Why not live free? Why not rally to get rid of their existing government and then live freely. Do unto others that which you see is good?
Well, someone has to claim to be the gov't in order to get the 1.3B from the United States every year.
It's all about ideas you hold in your head, most of them never heard of alternatives and even if they heard about one of voluntary systems I bet most would think that it cannot work. You know how hard it is to convince people in your close proximity to your ideas why should it be any different with Egyptians?
They have that opportunity, but then they are talking about democracy. Democracy isn't freedom.
The money from the US has too many strings attached. They are better off without it.
When you are an isolated individual, you need a protector to balance out against rich/large societies. Because the Egyptian state has destroyed all competing sources of protection, a new government must be formed over the state to provide this protection.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
That was their intention when they begun rioting, I suspect. Not freedom, but to have a tyrant more congenial to them. Those who seek liberty do not riot, but try to isolate the state. Gandhi wanted liberty, revolutions do not work.
" Because the Egyptian state has destroyed all competing sources of protection, a new government must be formed over the state to provide this protection."
It does not follow. No outght is deductable from is.
Hoo-yah!
K.C. Farmer They have that opportunity, but then they are talking about democracy. Democracy isn't freedom.
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote." -- Benjamin Franklin
limitgov, what they want most is jobs. What they wanted most in Tianamen Square was jobs.
In both these movements, we are seeing mostly educated people from relatively better off families protesting. It's a problem of educated unemployed, and the demand for democracy largely is a demand for jobs guaranteed by the state in a civil service or public sector or otherwise.
Egypt's public school education system spends more time on theology than on math or on science. Egyptians don't even believe in validity of scientific collection of data, and hold to Creationism and Intelligent Design, as explained by the Koran. Oh, you can already imagine the tragic results as far as scholastic aptitude goes. These people go to college and spend more time studying theology. They can't get jobs.
In India, such protests do not happen, because democracy has guaranteed a civil service employing 140 million unemployables who'd otherwise be rioting on the streets.
It's not arrests, torture, or interrogative detention that bothers Third World youth. It's the lack of other people guaranteeing their future. When you spend fifteen years learning useless things, you are only qualified for manual labour, but even manual labour horrifies us educated Third Worlders, and we'd sooner want someone to give us a nominal desk job. Truth be told, we envy Americans or Canadians who are willing to drive a truck to get the money for going to college and becoming an engineer later. More than material poverty, we have a poverty of spirit; First Worlders often don't.
So, the answer is to just have the government employ the rioters?
Perhaps India should just stop taxing and regulating people into poverty. Then you wouldn't have to rob people who have nothing in order to maintain a voting constituency. Funny how that seems to be the solution for the First World as well.
It's not arrests, torture, or interrogative detention that bothers Third World youth. It's the lack of other people guaranteeing their future.
I thought the idea was to allow someone the freedom to make their own future, not to have it "guaranteed" by incompetent bureaucrats.
Egypt was once the bread basket for the Roman Empire, now it is the worlds biggest wheat importer. I do not know much about Egypt, but I am pretty sure that the government has subsidised food for the people over the years. Like every government scheme this creates shortages, distortions and increasingly becomes a bigger problem to sustain. Anyone here have more insight in Egyptian food politics ?
Because society could not function without the necessary governance.
It does not follow that this governance must be monopoly.
Governance is kind of a natural monopoly. That is why there will be only one government basically always.
"Governance is kind of a natural monopoly."
Define your understanding of governance and natural monopoly.
"That is why there will be only one government basically always."
Claim of clairvoyance directly cotradicted by reality - we have many governments today. Also government could not logically precede individual.
The current situation in Egypt is that there is only one organization that can provide governance, because this organization has destroyed all others. There will not be competition.
The only other possible scenario is that the Muslim Brotherhood takes the path of Hezbollah, and decides to remain an independent force while taking a semi-active role in government.
"Well, someone has to claim to be the gov't in order to get the 1.3B from the United States every year."
LOL!!!! Awesome!!! Let's go get that money! Bring a pocket constituion so we can use it to setup an impromptu gov.
Mobs are an expression of discontent. It doesn't mean they have a good ideas. It looks like what they want is to be ruled over differently. Freedom, yey!
The whole thing reminds me of this cartoon I saw about finally obtaining freedom and the first thing people look for is the next person who will oppress them. I too think they should attempt to move forward without a state but the people there are currently too ignorant to understand a completely voluntary system, I'm not saying they could never understand it but presently they just don't know enough about it. Like boniek said even if we tried to expose them to such ideas they wouldn't think it could work, at least initially.
There are more governments, but they have separate territorial jurisdictions, so they are not competing for the same customers.
People here tends to romanticize things outside the USA a bit too much.
The fact is that your average middle-eastener believes that the state can create prosperity as long it has a great and benevolent leader.
As if the other nations in the world would allow a government free Egypt.
auctionguy10: As if the other nations in the world would allow a government free Egypt. It doesn’t depend on the foreigners, but on Egyptians and them alone. When the Dutch made up their mind six centuries ago that they wanted freedom, not even the greatest empire on earth could stop them. The government it all in the minds of the Egyptians. The Regression theorem is a memetic equivalent of the Theory of Evolution. To say that the former precludes the free emergence of fiat currencies makes no more sense that to hold that the latter precludes the natural emergence of multicellular organisms. | Post Points: 20
It doesn’t depend on the foreigners, but on Egyptians and them alone. When the Dutch made up their mind six centuries ago that they wanted freedom, not even the greatest empire on earth could stop them. The government it all in the minds of the Egyptians.
You are right- that is entirely a possibility. But I do think that until Egyptians, and nearly everybody else, see all the failings of government(and not just particular government)- no government won't happen just yet. Things like this do take time, it took many years just to get to the point of attempting to remove Mubarak- the idea of absence of government will come as more years pass. Ideas are hard to contain these days.
They can't live free. The US will invade to prevent anyone else from invading.
scineram: There are more governments, but they have separate territorial jurisdictions, so they are not competing for the same customers.
Very true, there are communities that dwell in the mountains that set up perimeters and will shoot you on sight if you attempt to trespass, this includes government officials. And the government has left them alone. Can't confirm this but what I heard from a guy who lives there.
scineram:Governance is kind of a natural monopoly. That is why there will be only one government basically always.
I'd love to hear your reasoning about what makes government (kind of) a natural monopoly.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Because they are socialists. That is what socialists do, they implement states. As warranted as their complaints are the Egyptian people have no real alternative in mind, they seek to replace one despot with another.