I don't think you could find a single person in the world who believes that "governments as we see them today are the only answer," bucky1. I challenge you to find just one.

Let me get this straight.

You are saying that no one here in Florida will tell you that some government type as we see them (in their many various flavors) in the world today is the only answer to organizing society? I just spent a day arguing with people who have that very worldview in this very thread. Did you not read any of it?

As a test, do you see a different way than one of the government types present in the world today? I do, as you already know --- but do you?

I'll tell you Paul, your assertion really came as a surprise to me --- a shock, really.

Paul: ... This is how you prop up your delusional belief system. By pretending that it's the only sane alternative to another delusional belief system--that no one in the world actually believes in.

I really have lost you here, unless it is just an excuse to call names. Because saying that the average Joe six-pack in the street has any conception of a way to order the world other than governments as we see them now is just ridiculous. This is not controversial.

Paul: ---> ... This is certainly true. Without coercive government, Western Civilization would never have gotten as far as Egypt and Babylon, much less ancient Greece, much much less authoritarian Spain financing Christopher Columbus to go out and inadvertently discovering the New World. And without the discovery of America--presto!--no Jim Crow!

Proof on that? Oh, just obvious you say?

I see now; I stepped on your religious belief system. You believe that the poor are so much better off in Detroit than in Celtic Ireland before the Roman murderers came. Well, I do not. They had no homeless problem, no class of chronically hungry, and their religion was far superior to most today. (more inclusive)

Heaven on Earth? No, but at least you could smoke a weed without being beaten and caged like a dog.

Paul: ... What makes modern liberalism different, however, is that it's based on the notion that the state ought to be justified on libertarian-as-opposed-to-authoritarian foundations. ...

The State is force. The state is brutal, coercive, enslaving force.

Mao said that all government flows from the barrel of a gun. He was correct on that one.

... I feel for you. In fact, I have very similar thoughts myself. But, then, I had those thoughts back during Iran/Contra, when impeachment would actually have been quite possible, and would have clearly prevented all sorts of nonsense we've since been subjected to. The problem--as with your defense of anarcho-capitalism--is that you focus attention so narrowly on one strand, you utterly miss what's happening with the whole wide web. Right now, our problem isn't just an out-of-control President. It's an entire ruling elite that's turned against not just our system of government, but the Enlightenment philosophical foundations on which that government is based. This is much bigger than impeachment, dude. It's culture war on a level that Pat Buchanan's 1992 RNC speech didn't even begin to scratch the surface of.

Are you saying that because RR got away with it, that everyone who follows must be given a pass?

The real problem is that both sides seem to have lost the belief in the rule of law. Heck, you are saying that nothing Bush has done rises to the level of "high crimes" or misdemeanors. It will only be when elected officials see that there really are punishments for breaking the law while in office that we stand even a small chance.

You are saying that the Dems should play politics with America's future.

Wake up and smell the Inquisition.

I did. It will continue because no one has the guts to stand up to it.

That argument completely neglects the fact that, before there was the state and governments, there was tribal law in various forms, usually related to whatever religion the tribe (on whatever continent) subscribed to. This is still true today among groups that don't have "government" per se. Our modern idea of government and the state was born from these traditions, customs, and laws. The modern state is only different because it's larger; it's larger because society is larger. It's also interconnected enough to need a system both looser and more all-encompassing than tribal law.

Yes, people organize themselves. There were tribes, some ruled by men and others perhaps by women. Some moved on, others were more settled. Diversity.

The modern Nation-State is different by definition. It has the only legal right to use force within a given geographic territory. It owns the land and the people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation-state

... I get the impression that you have never had a run of really bad luck.

Boy, did you guess wrong on me. I have never gotten a break in almost 6 decades and it does not look like it will start anytime soon.

Sorry you lost your parents; I know the pain.

Given that you advocate a minimalist government at most, do you think that private citizens should have the right to own any weapons they might wish? ... Would you extend that right even to thermonuclear devices?

I have always thought that USA citizens should have whatever weapons the government has --- it is them we need fear. I just don't think the government should have any; as an aside, our sheriff has tanks!

Without large governments, we would never have had nukes. Unfortunately for all of us the damage is done now. Some scientists claim that if you exploded a mere 50 of them at the same time it would kill all life on the planet. Chilling, and plausible.