wkmac
Well-Known Member
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]I have earlier argued that choosing one’s government is a basic choice or decision right that follows from Thomas Jefferson’s ideas of rights contained in the Declaration of Independence; and that following out Jefferson’s reasoning we arrive at the concept of panarchy (see here). Rights arguments do not persuade everyone. The arguments in this article make no use of the concept of rights.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The question arises: What is government? Government must be defined by some quality that it uniquely has that distinguishes it from other things that are not government. That quality has to do with principles or rules that govern action. But what rules and what actions? Governments vary greatly in the scope of actions they govern, in their methods of governing, and in their relations to the persons governed.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]There are all sorts of governments at many levels. To simplify the discussion, let us think only of national governments associated with States. Let us suppose for a moment that the reason that these governments vary is that the nations that they rule also vary. The Russians have their form of government and the Chinese have theirs. This is, at least in part, a matter of taste. Although these governments may have originated in conquest or in other ways, they found stability, at least in recent centuries, in ruling over amalgamations of people with some sort of identity or focal and shared points of belief and value and often religion and language. Insofar as an entire people had a say in the form of their government, that government may reflect that say. There is a kind of crude collective choice that either has been made or agreed to in some way or else brought about by force and custom, at least to some degree. I am not saying that governments come about by collective choice. I am saying that it plays a part, and that this helps explain variation among governments. [/FONT]
rest of the article can be found here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff252.html
