Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt
From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: "Majority" rule
Message-ID: <1145@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Oct-84 16:29:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1145
Posted: Wed Oct 17 16:29:47 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Oct-84 18:50:26 EDT
References: <2739@ucbcad.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 30

==================
I think there is a basic point that needs to be made here -- we need to have
a government that has certain powers (to tax the people, to raise an army,
etc). In a situation where there is no government, or a weak
one, there is a vacuum of power, and you need only look at Lebanon, El
Salvador, etc to see what happens when nobody has a predominance of power.
You get a situation where everybody is struggling to get power over everybody
else, and the one who wins will be the strongest, nastiest, and most 
oppressive. One of the points of having a government is to make sure
that there is enough power concentrated in one body that other groups who
want to gain power over people will be prevented from succeeding.
==================

A point that needs no further support, but it is so important and rarely
mentioned that it seemed worthwhile reporting it.  It is, in fact, one
of the main public rationales for the existence of the Canadian Armed
Forces ... if we didn't occupy our North militarily, the US would occupy
the vacuum, and then we would have no Canada.  They wouldn't do it from
a wish to take over Canada, but to see that the Russians didn't occupy
the area.  No-one would be willing to believe that everyone could be
trusted to leave the area alone, because it is so sensitive in this
era of ICBMs.

(Of course, there are lots of other reasons for having a Canadian
Armed Forces, but that's one of them.)
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt