The Decline of Violence

[Xan]

Listen, you gave up on logic when you said, "I don't care if I can't prove it, logically.  Property rights exists because 99% people agree with me that they exist."  We know we can't deductively prove property rights, so let's give up on perfect deductive logic, shall we?

Still interested where you got this though......

If you can't say where can you admit you just made it up?

You've said it now two or three times so I'm curious. Please give me the courtesy of a quote on this one.

I think this is the root of that line of discussion:

See, 99% of people realize it's morally wrong to steal and murder and threaten people with kidnapping and all that crap.

You're telling me that 99% of people "realize it's morally wrong to steal and murder."  This is probably a bit smaller a number, but I'd agree that it's a big one, and I'd probably agree in almost all cases (though I'm not about to try to prove it with circular logic).  I feel that it's wrong.  I can't prove it with logic.  I think every human life is valuable (short of the Hitlers out there), even if it's raised in a society that deems it to be trash... even if 99% of the society it's raised in thinks it's not worthy of life.  But you refer to this 99% rule.  However, 99% of people also think government of some form is a morally valid entity.  In one breath, you claim that we can't let the majority rule, but in another, you refer to the majority to back your argument (most likely due to it failing on deductive grounds).

[doodle]

Listen, you gave up on logic when you said, "I don't care if I can't prove it, logically.  Property rights exists because 99% people agree with me that they exist."  We know we can't deductively prove property rights, so let's give up on perfect deductive logic, shall we?

Still interested where you got this though......

If you can't say where can you admit you just made it up?

You've said it now two or three times so I'm curious. Please give me the courtesy of a quote on this one.

I think this is the root of that line of discussion:

See, 99% of people realize it's morally wrong to steal and murder and threaten people with kidnapping and all that crap.

You're telling me that 99% of people "realize it's morally wrong to steal and murder."  This is probably a bit smaller a number, but I'd agree that it's a big one, and I'd probably agree in almost all cases (though I'm not about to try to prove it with circular logic).  I feel that it's wrong.  I can't prove it with logic.  I think every human life is valuable (short of the Hitlers out there), even if it's raised in a society that deems it to be trash... even if 99% of the society it's raised in thinks it's not worthy of life.  But you refer to this 99% rule.  However, 99% of people also think government of some form is a morally valid entity.  In one breath, you claim that we can't let the majority rule, but in another, you refer to the majority to back your argument (most likely due to it failing on deductive grounds).

Yep, bullseye. Im not disagreeing with Kshartle that violence is wrong, I'm just saying that it is unfortunately necessary. Government is not so much an entity that is separate and apart from us, but it represents and enforces our collective cultural ideas of how society should function. Government is the vehicle through which our rules become more than just suggestions. In a perfect world, this would not be necessary. But we cannot create a system based off the hypothetical that all people are rational and peaceful when very clearly they are not. 

[Kshartle]

Listen, you gave up on logic when you said, "I don't care if I can't prove it, logically.  Property rights exists because 99% people agree with me that they exist."  We know we can't deductively prove property rights, so let's give up on perfect deductive logic, shall we?

Still interested where you got this though......

If you can't say where can you admit you just made it up?

You've said it now two or three times so I'm curious. Please give me the courtesy of a quote on this one.

I think this is the root of that line of discussion:

See, 99% of people realize it's morally wrong to steal and murder and threaten people with kidnapping and all that crap.

If that's the case there here's the post:

PS, arguing from effect....(we have more wealth with or without government)...or agruing minutia (does 1 murder = 5 rapes)......these are and always will be losing arguments for libertarians or people with a moral code.

When people get that humans have the rights of self-ownership and property and that all the so-called government "solutions" are violations of these rights (and morality), then things will get better.

Moda & Doodle appear to be arguing that humans don't have rights, so there is nothing to violate. Ok. That's their position. Since 99% of people know intuitively that is completey false, don't you think it's better to just point out the violent violation of rights when you see people support them?

See, 99% of people realize it's morally wrong to steal and murder and threaten people with kidnapping and all that crap. Even the ones that engage it for the most part get it, they just rationalize or go against their moral code. They still know they were wrong.

Many people don't understand why government is always a failure and it's solutions are always shitty and create more problems and lowest scumbags rise to the top or want to be in politics. They watch the Daily show and comedy and tragedy of government across the world and never connect the dots that it's completely immoral. The concept is based on the violation of human rights so nothing good can come of it.

Help me point that out man if you can. Arguing the details about caveman murders vs. genocide or whether roads are less bumpy in a communist country or libertarian........those arguments never get anywhere. As far as I can tell.

I was having a side discussion with PS on whether or not it's worth it to try and convince someone logically that murder, rape, stealing etc. is economically inefficient or whether that argument is a waste of time. Since 99% of people already know it's wrong, we're better off just pointing out to them that their government "solutions" are just supporting what they already know is morally unacceptable.

If Moda is trying to claim this is how I justify my belief that we have human rights or property rights....well that's just a lie. I hope he has a different post to take that from since I clearly am not saying that.

[Kshartle]

Im not disagreeing with Kshartle that violence is wrong, I'm just saying that it is unfortunately necessary.

How can something be wrong and neccessary?

Can it be neccessary for me to do something wrong? Please give an example so I can better understand the concept.

[Libertarian666]

Im not disagreeing with Kshartle that violence is wrong, I'm just saying that it is unfortunately necessary.

How can something be wrong and neccessary?

Can it be neccessary for me to do something wrong? Please give an example so I can better understand the concept.

That's the doctrine of "necessary evil". Of course it is nonsensical, but is often used to justify all kinds of evil, none of which is necessary.

[Pointedstick]

Yep, bullseye. Im not disagreeing with Kshartle that violence is wrong, I'm just saying that it is unfortunately necessary. Government is not so much an entity that is separate and apart from us, but it represents and enforces our collective cultural ideas of how society should function. Government is the vehicle through which our rules become more than just suggestions. In a perfect world, this would not be necessary. But we cannot create a system based off the hypothetical that all people are rational and peaceful when very clearly they are not.

So when a government oppresses its own people... does that mean that the people wanted to be oppressed?

I get what you're saying, but I think you're wrong when you say that government is, "our collective cultural ideas of how society should function". That is NOT what government is. That is what government sometimes does, and that is what a certain left-leaning segment of society THINKS government should be, but as someone who's gone through that fascinating online course on human evolution, I would expect you to understand that psychologically, governments originated as extensions of the alpha males and their desire to control people around them, and functionally, governments originated as a means of feeding and otherwise supporting a standing army to protect vulnerable farmers.

All this crap about governments being chosen by God and granting rights to people and exemplifying society's desires are just ideas that the heads of government made up to bamboozle everyone else into continuing to accept their rulership as the reasons for their power became more and more tenuous.

Or at least, that's how I see it.

[Kshartle]

All this crap about governments being chosen by God and granting rights to people and exemplifying society's desires are just ideas that the heads of government made up to bamboozle everyone else into continuing to accept their rulership as the reasons for their power became more and more tenuous.

Or at least, that's how I see it.

You see it crystal clear man.

[doodle]

Yep, bullseye. Im not disagreeing with Kshartle that violence is wrong, I'm just saying that it is unfortunately necessary. Government is not so much an entity that is separate and apart from us, but it represents and enforces our collective cultural ideas of how society should function. Government is the vehicle through which our rules become more than just suggestions. In a perfect world, this would not be necessary. But we cannot create a system based off the hypothetical that all people are rational and peaceful when very clearly they are not.

So when a government oppresses its own people... does that mean that the people wanted to be oppressed?

I get what you're saying, but I think you're wrong when you say that government is, "our collective cultural ideas of how society should function". That is NOT what government is. That is what government sometimes does, and that is what a certain left-leaning segment of society THINKS government should be, but as someone who's gone through that fascinating online course on human evolution, I would expect you to understand that psychologically, governments originated as extensions of the alpha males and their desire to control people around them, and functionally, governments originated as a means of feeding and otherwise supporting a standing army to protect vulnerable farmers.

All this crap about governments being chosen by God and granting rights to people and exemplifying society's desires are just ideas that the heads of government made up to bamboozle everyone else into continuing to accept their rulership as the reasons for their power became more and more tenuous.

Or at least, that's how I see it.

Cue Steven Pinker...just look at the empirical data. The violence trendline from the earliest human societies to today is clearly downward. I know you have not even taken the time to look at any of that data, but it shows that everything from childhood spanking to judicial torture to homicide and rape etc. is down.

The first major decline of violence I call the "Pacification Process." Until about five thousand years ago, humans lived in anarchy without central government. What was life like in this state of nature? This is a question that thinkers have speculated on for centuries, most prominently Hobbs, who famously said that in a state of nature "the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." A century later he was countered by Jean Jacques Rousseau, who says, "Nothing could be more gentle than man in his primitive state."

In reality, both of these gentlemen were talking through their hats:  They had no idea what life was like in a state of nature. But today we can do better, because there are two sources of evidence of what rates of violence were like in pre-state societies.

One is forensic archaeology. You can think of it as "CSI Paleolithic". What proportion of prehistoric skeletons have signs of violent trauma, such as bashed-in skulls, decapitated skeletons, femurs with bronze arrowheads embedded in them, and mummies found with ropes around their necks?

There are 20 archaeological samples that I know of for which these analyses have been done. I've plotted here the percentage of deaths due to violent trauma. They range as high as 60 percent, and the average is a little bit more than 15 percent.......

The other method of measuring violence in pre-state societies is ethnographic vital statistics. What is the rate of death by violence in people who have recently lived outside of state control, namely hunter-gatherers, hunter-horticulturalists, and other tribal groups?

There are 27 samples that I know of, where ethnographic demographers that have done the calculation. I've plotted them as war deaths per 100,000 people per year. They go as high as 1500, but the average across these 27 non-state societies is a little bit more than 500. Again, let's stack the deck against modernity by picking some of the most violent modern societies for comparison, such as, for example, Germany in the 20th century, with its two world war: its rate is around 135, compared to 524 for the non-state societies. Russia in the 20th century, with two world wars, a revolution, and a civil war, is about 130. Japan in the 20th century, about 30. United States in the 20th century, with two world wars plus five wars in Asia, is about a pixel.

So: not to put too fine a point on it, but when it comes to life in a state of nature, Hobbs was right, Rousseau was wrong.

What was the immediate cause? It was almost certainly the rise and expansion of states. Anyone who is familiar with world history knows about the various paxes—the pax Romana, pax Islamica, pax Hispanica, and so on. It's the historian's term for the phenomenon in which, when a state expands or an empire imposes hegemony over a territory, they try to stamp out tribal raiding and feuding. That is what drives the statistics down.

It's not that these early states had any benevolent interest in the welfare of their subjects, but rather, that tribal raiding and feuding is a nuisance to imperial overlords.  For the same reason that a farmer will take steps to prevent its cattle from killing each other —it's a dead loss to the farmer—Imperial overlords tend to frown on tribal battles that just shuffle resources and destroy the tax base at a net loss to them.

[doodle]

Im not disagreeing with Kshartle that violence is wrong, I'm just saying that it is unfortunately necessary.

How can something be wrong and neccessary?

Can it be neccessary for me to do something wrong? Please give an example so I can better understand the concept.

people are violent scumbags, the only way to deal with violent scumbags, is to put violent scumbags in charge of as much of peoples lives as we can, by giving them a monopoly on violent and scumbag behavior...

this seems to be the crux of the argument... how they can read the words and not see the contradiction they create is a bit mind boggling,  no matter how many times we go round and round with this, the idea "we all live together - property is theft" ( its a trap!) leads to the self contradictory idea we must necessarily submit to slavery theft and violence because of it... 

yes, but these violent scumbags are constrained.

The third historical decline of violence pertains to the fact that those first states, though they did bring down rates of feuding and vendetta and blood revenge, were rather nasty contraptions, which kept people in a state of awe with techniques such as breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, sawing in half, impalement, and clawing. In a process that historians call the "Humanitarian Revolution", these forms of institutionalized violence were eventually abolished. The momentum for this movement was concentrated in the 18th century.

This graph shows the abolition of judicial torture (that is, torture as a form of punishment) in the major countries of the day, including the famous prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment by the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Also during this period there was a reduction in the use of the death penalty for non-lethal crimes. In 18th century England there were 222 capital offenses on the books, including poaching, counterfeiting, robbing a rabbit warren, being in the company of gypsies, and "strong evidence of malice in a child seven to 14 years of age." By 1861 the number of capital crimes was down to four.

Similarly, in the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries, the death penalty was prescribed and used for theft, sodomy, bestiality, adultery, witchcraft, concealing birth, slave revolt, counterfeiting, and horse theft. We have statistics for capital punishment in the United States since colonial times. As you can see, in the 17th century a majority of executions were for crimes other than homicide. In current times, the only crime that is punished by capital punishment other than homicide is conspiracy to commit homicide.

The death penalty itself, of course, has been abolished in most of Europe. Most of the abolitions were concentrated in the last fifty years. This is the number of European countries with capital punishment. Currently, only Russia and Belarus have it had on the books.

But interestingly, even before capital punishment was abolished by the stroke of a pen, it had fallen into disuse. You can see that the percentage of European countries that actually carry out executions has always been far lower, and the decline began much earlier.

Now the United States, of course, notoriously is the only Western democracy that has capital punishment (though only in two-thirds of the states), a number that has been dwindling. And to say that the United States has the death penalty is a bit of a fiction. If you look at the number of executions as a proportion of the population, it has been plunging since colonial times. Today, out of about 16,500 homicides per year, there are about 50 executions, and that rate has been in decline as well.

Other abolitions during the humanitarian revolution include witch hunts, religious persecution, dueling, blood sports, debtors prisons, and of course most famously, slavery.

[Pointedstick]

Actually, doodle, I've read the "cliffs notes" and look forward to reading the entire book. Pinker points out that governments pacified the warring tribes through their overwhelming violence… but that's hardly the end of the story. As he said, that cut down physical violence, but then after that, he attributes further declines to commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism, and "The Escalator of Reason".

Even if I grant you and him that governments decreased physical violence many thousands of years ago by threatening to bludgeon everyone if they didn't settle down, that doesn't support an argument that such a social institution is still needed today, especially in light of the remainder of the arguments which have to do with humans become better, more empathic people. Does a highly empathic people who have done away with slavery, judicial torture, and even the stigma against homosexuality really need a government to threaten to bludgeon them all the time?

[Kshartle]

how they can read the words and not see the contradiction they create is a bit mind boggling

This is kind of why I've suggested that we move on from it and focus on real solutions.

I think PS started a thread once where we people could post problems the government was trying to “solve”? and failing and maybe people could come up with real solutions. The upside would maybe even include money making opportunities and real chance to decrease violence in the world (reduce the call for government to solve a problem).

Obviously it’s  a thread that takes a lot of thought and not just quibbling or posting of articles to prove points.

[Kshartle]

Actually, doodle, I've read the "cliffs notes" and look forward to reading the entire book. Pinker points out that governments pacified the warring tribes through their overwhelming violence… but that's hardly the end of the story. As he said, that cut down physical violence, but then after that, he attributes further declines to commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism, and "The Escalator of Reason".

Even if I grant you and him that governments decreased physical violence many thousands of years ago by threatening to bludgeon everyone if they didn't settle down, that doesn't support an argument that such a social institution is still needed today, especially in light of the remainder of the arguments which have to do with humans become better, more empathic people. Does a highly empathic people who have done away with slavery, judicial torture, and even the stigma against homosexuality really need a government to threaten to bludgeon them all the time?

Threatening to bludgeon someone isn't really decreasing the violence either....it's just upping the ante

Is a machine gun more violent than a spear?

[Pointedstick]

In other words… if Pinker is right, I would expect a bunch of warring tribes conquered by government to return their warring if the government disappeared. But I'm not so sure they would if the government disappeared or atrophied and then eventually died after those formerly warring tribes progressively became more civilized, more tolerant, more empathic, more productive, more inclined to solve problems through trade and not fighting.

You can't say that just because government may have decreased physical violence in the past when we were all barbarians, that it's still necessary now that we're more civilized.

[doodle]

Actually, doodle, I've read the "cliffs notes" and look forward to reading the entire book. Pinker points out that governments pacified the warring tribes through their overwhelming violence… but that's hardly the end of the story. As he said, that cut down physical violence, but then after that, he attributes further declines to commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism, and "The Escalator of Reason".

Even if I grant you and him that governments decreased physical violence many thousands of years ago by threatening to bludgeon everyone if they didn't settle down, that doesn't support an argument that such a social institution is still needed today, especially in light of the remainder of the arguments which have to do with humans become better, more empathic people. Does a highly empathic people who have done away with slavery, judicial torture, and even the stigma against homosexuality really need a government to threaten to bludgeon them all the time?

As he said, that cut down physical violence, but then after that, he attributes further declines to commerce, feminization, cosmopolitanism, and "The Escalator of Reason

Would this have come about without the governments initial stabilizing force...or would we still be bashing each other over the head?

How about this analogy, the government is like a teacher who realizes that the only way he can get the students is to learn anything and be productive is to crack down on the troublemakers and establish order in the classroom. So on the first day of class he clearly establishes his leadership and power in that classroom. There is no room for dissension or disagreement and any troublemakers are punished. The kids think the teacher sucks and they hate him, but he provides an atmosphere where they can sit quietly and learn and study. In the end, society benefits from this although it is oppressive.

The teacher is representative of the powerful alpha male or the original emperors and kings who don't necessarily have benevolent interests but selfish ones. They realize that if they can get their people to stop screwing around and feuding they might actually be able to begin to build some wealth which will allow him to become richer by taxing them. It sucks having to follow rules and being punished when one doesn't, but it certainly makes it easier to grow crops and store grain when one doesnt have to worry about being ransacked by a neighboring tribe. The king takes a portion of my labor sure, but before this when I got ransacked they took everything, raped my wife, and maybe killed me and my sons. 

[Pointedstick]

To go with your metaphor… once the students have graduated, would it be right for the teacher to continue trying to boss them around when they're working in their first job, going on dates, or taking a vacation? They don't remain submissive students for life, right?

[Kshartle]

It sucks having to follow rules and being punished when one doesn't, but it certainly makes it easier to grow crops and store grain when one doesnt have to worry about being ransacked by a neighboring tribe. The king takes a portion of my labor sure, but before this when I got ransacked they took everything, raped my wife, and maybe killed me and my sons.

This is the devil you know vs. the devil you don't argument. It goes like this:

I don't want to have someone steal from me or hurt me, but since people might try to do that I want one to appear that is so powerful I don't even think about resisting. He can steal whatever he wants from me because I can't put up a fight and no one can. Now I can feel safe because since he gets no resistance from me he lets me keep a portion so I keep producing for him. He even even uses some of my stolen wealth to build a monument to himself and teach my kids that's he's wonderful and protects our freedom.

[Kshartle]

To go with your metaphor… once the students have graduated, would it be right for the teacher to continue trying to boss them around when they're working in their first job, going on dates, or taking a vacation? They don't remain submissive students for life, right?

Don't forget the sadistic kid who wants to become the teacher because he likes the idea of stealing from everyone and ordering them into his army to be his toy soldiers.

[Pointedstick]

I don't want to have someone steal from me or hurt me, but since people might try to do that I want one to appear that is so powerful I don't even think about resisting. He can steal whatever he wants from me because I can't put up a fight and no one can. Now I can feel safe because since he gets no resistance from me he lets me keep a portion so I keep producing for him. He even even uses some of my stolen wealth to build a monument to himself and teach my kids that's he's wonderful and protects our freedom.

This is actually how a lot of people think. They actually want to be ruled and controlled. The idea of trying to fight off their perceived enemies themselves or expend the effort to band together with friends and neighbors is too scary (these people are mostly cowards); they would prefer someone else do all the work for them to assuage their fears. You see, with these people it's all about fear. They don't feel afraid of the government because they know it's there, they can control for it, and they can believe things like that it's just a big collective expression of our wills, or it's approved by God, or whatever. But the unknown dangers terrify them out of their wits. That's why they're willing to turn to government to offer them protection from the feelings of fear that unknown dangers create in them.

At least, that's what I think based on my personal experience formerly being of this mindset and hanging out with others who shared it.

[Kshartle]

Where do I sign up?
Oh, I don't have to, do I...

You signed the contract when you were born, I mean when you voted, I mean when you had the chance to vote, I mean when you had the chance to leave, I mean when everyone else decided you signed it without actually signing it, I mean..............(1,000 more false reasons).

[Kshartle]

I don't want to have someone steal from me or hurt me, but since people might try to do that I want one to appear that is so powerful I don't even think about resisting. He can steal whatever he wants from me because I can't put up a fight and no one can. Now I can feel safe because since he gets no resistance from me he lets me keep a portion so I keep producing for him. He even even uses some of my stolen wealth to build a monument to himself and teach my kids that's he's wonderful and protects our freedom.

This is actually how a lot of people think. They actually want to be ruled and controlled. The idea of trying to fight off their perceived enemies themselves or expend the effort to band together with friends and neighbors is too scary (these people are mostly cowards); they would prefer someone else do all the work for them to assuage their fears. You see, with these people it's all about fear. They don't feel afraid of the government because they know it's there, they can control for it, and they can believe things like that it's just a big collective expression of our wills, or it's approved by God, or whatever. But the unknown dangers terrify them out of their wits. That's why they're willing to turn to government to offer them protection from the feelings of fear that unknown dangers create in them.

At least, that's what I think based on my personal experience formerly being of this mindset and hanging out with others who shared it.

I see this as the big problem....because it's what empowers violent people. It's appeasement. What do you think people of good conscience should do about this?

[doodle]

I don't want to have someone steal from me or hurt me, but since people might try to do that I want one to appear that is so powerful I don't even think about resisting. He can steal whatever he wants from me because I can't put up a fight and no one can. Now I can feel safe because since he gets no resistance from me he lets me keep a portion so I keep producing for him. He even even uses some of my stolen wealth to build a monument to himself and teach my kids that's he's wonderful and protects our freedom.

This is actually how a lot of people think. They actually want to be ruled and controlled. The idea of trying to fight off their perceived enemies themselves or expend the effort to band together with friends and neighbors is too scary (these people are mostly cowards); they would prefer someone else do all the work for them to assuage their fears. You see, with these people it's all about fear. They don't feel afraid of the government because they know it's there, they can control for it, and they can believe things like that it's just a big collective expression of our wills, or it's approved by God, or whatever. But the unknown dangers terrify them out of their wits. That's why they're willing to turn to government to offer them protection from the feelings of fear that unknown dangers create in them.

At least, that's what I think based on my personal experience formerly being of this mindset and hanging out with others who shared it.

Yep, I have banded together with my neighbors for protection and cooperation. You see, we banded together and created this thing we decided to call "government" where we elect a few of our neighbors to make some decisions for us so that we can devote ourselves to other pursuits. We also hire some of our neighbors and give them uniforms and call them police and military. They are responsible for enforcing the laws that we in our neighborhood have decided we would like to live under. Of course it's not a perfect system and there must be some compromise but it works out pretty well. And even though this system costs us a little bit of money, it has allowed my neighborhood to become so fantastically wealthy that we are now dying from overeating more than starvation and most of us have so much crap that we can't even fit it into our houses and have to store piles of stuff in the garage.

[Kshartle]

Yep, I have banded together with my neighbors for protection and cooperation. You see, we banded together and created this thing we decided to call "government" where we elect a few of our neighbors to make some decisions for us so that we can devote ourselves to other pursuits. We also hire some of our neighbors and give them uniforms and call them police and military. They are responsible for enforcing the laws that we in our neighborhood have decided we would like to live under. Of course it's not a perfect system and there must be some compromise but it works out pretty well. And even though this system costs us a little bit of money, it has allowed my neighborhood to become so fantastically wealthy that we are now dying from overeating more than starvation and most of us have so much crap that we can't even fit it into our houses and have to store piles of stuff in the garage.

Why do you not allow people to exchange sex for money and not smoke certain plants? Why am I forced to accept slips of paper your officials can print at will as payment for what people owe me?

Why am I subject to the laws and enforcement that you like?

If you stop liking it, can you withdraw from the arangement? Can all of you get together and stop paying the protection money or will they just come and collect it and maybe put some of you in a cage.


Seriously....you can't believe the crap you are writing right?

[Pointedstick]

But doodle, you didn't do any of that. People thousands of years ago decided to do that and you've decided to approve of its current incarnation. Furthermore, the organization you approve of doing the protection does far far more than that… it committed genocide against the people who lived on land you live on right now, and then gave that land someone who sold it to you. It kidnapped and enslaved Africans, then stood idly by while many of its own officers murdered them after they were supposedly freed, then it distributed drugs to their communities and then cracked down on the "drug epidemic". If our government was just a "night watchman state", your argument would hold a lot more water, but instead it's an oppressive, genocidal bully that happens to protect you because you were fortunate enough to be (I'm assuming) born white, male, and at least middle class during the late 20th century. The government might appear a bit more malevolent to you if you were a Native American, or black, or a French or Spanish resident of the Americas. Or a Jew in 1940s Poland… or Pol Pot's Cambodia… or Mao's China… or…

[doodle]

Well, your options are to try and change the community's laws, move away from the community in which case we won't really bother you too much, or leave the community altogether and find another one. If you have a lot of power you can also try to build your own community in which case you can design you own cool little flag and make your own rules.

[Pointedstick]

Well, your options are to try and change the community's laws, move away from the community in which case we won't really bother you too much

Ummm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

I think you're also forgetting one of the incredible advantages you were born with as an American: not having to worry about other governments sending armed men into your city to take your stuff or kill you. Citizens of large parts of the world weren't so lucky.