[tomdemaine]

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Tom,

you seem to be missing the point that government (and those in them) are under the universal rule of law. Their use of force has a very different kind of legitimacy to that of the mafia, operating under their own whim and constrained by no moral or ethical code.

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Actually the mafia have a pretty strong ethical code (snitching is evil respect the family etc). I don't understand what a "universal rule of law" is or how you think that anyone in the government is constrained by anything other than what we let them get away with. The OP knows that the government is illegitimate he just hasn't made the leap to take a stand on principle and say, lets deal with this form of illegitimate force now and if it doesn't take and another government reforms we'll deal with that form too, which is fair enough because there's enough propaganda out there to make that leap incredibly difficult. It's another story of "but what if we get back to the current situation wouldn't that be terrible?" Implicit in that statement is a rejection of the state. You just have to see it. I'm not trying to be condescending here it took me ages to come to the that logical conclusion it's tough to see those who taught you as at best misguided and at worst malicious liars.