13 Apr
2001
13 Apr
'01
5:22 p.m.
On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, James A. Donald wrote:
It is totally unfair to compare mafia type organizations to the government.
Governments are just what happens when a mafia gains monopoly status in a given territory.
There's a definition of government that one of my friends routinely quotes to me. I don't recall the original source, but the quote goes something like this: "A government is a group which holds a monopoly on violence, particularly violence which results in fatality, over a given geographic area." It's terribly simplistic, but these days, accurate and appropriate none the less. - VAB