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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Libertarianism
Message-ID: <1837@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 00:37:41 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1837
Posted: Wed Nov 28 00:37:41 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 08:47:10 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:ucbcad:-281200:inmet:7800190:000:2115
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Nov 26 17:55:00 1984

>***** inmet:net.politics / ucbcad!faustus /  9:31 pm  Nov 24, 1984
>> Don't confuse "society" (which is a function of human interaction) with
>> "government" which is an attempt to dominate society.  People may owe
>> much to society, but little or nothing to government.  In particular,
>> the government tends to claim credit for anything that happens in 
>> a society, even though the society managed it IN SPITE of the government.
>
>A good analogy would be: the government is to society as the skeleton
>is to the body. 

Gack.  More like:  the government is to society as the CORSET is to
the body.

>It provides security and order, and makes it easier for
>social interactions to occur. 

It provides apparent comeliness
(welfare, AFDC), while avoiding the ugly necessities
(dieting, exercise, refusal to meddle with the money supply, 
admitting that even people who do not want to give to charity
have a right to their earnings) of real 
comeliness.  It forces those of unusual composition into a mold favored
by a current fashion, often disrupting the functioning of the inner
organs to satisfy the vagaries of vanity.  And think!  Where would
the corset-makers be without a continual usage of corsets?

>Speculation about what would happen if
>there were no government is very dangerous, because there is simply
>no precedent for such a thing. 

Speculation about life without corsets is very dangerous, because
(aside from medieval Ireland and Iceland) there is no precedent
for such a thing.  People are born wearing corsets, just as humanity
was born with gavel in hand.

>At the very least the government provides
>security from foreign agression, which could never be provided in an
>anarchistic society.

Thus the continual invasions of medieval Iceland by other powers, and
the fact that it took a centrally-organized invasion force (the British)
a mere couple of centuries to subdue the Irish.

Wayne: PLEASE do a little reference work before you post anything
more about libertarian thought.  I suggest you try: "For a New Liberty",
by Murray Rothbard, who talks a bit about historical Ireland.