Hi Jay! I find that so many of these discussions leave us remiss due to a glaring omission - who (or what) is at the head of all this, and why the cultural mindset is what it is. We talk about how to best organize society, and what morality means, and historical examples, etc. but this is all rather premature. The necessary first step hasn't been completed - a cult deprogramming.

You know how it goes - the back and forth with statists, trying to make them see clear logic - but amidst all the faux-practical talk about borders, delegation, protection, and roads lies the obscenely ludicrous fact that this whole thing is a Satanic cult with its vile tentacles in the very souls of the people having the discussion.

Do we need government or not? How can this be discussed without first understanding what it is? And never mind what it is philosophically (the invalid and immoral belief in non-existent authority), but what it is in the most practical possible terms is a seething horde of baby-drinking vampires.

The notion of fixing it, or getting it to a "reasonable" size, or thinking of it as having anything to do with protection or social organization is a complete red herring. But getting this fact to be accepted (which, if understood, would no doubt compel more strongly than any appeal to logic or morality) is actually more difficult to get across than the already nigh-impossible rational or moral argument. Bringing it up is a surefire way to close someone's mind irreversibly.

This is the awe-inspiring efficacy of the cultural mind-control. I'm no master of the flies-and-honey formula. I try to be calm and deliberate in my writings, but I'm more of a "here's the truth, choke on it" kind of person, due to many long years of philosophical study and the resistance to lucid thought I've encountered from others on nearly every topic imaginable. I resent having to prance around spreading rose pedals to get someone to listen to reason. But some soft-spoken spoken with a fuse left to burn has to coax these people out of their sea-bottom depth delusion or everything is damned to hell.