“By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments. The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments, that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity.”

That is why it is so important to limit government and why it is so hard to actually do so.

20th Century: Turkish genocide of Armenians; mass starvation of the Ukraine, during the Red- White Russian civil war; Hitler's Holocaust; Stalin's purge's and collectivizations of the kulaks and the starvation of 20 million plus Russians; Mao's Cultural revolution and Great Leap Forward -resulting in 60 million deaths; Pol Pot's regime where 25% of the pop went to the killing fields. And these are not even wars, just the killing of the countries citizens, albeit in some cases "unwanted" citizens, often done in the shadow of a war or conflict.

Before we lost 110.000 of our finest in Asia under the pretext of "halting communist expansion" bankers, lawyers, judges and journalists even with the help of intimidated preachers, were enforcing all ten planks of Marx;s Communist Mainfesto HERE in the USA. Why? Most or almost none knew what they were doing but they got much bank credit for doing their part and bank credit is the life blood of communism. Find those ten planks that have replaced our Bill of Rights here: www.morpix.biz/x15 followed by 5 free books by Merrill Jenkins, Monetary Realist who had no peers. Let me comment on plank No.8 that calls for "Equal liability of all to labor." This means women should do all work that men do including military. If the Equal Rights Amendment is ever ratified, women will have the same right to avoid the draft that men have which is NONE, and if it is ratified, we can thank the Girl Scouts of America for doing their part in promoting it. "My people perish for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:

absolutley

We are targeted by our misleaders with biological, chemical, economic, pshychological and spiritutal warfare now. Subsidized milk constitutes biological warfare, see www.notmilk.com For chemical warfare, we have subsidized sugar and tobacco as well as alum, alloxan, aspartame, alcohol, caffeine, carageenan, chlorine, fluoride, MSG, Malathion, Nutrasweet, nitrite, Sucralose, vaccinations etc. For 11 years, the professionals at the EPA have been telling the world that fluoride is killing people but our exterminaton by fluoridation continues unabated. Search: nteu fluoride. With taxes being illusions that regulate consumption when bank deposits are merely "book entries" quoting the Federal Reservem page 3, Modern Money Mechanics. taxes are economic warfare. It take many lies to keep the system going with the most repeated lie being government spending this is psychological warfare. With Freemasonry saying their god (Lucifer) is "dedicated to the unification of all races, religions and credes" there is your spiritual warfare and their success is shown by the number of people who believe all prophecy is not fulfilled. Not ONE verse in the Bible says Jesus will return IN OUR FUTURE, but many believe He will. To believe that anyone is coming is to deny their presence.

Anonymous summed it up pretty well. Another example of governments violation of personal liberty is the so-called "War on Drugs". Cops, agents of the government, can take your property with no due process of law and not even charge you with a crime. See the books, "Drug Crazy" or "Bad Trip" for the details, available from Amazon.com. The War on Drugs has enriched drug lords, increased crime in our streets, made drugs cheaper and more potent, corrupted cops and judges,made drugs easily available to children, and filled our jails with non-violent people.We pay 70 billion or more each year in taxes for this monstrosity. See LEAP.CC for more information.

Apparently the author has never heard of slavery (although this was supported by the state even if not directly practiced) prostitution, enforced servitude. piracy, theft, robbery, murder and mayhem enacted by one or a group of human beings against another individual or group of individuals. The dileberate policy of most governments has often been to mollify these abuses among men. The author has obviously never heard the old statement about "mans' inhumanity to man" and that is a shame for someone who is a Professor of Philosophy.

Lets take a breather. Vietnam was a complex issue. It started out or was analysed to be a war to protect the South from the same types of governmental atrocities enumerated above by the communists in China and Russia. Our leaders and WE failed to really understand it as a war of liberation from colonialism. The war was driven by the anti-communist and anti-socialist lobby. Lobbies like that are unable to see beyond their personal agendas to correctly analyse facts and events.

Governments usually end up as entities of pure evil...wrapped in flag. Then there is a revolution and the process starts over....

Waffler, the point was not that one-on-one crime doesn't exist, but that the worst crimes in history are almost always committed by official government actions. History suggests that government has done more harm than good and that just because the government says it is ok does not make it so. Of course, you wouldn't agree as you espouse the idea of democracy, which condones all government action as long as 51% of the people approve.

Thanks Ben for your repartee.

As corruptive as is power, all temporal hierarchies, save for, ideally, the institution of the family, are loveless by their very natures.

"The most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments." It always has been! That's the reason behind the Declaration of Independence -- and will be the reason for the NEXT liberty revolution/reformation. (And the next and the next...)

How do people have those 'self-realizations' that liberate themselves from the lies they have clung to for so long? How do people muster courage? This is the engine of human progress, in my view, and the structures of governance or lack thereof will reflect the hearts and minds of the people.

It seems then to me that it's the same as it ever was, and my roles and responsibilities are 'built in.' The world awaits the answer to the question, "who am I" -- either I write my own narrative or someone will write one for me. ;-)