Re: A prediction about the Presidential campaign

On Thu, 7 Feb 2008 07:34:30 -0800 (PST), Will <mclean1382@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Feb 7, 1:35?am, David Friedman <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In article
<b3908fa8-362f-4d28-b9ba-41f666695...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,





?Will <mclean1...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
The definition breaks down once the government is willing to make the
cost of any resistance very high. Then accepting the exaction becomes
simultaneously normal and accepted only when the cost of resistance is
very high.

That doesn't mean the definition breaks down, just that you can't use
that particular case to test whether or not the organization is a
government.

--

If you can't use the the definition to answer the question it tries to
answer, then it isn't a very useful definition. It's not as though
governments that make the cost of resistance very high are exactly
rare.

The fact that there are some bits of evidence which don't answer the
question doesn't make the definition useless. Governments that always
make the cost of resistance--for every possible act of resistance--very
high are indeed rare.

--

If you are trying to use your definition to distinguish a government
from a group of robbers, then the relevant metric is the cost of
resistance to appropriation. If a citizen openly resists taxation with
force, the cost of resistance is almost always very high. The
government will escalate force until resistance is subdued, the
original tax is collected, plus financial penalties, plus penatlies
for resisting with force, plus the risk of being injured or killed
while resisting.

In the case of robbery, the citizen may or may not resist, depending
on the chance of thwarting the robbery and the chance of being injured
or killed in the process. Against overwhelmingly powerful robbers,
resistance by force is a poor strategy, and rarely used. So your
definition doesn't distinguish between situational prudence and
something else.

Will McLean

If this is the David Friedman I think it is, and judging by what he
and Keith have said here, you're argument here is purposing a
distinction without a difference that they can see. Not that robbers
are governments, but that governments are robbers.
--

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation, from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
Feel free to use the above variant pledge in your own postings.

Tim Merrigan
.

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