Government is force, it’s said – By Washington, among others – and this is true. But it is also something else. Something worse than mere violence, which at least has some animal vitality behind it.
Government is the refuge of failure.
It is the construct which failures use to pretend to themselves that they aren’t failures – by forcing them on others, having been unable to persuade people of the merits of whatever it is they consider to be a grand idea. The fact that these failures must force their ideas – they are usually styled “plans” – on the unwilling is a confession of the worthlessness of the idea or “plan.” 
This does not, of course, mean the “plan”or idea is worthless – to the ones who are able to extract a benefit, using force. It simply means he idea or “plan” has “worth” in the same way that the $100 bill that is now in the pocket of the man who stole it from you has worth. He can use it to buy the same one hundred dollars’ worth of goods and services that you would have used the bill to buy . . . had it not been stolen from you.
But it does not detract from the fact that the man who stole it from you is a worthless thief who zero-summed the money. You would never have given the money to him voluntarily. He was unable to persuade you that it would be of benefit to both of you to give him that $100 – in exchange for something of at least equal or more value. He had nothing of value to exchange with you. So he had to resort to the degradation of forcing you to hand over the money – the violence of the failed.
It is why thieves are held in contempt, even when feared. And for the same reason this thing styled “government” and all of its unwanted – by its victims – manifestations. The relationship being that of the man mugged and the mugger. A zero-sum game writ large and made “official,” in order to do the one thing the mugger – to his credit – never does, that being to pretend he is something better than a thug. 
Even the oiliest TV evangelist operates on a higher moral plane than government because no force is involved in the fleecing. The sheep are willingly (or at least, freely) shorn.
Government threatens the use of force if you do not hand over a great deal more than $100 (and not just this once, as the mugger does) in order to finance what it styles “essential” services. But “essential” – to whom? Clearly, they are not essential to those who must be threatened in order to force them to pay for them.
The absurdity is self-evident.
The utility which provides the electricity that runs your refrigerator and keeps your lights lit is an essential service, the fact established by the willingness of people to pay for it and also by the nonexistence of any threat that says you will pay for it – or else.
The same principle applies to food and clothing as well as limitless variety of things we simply want to have or use and for that reason are willing to pay someone else to provide.
There is no threat implied – or applied. 
A thing is esteemed on its merits – and the willingness of people to pay for it the measure of its success. The free market is the field upon which winners play. Government is the flophouse of the failed. The place where losers go to nurse their grievances, which arise in the minds of people who cannot accept that they were unable to persuade others of the merits of their ideas.
Dangerous losers, who believe that their ideas and “plans” really do have merit; people are just too stupid or “selfish” to see them.
They must be forced to accept them.
For the psychopathic personality, this has natural appeal – psychopaths being defined in part by their need to control other people. When people are free to say no, they are that much harder to control. Therefore, use the attribute which defines government – force – to get them under control.
This is a much more sophisticated form of control than that exercised by the mugger in a back alley, who points a loaded gun at your belly and says, hand over your wallet. The transaction is honest, in a sense, because both parties understand what is going on. The mugged knows he is being mugged and feels disgust and contempt for the mugger. The mugger, for his part, is aware he’s a mugger and probably at some level is ashamed of it. He at least does not make any attempt to persuade the person he’s mugging that he is really helping him, or providing an “essential” service.
This serves to keep the mugger in check, as objective reality (like gravity) usually does.
But the psychopathic personalities who have acquired titles such as “president” and “senator” and “congressman” consider themselves public servants – an interesting choice of words given the nature of the relationship – who are full of grand ideas and “plans” that are so very grand and good they must be forced on people. Or at least, upon the people who do not consider them grand or good, for the benefit of those who do.
It is why, as the great sage H.L. Mencken so incandescently styled it, every election is a kind of advanced auction of stolen goods. With the “president” or “senator” or “congressman” as the auctioneer.
This is the fundamental nature of government; the force it uses being merely the tool of government.
Some will say – but without government there would be a free-for-all of violence! As if that were any better than its legalization.
Honest folk stand a much better chance against the street mugger than they do against this things styled government -and its legions of muggers, all of whom think (or pretend to think) they aren’t muggers and thus filled with the ugly zeal of the mentally deranged self-righteous.
A street mugger is saner and far more noble – if that’s the right word – because at least he has his head screwed on straight. He’s not lying to himself – or to you.
And he certainly isn’t asking for your vote.
. . .
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The government and the church use the same line, you are evil so we have to control everything you do, the government/medical system/church is one huge occult satanic cult now.
something you have to understand about governments everywhere, they are thieves stealing taxpayers money, they have their hands on the money coming in from taxes, fines or money they borrow, so they steal some and never get caught, they are in control, untouchable. money ends up in their offshore accounts and accounts of friends and family.
Dr. Marc Faber says these governments steal between 5% (honest governments) and 100% (crooked governments) of the money collected, borrowed.
mullin’s quote
people refuse to believe that we are governed by criminals. I refer you to the opinion of one of the most famous FBI agents, Charlie Winstead, the man who gunned down John Dillinger. In his book, “The Bureau”, William C. Sullivan quotes Charlie Winstead as saying, (P.27),
“When I investigate a man and prove he’s a criminal, if he doesn’t already work for the government, they’ll hire him. If he already has a government job, once they hear he’s a crook they’ll promote him. The criminals in Congress only feel comfortable with other criminals.”
We could not ask for a more qualified source, nor for a more apropos phrase than “the criminals in Congress.” The criminals enact into law program after program to reward their fellow-criminals, and to rob and enslave the workers of America. Anyone who gets in their way is disposed of by the “majesty of the law.
the curse of caan by mullins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxGt4N7SsBM
I am amazed at how we went from a theory of government as existing solely to protect life, liberty, and property to the one that we have today. One that touches and regulates every facet of our life, down to toilet flushes and light bulbs.
I am with Spooner in that it is the fault of our vaunted Constitution.
The USA is proof that no written restrictions can contain the desires of vultures.
I am comforted by the knowledge it will eventually fail. Will the lessons be learned when something else is built?
All governments are founded, and dependent, on their assumption of authority to kill you if you don’t obey. They don’t come in any other model. So I’m suspicious whether “something else” needs building. Could a lack of government be any worse than what we suffer with one? The only way would be if one was allowed to ignore the state without state repercussion. In other words, turn it into a suggestion box. Not a government at all.
I dig your idea, but would not the anarchy you describe eventually boil down to “strongest guy wins”? I think about this too, but cant come to grips with things boiling down to (essentially) regional warlords. I think it comes down to the fallen nature of man, that left to his own devices, he would devolve into a violent thief who goes around raping. I believe that is why Geo. Washington said that only a moral people can have our type of government. Both moral people being governed and also doing the governing. The Divine Right of Kings tries to address this.
Hi Tom,
The core problem, I think, is what you’ve already noted. I’ll just describe it differently: Some people are not good people; a few people are psychopathic people. The question, then, is – how to restrain them – to the extent possible – from injuring other people and how to hold them accountable when they do?
Some say government. But I say this only concentrates and legitimizes the problem; i.e., it ensconces the not-good people in authority and endows them with legal power over others. Given that people – and life – will never be perfect, which would you rather have to deal with? The individual bad person? Or an organized, legalized gang of them which you are forbidden from defending yourself against?
We’ll probably never have Libertarians agree on whether minimalism or anarchism is proper but here’s a thought. I think both can agree that the current govt machine needs a haircut…oh, I’d say at least around 90% or so. 95% would be better. Lets agree to make that our #1 priority & the target for the next 10 years. Once we get there we’ll start the discussion again.
Until then, let’s not waste time debating things that have very little chance of happening. BTW Tom, I’m in your camp. Human nature being what it is I’m afraid we’re stuck dealing with this until the sun goes nova.
In respect to this thought, “but cant come to grips with things boiling down to (essentially) regional warlords”.
Consider taking a look at how things were before goobermint had a chokehold on areas in the past in order to see how the future could unfold:
… “the civil society of the American West in the nineteenth century was not very violent. Eugene Hollon writes that the western frontier “was a far more civilized, more peaceful and safer place than American society today” […]
although “[t]he West . . . is perceived as a place of great chaos, with little respect for property or life,” their research “indicates that this was not the case; property rights were protected and civil order prevailed. Private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved” (1979, 10).
What were these private protective agencies? They were not governments because they did not have a legal monopoly on keeping order. Instead, they included such organizations as land clubs, cattlemen’s associations, mining camps, and wagon trains.
So-called land clubs were organizations established by settlers before the U.S. government even surveyed the land, let alone started to sell it or give it away. Because disputes over land titles are inevitable, the land clubs adopted their own constitutions, laying out the “laws” that would define and protect property rights in land (Anderson and Hill 1979, 15). They administered land claims, protected them from outsiders, and arbitrated disputes. Social ostracism was used effectively against those who violated the rules. Establishing property rights in this way minimized disputes — and violence.” …
https://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?id=803
Some good stuff there, if you’re so inclined to know.
John,
I would prefer no government, but that will not be the result.
The vast majority will clamor for one, as it is all they’ve ever known.
What they get (I’d like an option to opt out), will be the result of much struggle, perhaps violence.
The best I hope for is dozens to 100’s of independent states.
RE: “an option to opt out”.
That’d be, Panarchy?
… “I have no idea how to get from here to there. Such a social and political change is beyond my ken. People ask me how to get to panarchy. I don’t know. Turn your creativity loose. You will devise the ways and means. These things are works-in-progress. The loss of liberty under monopoly governments has been a work-in-progress occupying decades. Liberty might return in a flash, or it might be something that is built up step by step over time as we learn and as attitudes change and experience accumulates. I do not know. I have no game plan. I am not that smart or wise. I don’t know enough to say. I rely on many others who will carry this forward in the future and have carried it forward in the past before I ever heard of anarchy or panarchy.” …
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/01/michael-s-rozeff/why-i-am-a-panarchist/
What little bit of potential good government does do would likely have happened anyway. The “leaders” wet their index finger and raise it up to see the wind direction and decide to move that way (as long as it gives them more power). Then then run out in front of the mob and pretend they’re showing them the way. At best, they’re more like a drum major, just playing along with the appearance of keeping time and directing the band. At worst, they’re just egging on the mob with no intention of carrying out the tasks they were elected to do.
FJB’s state of the union address had almost nothing to say about the issues that got him selected. In fact, he actually said “Fund the police” to thunderous applause. This is a complete 180º turn from his supporters, and only because the Party needs to distance itself from the radical arm into the midterms.
“The “leaders” wet their index finger and raise it up to see the wind direction and decide to move that way”
This was largely the message put forth in Tolstoy’s essay in the middle of War and Peace. That France was going to attack Russia, with or without Napoleon, and he just got out in front of it.
Unfortunately, our current Psychopaths In Charge think they can fulfill their wildest fantasies without bothering to check the wind. By threatening to destroy you if you resist. With anti “social” media censorship and the CIA infiltrated corporate news in perfect compliance. So far, its working.
You would think that just seeing a politician at “work” would be enough for people to distrust government……..
So many people think the government is this neutral body, that is fair to all. But it’s run by JOE BIDEN! Why doesn’t that compute with people?
Joe Biden is one of the best example of why this system needs to change and to change big time. Joe has NEVER worked a honest day in his long life. And he never will now, because he doesn’t need to, the taxpayers are taking care of him. It won’t take care of you, but you will pay for him.
Bravo…great article Eric! The style and substance remind me of the great, late PJ O’Roarke, whose books should be mandatory reading in Public high schools!
Thanks for the kind words, Allen!
I never got to meet PJ and regret it. But I was lucky enough to get know both Joe Sobran and Sam Francis. Joe was one of the humblest men I’ve ever met who had the least reason to be. Sam was brilliant – and knew it. But there was no denying it and – once you got past his gruffness (and smoke) you found another mensch; the type of guy you like even if you disagree with him because he’s a man – and he’s not full of shit.
What strikes me as odd is that people seem to WANT to be lied to and in many cases ripped off. It’s like some kind of self-punishment psychosis.
Perhaps the most absurd aspect of such theft “for the greater good” is that if it doesn’t work, or produces even worse outcome, such will never be admitted. Words never heard from any politician, “We made a mistake. Its our fault”.
“The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic.” H.L. Mencken
If a man fails in his endeavors to convince other people of the soundness of his
ideas, he should blame his own disabilities. He should not
ask for a law, that is, for compulsion and coercion by the police.” Ludwig von Mises
“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want
merely because you think it would be good for him.” Robert Heinlein
You’ll be happy to know that the job-hunting website Indeed stands with Ukraine. And I quote “We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. We advocate for peace and an immediate withdrawal by Russian forces.”
They also show their virtue by coloring their ‘Indeed’ logo yellow and blue.
They care, Eric. Do you?
Hi Andrew,
The gas-lighting is enraging, isn’t it? Of course I feel sympathy for the average people in Ukraine (or anywhere) who are caught up in an upheaval not of their making. But that does not mean I “care” in the maudlin-fraudulent manner of the chickenhawk.
“We stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. We advocate for peace and an immediate withdrawal by Russian forces.”
Should have thought about that back in 2014 when the US for practical purposes overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine, for the sin of being too friendly with one of its neighbors. Replacing it with its vigorously Russophobe puppets. There is a direct line of causation between that and this.
I had sympathy for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, too, who we blew to bits in wars of aggression. Sure, their leadership were assholes, but do we stand in greatly better company?
You’d better bet, though, that if I put an Iraqi flag on my website, especially circa 2003 or 4, I would’ve been derided as a traitor.
Though, anyone remember this?
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*ILeWyZGHlzqEbWQ3Shjw9A.png
A Hobson’s choice.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/l-reichard-white/so-are-putin-and-the-russians-as-good-as-these-guys-you-decide/
Haha, Yep James, all of that.
Just a few years ago, I recall, our military flew circles around a hospital in Afghanistan in an AC-130, blasting it to bits for nearly half an hour. That didn’t go too far in the media.
Which is why Julian Assange is still in prison – for revealing Uncle’s war crimes.
I do not care what Slavic strongman runs the Ukraine. At all. I could not possibly care less. And turning logos blue and yellow is just stupid.
Agreed: One of the basic things that have been instilled (propagandized) into us (to mean the majority of the general population) is that the government is benevolent in the things that they do, the way that they do it, and the people themselves that are doing it. A corollary to this is that the government can neither deceive nor be deceived. The ironic thing is: (it’s rather sad) is that Christians define our God as one who can neither deceive nor be deceived!
Why (in general) do we give the government the benefit of the doubt all the time? Why do we think their intentions are good, or in the worst case, just benign? These ideas have been used to our detriment by them for a long, long time. I guess it may be b/c people (coming from a Christian social background) tend to view the positives.
Never underestimate the power of hypnosis.
☮
Benefit of the doubt? Did you ever notice how when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator and there are only two reasons for GovCo screw-ups, Evil or Stupid, they always pick Stupid as a defense. Bet the farm on it. Yes, GovCo employees are inept and stupid but, they NEVER acknowledge their Evil.
Great article Eric. I may need to steal the “flophouse of the failed” line. Sums it up perfectly.
C.S Lewis was spot on with:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Thanks, Blake – and, please do (borrow – not steal) that line!
It would be really special if we could get the low-IQ to direct their rage against our Government/media complex, not some Rooskie boogeyman. On our present course it looks like it’ll be a quick trip to the bottom. How long we stay there is up to us. Every politician, Every Single One should be considered guilty of treason.
Its time to stop with the ‘my teams better than your team,’ Yangs/Coombs, red-team-blue-team BS. Time to insist on equal justice. The rulers of this country with the help of every media mouth and politician have reaped the whirlwind down on those of us who only wanted to be left alone.
Never forget who caused this. Ultimately we allowed this system to become so perverted that it is now beyond salvage. The lackeys that pushed the poison jab and now war with a country we could and should have been friends with, they should be given no quarter.
I hope everyone here has hedged accordingly. And that line Eric :Government is the flophouse of the failed, the place where losers go to nurse their grievances.” Priceless, it should be spray painted on every courthouse across the land.
Government and the assentation into power over others is the life blood of their ideology. Whether it be president of the USA or local police officer (AGW), or DMV clerk. They all get to use the power of government to make you squirm at their bidding.
‘Government is the flophouse of the failed. The place where losers go to nurse their grievances.’ — eric
Case in point: one Amos Hochstein, the U.S. State Department’s senior energy security adviser, who said in an interview Wednesday he finds it “appalling” that some oil shale producers are holding back on production “because their financiers aren’t allowing them to.”
‘Hochstein’ would have been perfectly at home in Joe Stalin’s Soviet Union, where ‘planners’ couldn’t understand why serfs on collective farms — with no profit incentive — failed to increase crop production, except on their little own little personal plots.
From shutting down pipelines and oil leases to shoving EVs down our throats, ‘Biden’ has been doing everything possible to cripple fossil fuel production. Now he’s desperately U-turned, as spiraling gas prices outrage Americans.
In a crowning blow of imbecilic mockery, an ink-stained presstitute named Froma [sic] Harrop declared in a syndicated column that paying higher gas prices is the least we can do to help ‘our’ heroic friends, the Ukies. Oy — the brain damage!
Jim H: “… to shoving EVs down our throats,…”
AP says gas price hikes are fueling such electric vehicle “conspiracy theories.”
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-biden-covid-technology-business-5ee6c2205d038a4de24f7ac435363977
So now it’s been denied officially. You know what that means.
Yep — the ‘CT’ label means the fact checkers can’t deny it. So they just have to slime the speakers.
Every time one thinks the Trotskyist Associated Press can’t go any lower with their delusional agitprop, they take a fresh lurch into the gutter.
Smash the Lügenpresse.
Yep — the ‘CT’ label means the fact checkers can’t deny it. So they just have to slime the speakers.
Every time one thinks the Trotskyist Associated Press can’t go any lower with their delusional agitprop, they take a fresh lurch into the gutter.
Smash the Lügenpresse.
“Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.”
-Otto von Bismarck
Shale producers (including ones where I invested) loaded up on debt.
So much so that several have stopped distributions to investors & directed cash flow to paying down those enormous debt loads.
Not surprised that banks, etc. are still slow to lend to them…not exactly low-risk borrowers.
So you’re saying that shale oil producers stand to benefit from high oil prices?
And the mugger has friends, friends he gives some of the loot, his friends do things the mugger appreciates, kind of like a scene or two from ‘The Godfather’ series.
‘If they can do it to them, they can do it to you’
… “Financial services like Visa and Mastercard are refusing to do transactions in Russia. Various industries are cancelling contracts with Russia. Online service providers are cancelling services in Russia. And I wonder how many people realize that the only thing standing between you and getting that level of cancellation directed at you is how you are portrayed to the public.
We saw this a few years back with Operation Chokepoint where ‘unsavory’ businesses were frozen out of banking services….and gun shops (and related businesses) had accounts frozen and closed. Now imagine the day when you’re considered a ‘person of interest’ or ‘enemy of the state’ or ‘a racist nationalist’ or whatever the bad-guy-du-jour is. […]
what they do to punish or compel others can just as easily be directed at you or people like you.” …
http://www.commanderzero.com/?p=9189
Ain’t Fascism just grand?
Steering the school of fish to accept ever more fascism, as long as it is directed at “others.”
“Now imagine the day when you’re considered a ‘person of interest’ or ‘enemy of the state’ or ‘a racist nationalist’ or whatever the bad-guy-du-jour is. […]”
You forgot “White Supremacist”. The most evil of all according to our “leader” Biden. The government is currently rooting out all White Supremacists from the armies. Maybe that’s a good idea as I myself do not want to fight in foreign wars. I will however stand guard at our borders and repel all intruders.
Globalists vs Nationalists. I guess that’s the choice we have. Except in a Democratic system like ours, the 51% get to rule the other 49%. Demographics will rule and it ain’t looking too good for us here.
True helot, all governments put the Mafia to shame. My favorite line from The Godfather: “A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more money than an army of men with guns”. Interesting how most of our so-called “representatives” are lawyers.
Indeed, when compared to the state, common criminals are just a nuisance.
This line is the most apropos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtL6kbYiP-w
Thanks for another thought provoking article. H.L. Mencken was right as far as the auction of goods go but I believe even he would have been shocked at how much of a “beggar thy neighbor” society we have become. I haven’t thought of Benny Hinn for years but the possibility remains that he might actually of healed someone especially if one’s lameness was more a psychological issue (loved that all the canes and crutches all looked the same). I’m still feeling like we’re living in the book “Atlas Shrugged” in so far as in that book it was government policy destroyed the economy and here the same thing is happening.
Thanks, Landru!
The coffee is flowing today… in part because it’s so damned cold again, outside!
Later, I’m headed to True Value to get a couple extra chains for the chain saw… so as to be able to cut firewood to heat/eat after the lights go out!