In message <6680@aiki.demon.co.uk>you write:

In message <199408182230.PAA15298@netcom7.netcom.com> "James A. Donald" wri tes:

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Jim Dixon writes

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You won't tear down the government without replacing it.

We can certainly drastically weaken and seriously impair and obstruct government without replacing it.

Can you prove this? Or at least show some historical example?

What about later Byzantium? The last 100 years of the Ottomans? Most of the history of the Holy Roman Empire? Capetian France? Egypt under the Mamluks? There are many examples of a government peacefully becoming incompetent and weak. Sometimes, an outside power moves in. Sometimes, anarchy results, and later a strong new government arises. Sometimes, things just muddle along for a while, with most people ignoring government entirely. That all of these periods end with the rise of, or takeover by, another government, proves nothing. Every historical period has an end. Does anybody here think that the current set of governments in the world is static for all time? Those who think that governments only get stronger is taking too short a view. The Babylonian, Roman, and Persian empires were all succeeded by far weaker, less centralized, power structures. The questions are: what comes next? And what can we do to make what comes next bearable?

In France, the monarchy was replaced by a republic which quickly descended into the Reign of Terror. There was no gap. Orderly rule drifted into terror, which was succeeded by Napoleon's iron rule.

But you can make a good case that this was BECAUSE the monarchy had not been drastically weakened and impaired for a time before the revolution. The revolution was too sharp a jolt, and the system became unstable. Politics abhors a square wave.

In the American South after the Civil War, the Union smashed local government and replaced it with something acceptable to them. This did not have the consent of the white population. The Ku Klux Klan developed as a way for the whites to enforce their rules.

It also had the more-than-tacit support of the government.

The Ku Klux Klan was in its way an instrument of democracy.

Instrument of oligarchy might be closer. Many poor whites were 'kept in line' by it, as well as the blacks.

In Russia, the monarchy was replaced by a republic which was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. There was widespread civil war. But there whenever

Actually, by the Minsheviks and anarchists.

there was a governmental vacuum, people filled it. Russia was full of bands of armed men. People needed governments to protect them from the marauders.

How can you distinguish the marauders and the government? There was an anarchic transition period. Some areas/groups did well (such as the Coassaks, and parts of the Caucasus) some did very badly. Does this signify anything?

Stalin was an expression of the people's will.

I think that you are confusing 'the people' and 'the government.' Trotsky was much more the choice of 'the people.' That's why he was charged with 'bonapartism.'

The US government is a large and powerful organization. Let us say that somehow you contrive to successfully weaken, impair, and obstruct it. How will you do this? Not by yourself. One person cannot defeat millions. You need a group of some size, at the very least of thousands. This group must have a set of common goals and some sort of administrative structure to effect those goals...

You seem to be hooked on organized conflict. I think you vastly underestimate the power of incompetence, corruption, and bureaucracy.

I could continue, but you must understand what I am going to say: governments can only be defeated by organizations with the attributes of governments.

Tell that to the Afghans. The Afghan tribes have a long history of defeating governments with only a lose tribal and clan system.

The alternative is to take over the government to some degree.

Or to help it degenerate into incapacity.