in the hands of the police. Also we wouldn't have men representing the "government" threatening to shoot people (or throw them in a cage) when they're not harming others.

And thanks for essentially using the "like it or leave it" argument. So I trade my birthplace for another piece of dirt arbitrarily owned by another political body? That's just and fair to you? Interesting.

And I find it interesting that DFT chose to list the very base things that government in the US was supposedly created to defend as his reasons for justifying our current big government. Murder, slavery, robbery, rape, child molestation, etc. all fall within our basic rights of life and liberty.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" (U.S. Declaration of Independence)

The system may be flawed, but it will not work at all if people can simply "opt-out" and stay within the borders. Hence the "work with it or leave it" policy. If you want to help change the current system so that it will grow in the direction you prefer, then by all means do so. However, if you are advocating a complete dissolution of the system in favor of anarchy, then I will be the first to stand against you.

You, and others who make similar arguments, keep saying that the power needs to be taken from the police and put in the hands of the people. Are you high? The police *are* the people! I mean, let's break it down for a second. If there was suddenly no police, everyone would be forced by definition to be performing vigilante justice whenever they saw fit. Well, that just causes chaos, because anybody could at any time attack anyone else and claim self defense. A system like that cannot stand, and thus it would be necessary to task neutral parties with judging claims (the courts) and taking evidence and suspects into custody (the police). How the hell else could it be done? You think if there was suddenly no government that everyone would play nice? That's nuts!

If there are flaws with the government, then work to fix them. If there are corrupt police officers, then work to have them brought to justice. Starting over from nothing is completely absurd and would be of no help to anybody, except perhaps those who have the means to form their own police forces (gangs) and start their own little feudal societies based on their own whims.

Changing the subject is not an answer.

In a democracy, regulations prevent crime. The United States government ended American slavery in 1862 and enforces legal consequences for theft, murder and sexual abuse, thus detering would be criminals and imprisoning actual criminals. These regulations prevent crime.

Without regulation, what is to prevent one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? or exploiting the poor?

Belief without evidence is faith. Belief derived from evidence is wisdom.

Quantify your magical thinking.

>> ^blankfist:

You want an answer. Okay. We have those things you listed now under your perfect big government system. Let's go through SOME of this list.

1. "Slavery". We have slavery or servitude thanks to compulsory taxation (aka theft), so I guess your system hasn't proved capable of stopping that.
2. "Robbing another". What does your system do to prevent robbery? Strict penalties if the assailant is caught is not preventative.
3. "Killing another". Same as robbery above. Your ideal system does nothing to prevent murder. Your ideal utopia would make killing easier as people are stripped of their rights to self defense (gun laws). They'd instead have to call 911 and hope the cops show before they were murdered.
4. "Rape" and "Child molestation". Again. Same as robbery. Your system is not preventative.

Um.. all of that shit still happens dude.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Without regulation, what is to prevent one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? or exploiting the poor?

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Um.. all of that shit still happens dude.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Without regulation, what is to prevent one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? or exploiting the poor?


That was my point above.

Did both of you gents miss the paragraph above the one quoted? Let me save you the trouble of scrolling up.

In a democracy, regulations prevent crime. The United States government ended American slavery in 1862 and enforces legal consequences for theft, murder and sexual abuse, thus detering would be criminals and imprisoning actual criminals. These regulations prevent crime.

How would removing these regulations be helpful? I'm getting all offense and no defense here, and not particularly good offense at that. If your system cannot improve on democracy, then what is the point?



>> ^blankfist:

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
Um.. all of that shit still happens dude.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Without regulation, what is to prevent one person from enslaving another? or robbing another? or killing another? or raping another? or molesting a child? or destroying the environment? or exploiting labor? or exploiting the poor?

That was my point above.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

In a democracy, regulations prevent crime.


Sigh.

We wouldn't want reality to impose itself upon *magical thinking now, would we?

(downvoting doesn't make this any less true)

Adding video to channels (Magic) - requested by dystopianfuturetoday.

I think we're stuck on the word "prevent". Nothing can prevent crime, only discourage it and punish people who are caught committing crimes.

So the real question is: would your system do a better job discouraging people from harming one another? And when someone inevitably does, what happens when they are caught?

Currently, we have courts and police to discourage crime and attempt to punish those who commit crimes.

I see no alternative, other than vigilante justice, which in my humble opinion would suck balls. Please explain how it would be better!

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 8:22pm PST - promote requested by blankfist.

I could only watch this once, the myth of the state is fashioned after the same myth that designed this video.
In one word "twisted".

They know damned well that nothing short of an asteroid can stop all human crime. They are playing the "I'm going to take everything as literally as possible so I am not forced to concede anything" game.


>> ^MaxWilder:

I think we're stuck on the word "prevent". Nothing can prevent crime, only discourage it and punish people who are caught committing crimes.
So the real question is: would your system do a better job discouraging people from harming one another? And when someone inevitably does, what happens when they are caught?
Currently, we have courts and police to discourage crime and attempt to punish those who commit crimes.
I see no alternative, other than vigilante justice, which in my humble opinion would suck balls. Please explain how it would be better!

>> ^MaxWilder:

I think we're stuck on the word "prevent". Nothing can prevent crime, only discourage it and punish people who are caught committing crimes.
So the real question is: would your system do a better job discouraging people from harming one another? And when someone inevitably does, what happens when they are caught?
Currently, we have courts and police to discourage crime and attempt to punish those who commit crimes.
I see no alternative, other than vigilante justice, which in my humble opinion would suck balls. Please explain how it would be better!


Yes, "prevent" was the word @dystopianfuturetoday scrawled above as some sort of ham-fisted challenge as if there's any proof the current system prevented anything. No law (no matter the number or the severity of the draconian punishment) will prevent a crime. If it did, then today we'd have no murder, no rape, theft, etc.

Would a voluntary society discourage crime? Maybe. Who knows. If you mean discouraging the more egregious crimes like murder and rape and theft, I feel confident it would help to allow people the right to self defense by allowing them to arm themselves if they chose to do so. I can guarantee a voluntary society would not have that horrible '3 strikes' rule we have here in California where receiving the third felony nets you a mandatory life sentence. Has it been successful in preventing or discouraging crime? I don't know, but people are still committing felonies.

The real difference is in having a moral vs. immoral approach to crimes. For instance, if you wanted to stop smoking I could come to your house and threaten you with a butcher knife. If I find you smoking then I stab you. Would that prevent you from smoking? Would that discourage you from smoking? And would that be moral even if I did in fact effectively stopped you from smoking?

Voluntary societies would morally deal with drug addicts, jaywalkers, etc. As long as people are not hurting others, then they won't be harmed. That's the motto. We don't want to incentivize people using fear and violence. We want to do it voluntarily.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Friday, January 7th, 2011 7:30pm PST - promote requested by blankfist.

Props for answering the question, bf, and for letting down your guard enough to admit you don't really know how things would play out.

In my view, anarchy is a paradox, a) because there is no way to enact or enforce anarchy without it becoming a state in and of itself, and b) because the forming of groups to leverage power over others is such a fundamental human tendency. I believe that almost immediately after achieving anarchy, you'd have powerful and wealthy people or groups of powerful and wealthy people eager to take advantage of the chaos. Then the entire history of the human race would replay itself.

If your volunteerist society were to, as you say above, organize a method of dealing with criminals, you've just created an authoritative body with the power to control the lives of others, otherwise known as a state.

Also, your enthusiasm for the free market feels hypocritical to me, as businesses are states unto themselves, with leaders that can leverage power over others. I don't think the free market has anything to do with liberty.

PS: If the banning of cigarettes under penalty of knife to the chest ever finds it's way to a ballot, I'll vote against it.

I took this as "Be less of a dick." Although, I really enjoy the conversation that started.

How is it that people cannot defend themselves right now? We can still purchase a wide variety of weapons, including firearms. Do you need an RPG to protect your apartment?

I'm trying real hard to understand your moral vs. immoral approach to crimes. You seem to be claiming that it is immoral for the government (representatives of the collective public) to throw a person in prison for breaking the law. Tell me if I'm wrong, because I don't know how else to interpret that weird "stabbing you with a knife to quit smoking" example.

Incentivize people using fear and violence? What does that even mean? Fear is a good thing. Fear of consequences. Whether there is a government around or not, there will be consequences for actions. Either from a neutral party (like police and the courts) or from vigilantes (the family and friends of the victim). From my point of view, there's more violence in your proposed world.

Your entire argument is beginning to sound like "I can't smoke what I want where I want so let's burn this whole mutherfuker down!" and "I can't buy a guy without a three day waiting period so let's burn this whole mutherfuker down!"

You have no clue what would even happen if you got your way, and you act like we are crazy for defending a system that at least functions a little bit. We're not crazy, we have a pretty good idea how fucked up the world gets when there is no functioning government. It's like those African countries where they don't have any roads but they've all got AK-47's. Where entire villages get wiped out by roving mercenary gangs. Where hundred or thousands of women get raped and nobody does a damn thing about it. I don't want to live there, and I don't think you do either. It's fucking hell on earth, and you think everybody is suddenly going to start being nice to each other? Because there is no government to "incentivize violence"?

I'm trying real hard not to start throwing insults, so please tell me why you think I am wrong. Aside from allowing you to buy more weed and guns, how would a lack of government be better?


>> ^blankfist:

>> ^MaxWilder:
I think we're stuck on the word "prevent". Nothing can prevent crime, only discourage it and punish people who are caught committing crimes.
So the real question is: would your system do a better job discouraging people from harming one another? And when someone inevitably does, what happens when they are caught?
Currently, we have courts and police to discourage crime and attempt to punish those who commit crimes.
I see no alternative, other than vigilante justice, which in my humble opinion would suck balls. Please explain how it would be better!

Yes, "prevent" was the word dystopianfuturetoday scrawled above as some sort of ham-fisted challenge as if there's any proof the current system prevented anything. No law (no matter the number or the severity of the draconian punishment) will prevent a crime. If it did, then today we'd have no murder, no rape, theft, etc.
Would a voluntary society discourage crime? Maybe. Who knows. If you mean discouraging the more egregious crimes like murder and rape and theft, I feel confident it would help to allow people the right to self defense by allowing them to arm themselves if they chose to do so. I can guarantee a voluntary society would not have that horrible '3 strikes' rule we have here in California where receiving the third felony nets you a mandatory life sentence. Has it been successful in preventing or discouraging crime? I don't know, but people are still committing felonies.
The real difference is in having a moral vs. immoral approach to crimes. For instance, if you wanted to stop smoking I could come to your house and threaten you with a butcher knife. If I find you smoking then I stab you. Would that prevent you from smoking? Would that discourage you from smoking? And would that be moral even if I did in fact effectively stopped you from smoking?
Voluntary societies would morally deal with drug addicts, jaywalkers, etc. As long as people are not hurting others, then they won't be harmed. That's the motto. We don't want to incentivize people using fear and violence. We want to do it voluntarily.

@MaxWilder, thanks for trying to have a civil dialog. You wrote "How is it that people cannot defend themselves right now?" Owning a gun is still a right in the US, but try to carry it with you in public places. That's the important distinction between owning a gun and using it to defend yourself outside of your home. Cops aren't always around, and most recently with the gunman in Arizona, it might've been handy for others to have guns to subdue the gunman.

My "whole" argument has nothing to do with "I can't smoke what I want". Not sure why you're attempting to paint it as such. I'm trying to illustrate how there's more to the immoral statist system of government than just protecting us from egregious crimes like murder, rape, robbery, etc. Like I said, if that was all they protected, you'd not hear a peep out of me. But it's the other areas of control that bother me such as, sure, what you smoke and eat and drive and whatever else. I ask you, name ONE thing in your life where government doesn't intervene in some capacity. It's impossible. They're influencing what we watch, how we learn, what we eat, where we can go, and even how much water is necessary to flush our shits. It's madness.

This was the purpose of my Hayek quote above: "It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil." -- F.A. Hayek

That quote means that as we try harder and harder to correct the problems with society through the violent apparatus of government, we tend to create more tyranny in the process. To mean we do more harm than good. This is how I view big government, which is what we have in the US. A very big, powerful, rich government.

Those of us clamoring for a free and voluntary society, we think people can do better than the current immoral system of government. You see it as a quick leap to chaos and a warlord-run Somalia world. We see it as a gradual shift from institutionalized violence and coercion to a more moral existence of self-governance. If you think "fear is a good thing", as you wrote above, then I don't think there's any way of reaching you, unfortunately. As the socialist AJ Muste once said, “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.” I think he was on to something. You cannot reach peace by war, central planning, coercion, using fear, etc.

Peace is not a destination, it's the path. Not the end, the means.

If you want to peacefully coexist, you have to start by giving freedom to those around you. Don't try to turn my words back at me and propose I'm saying we shouldn't be vigilant. That's not the case at all. We should all remain vigilant and take steps to protect ourselves.

Pretty words, but it's still not an answer. You paint a picture of people walking hand in hand in peace, but that is not human nature. I have all of history to support my assertion, and you can't seem to give me one shred of logic as to how abandoning government would be of any benefit.

Please understand that when I say fear is a good thing that I don't mean everybody should live in fear all the time. I sure don't. What I mean is that anybody who wishes to promote their own self interests at the expense of somebody else should be in fear of reprisal. That is the only way some people will think of others before themselves.

And as dramatic as the example of the incident in Arizona is, I don't believe it would happen any less often if people carried weapons around like in the old west. There is a reason cities started banning openly carrying. Simple arguments would escalate to murder. If you feel defenseless in public, try pepper-spray. Somebody with a gun would not have stopped that nutjob in Arizona. Instead of being tackled by people in the crowd, he probably would have been shot to death. And then we might never have the opportunity to find out what the hell was going on in his head, and consequently what we might do to prevent it from happening again somewhere else.

It is easy to spout platitudes about government doing more harm than good, but aside from vague statements about a free and voluntary society, you don't seem capable of explaining how such a society would work. Let me use one of your examples: fresh water is a precious resource, yet manufacturers of our sanitary facilities used to frequently design their products in ways that would waste that fresh water for no purpose. If your free and voluntary society was viable, then there would be no reason to regulate how much water was used per flush, because all the manufacturers would design their products to be efficient. They didn't, so they got regulated.

That's how the real world works. That's why laws are passed and regulations are enacted. Because people are selfish, and they don't care about the best interests of others. That's why your system would dissolve into chaos.

I'm still open to an explanation as to how I'm wrong. You've responded several times but never with anything of substance. That makes me inclined to believe you have no argument, and are living in a fantasy. Prove me wrong.

You have a very jaded view of the people. I feel sorry for you.

So my argument is invalid because I'm jaded? You really have nothing to back up your claims, do you? Does that help you sleep at night, believing that everything that is wrong with society can be blamed on the government? I've got bad news for you. The government is run by people. Individuals. Thinking, hoping, loving human beings. They are not mindless, faceless clones or constructs or bogeymen. They are the very same people you think will live next to you in peace and harmony without the government.