+1Speaker to Animals wrote: ↑Wed Jun 05, 2019 6:10 amIt is really very simple. Government is a monopoly on violence. All government is the product of the warrior class of any complex society. True self-government, therefore, implies the people and the warrior class are more or less the same.
The United States, between 1776 and 1789 was pretty close to true self-government. The electorate were all by definition the army (white males with property were by law in the militia).
In democratic Athens, a voter in the demos was required to maintain his weapons and armor. The landed farmers outside the city were required to maintain horses and cavalry equipment. If you were especially wealthy, your "tax" could simply be the construction and maintenance of a warship. If you voted to go to war, and a majority agreed with you, then you probably were getting mustered thereafter.
You cannot in any sense of the term call yourselves "self-governed" if you are disarmed. A disarmed people ultimately get the government the army imposes upon them. Their only recourse is, like a battered woman, to pathetically appeal to the consciences of the army, or to helplessly flail in the streets as we see in France, daring the army to crush their windpipe. At best, you can attempt to convince enough people in the army to take your side in a civil war (see Venezuela).
Self-government you are not.
Good Post
