INTERESTING: A gang with an institutional structure

http://dailyreckoning.com/fifty-shades-of-government

Fifty Shades of Government
By Jeffrey Tucker

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This is the great tragedy of living under leviathan. People have different ideas about how it ought to conduct its affairs. Who should be rewarded? Who should be punished? Who gets the privileges? Who must bear the cost? It becomes a war of pressure groups, everyone seeking to live at the expense of everyone else.

What is this thing we call government? It consists of the gang with an institutional structure that makes the rules, enforces the rules, and lives by rules that are different from those it imposes on the rest of the population. We can’t steal, but government can. We can’t kill, but government can. We can’t counterfeit, kidnap, and engage in fraud, but government can. This thing called government, obviously, has a strong interest in maintaining its power, prestige, and funding.

This is true no matter what the structure of the government happens to be. Oligarchy, absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, presidential republic, parliamentary republic, democracy — all of them have one thing in common: They create a special caste of citizens that live at the expense of everyone else.

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The essence of Libertarianism is that we need no such class. 

Each man, and woman, of course, is their own sovereign.

Responsible to keep their word and a free to bind themselves in any way they see fit.

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POLITICAL: What the government is not

http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano34.1.html

The Case for Austerity
by Andrew P. Napolitano

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Government is not a jobs program, and government is not your caretaker. Government is an arrangement made by free individuals to protect their rights and their property.

It doesn’t take $3.6 trillion a year to do that effectively in America today. I doubt it takes a trillion. We must swallow the bitter pill of austerity now, on our own terms, while we are still the undisputed leader of the free world and while we still have a Constitution, so that we can restore our prosperity in a way consistent with personal liberty.

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Certainly seems that the 15T$ national debt is OUR problem.

If we were all on the same page, then we could amortize that over generations.

Bet we could sell 50 year bonds!

But we’re not even on the same planet as some people.

The Tea Party and the Occupy folks were all screaming about the same thing. Crony Capitalism, Regulatory Capture, and Rule by the Effete Elite. (imho)

Time to cut spending. And get everyone back to work.

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