The Role of Government

I have an alternative view of the nature and role of government:

Government is the excuse civilized people exploit to justify the use of violence against their neighbors (uncivilized people don’t make excuses for their violence). The role of government is to employ it’s socially sanctioned violence to keep order in society. Doesn’t matter really what order it enforces, it could be a racist feudal aristocracy, an oppressive socialist republic, or the idealized modern meritocracy, but no matter how minor the infraction, government uses violence, or the threat of violence, to insure the people comply with its directives. If you don’t believe me defy your local authorities repeatedly and see if they don’t use violence to encourage you to comply.

Consider the case of the man who dared to defy his local government’s decree that a given number of trees be maintained on every acre of land within its jurisdiction. This man in particular owned a golf course, and thus found excessive foliage to be a problem for his land’s use. Rather than comply with the directive, he elected to repeatedly pay the fine the local authorities levied for failure to plant the required trees.

One day he was arrested and tossed into the local jail as an example by the local authorities that defiance, even when you pay the fine, is unacceptable and there are consequences for that defiance.

Once you understand the nature of government, it’s true nature, you begin to understand why it must be constrained and distrusted at all times. Ironically government is not unlike nature herself, a necessity for life as we know it, but at the same time a constant danger to that life.

I think it was George Washington that compared government to fire. I have no doubts that he understood its true nature.