I do not have time presently to give a full response to your posts, but I will make a few remarks.

You wrote, "It's all about consenting to being governed. Force should not and does not normally enter into it. I wonder if this is where libertarians stopped showing up for class?"

Government is force. It is nice when they are not pointing a gun at me, but implied in every action that government takes is that they have the manpower and force to coerce me into obeying their commands. I am surprised you skipped that whole class, since that is in government 101.

You wrote, "To be precise, it's not a matter of approving of the use of force, it's more a matter of defining "force" so broadly that everything except getting the hell out of the way fits into it."

No, government really is force. Perhaps the natives or the blacks can see it better than some others but it is not all that hard to understand. We have approximately 8 times as many men and women in prison in this country and that is only the surface of the problem. Government is force.

You wrote, "...It shouldn't require either maternal or paternal nannyism, nor lead to anarchy."

Anarchy is not chaos. The two are often confused with each other, especially by those who want to see misunderstanding. Anarchy is when men and women voluntarily cooperate and provide for their needs through private groups. (it is true that these private groups may resemble your idea of government somewhat)

I use those terms, with the scare quotes, deliberately, to make a point in the simplest possible way : if we start from a set of assumptions about the organisation of labor that imply a degree of subordination of the wills - and this includes the moral values - of people without capital to people with it, then we will have to allow an ideology that justifies or purports to justify this, by invoking a higher moral interest. A relatively sober way of doing this is to argue that, no matter how amoral the intentions of the capitalists, the market will bring about some sort of adjustment towards industries of general human utility, and away from grossly immoral ones, because the laborers - now wearing their 'consumer' hats - will prefer to buy things that reflect a general utility. Unfortunately, as the mass communications systems become more and more sophisticated and manipulative - and they cannot help doing this, because they also compete with one another for 'market share,' it becomes less and less easy to believe that 'general human utility' is the spontaneously emergent outcome of the 'market forces' involved. Thus, eventually, you get a mutation : Alissa Rosenbaum, the apothecary's daughter from Petersburg, goes to Hollywood and becomes 'Ayn Rand' the mini-nietzchean nemesis of the Reds ...

Government is force. It is nice when they are not pointing a gun at me, but implied in every action that government takes is that they have the manpower and force to coerce me into obeying their commands. I am surprised you skipped that whole class, since that is in government 101.

No, it's not.

You wrote, "To be precise, it's not a matter of approving of the use of force, it's more a matter of defining "force" so broadly that everything except getting the hell out of the way fits into it."

No, government really is force. Perhaps the natives or the blacks can see it better than some others but it is not all that hard to understand. We have approximately 8 times as many men and women in prison in this country and that is only the surface of the problem. Government is force.

Since you believe government to be force, and nothing but force, it's perfectly logical that you oppose it with no attempt whatsoever to address complexities. Just please don't complain when it behaves as the enemy you have made it, not as the servant (of "solid citizens" only, granted) it was designed to be.

You wrote, "...It shouldn't require either maternal or paternal nannyism, nor lead to anarchy."

Anarchy is not chaos. The two are often confused with each other, especially by those who want to see misunderstanding. Anarchy is when men and women voluntarily cooperate and provide for their needs through private groups. (it is true that these private groups may resemble your idea of government somewhat)

Voluntary cooperation, sure. Except that I specifically reject the private in favor of the public.

I don't consider anarchy to be chaos---I would have used that word. Rather, anarchy leads inevitably to the rule of force, unlike government by consent. This is what anarchists and libertarians want. And it's what we are moving toward---society organized by private force into layers of private power.

re: The Artiste Formerly Known As 'Proximity Warning'

He has asked to be called "Susan" (or, my personal favourite, "A boy named 'Sue'").

Let's indulge his idiosyncrasies.

Cheers,

It will take a public warning or two to whoever starts these things....

... and those that carry them on. It takes two to tango. And I can't imagine who that might be.

Cheers,

[Glenn]: I'm asking the participants -- all of whom otherwise contribute content of value here and all of whom I'm assuming to be adults -- to regulate themselves and refrain from that conduct, even if they think that the other person "started it".

[Sh**ter]: When doing a blog that relies on character assassination and unrelenting criticism, what else do you expect from the commentariat?

Talk about missing the point. D'ya think that our brave Sh**ter is paranoid? He, despite his vapidity and other personal failings, has never been subject to any discipline here (although under Glenn's extremely liberal rules for comment content, he might be subject to sanctiom for this latest baseless invective). One has to wonder why Sh**ter even hangs around such a 'horrible', 'mean', dystopian blog. You'd think he'd go grace more worthy residents at other blogs with his wisdom.... Oh.... Right.... Nevermind....

Cheers,

With my new EedjitBlaster™ plugin for Firefix 2.0, this link that Sh**ter supplied:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080507/sc_livescience/http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080507/sc_livescience/conservativeshappierthanliberal

redirected automatically to the correct page:

.../http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080507/sc_livescience/conservativesstoopiderthanliberal

Gawd, I love those new plug-ins. Science and technology in action....

Cheers,