A Quote by Robert Anton Wilson
Governments are based pincipally on force and deception. Democratic governments are based chiefly on deception, other governments on force. And democratic governments, if you get too uppity, give up on the deception and resort to brute force, as a lot of us found out in the sixites. Those who didn't find out in the sixites will find out in the near future because we're going to have a rerun.
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Democratic governments are not delivering on their promises, which is partly due to the fact that governments are less powerful than they were after the Second World War. There were fewer governments then, but they actually had more political power.
There's a very good reason that governments aren't supposed to compete with private-enterprise companies. Governments have monopolies on certain things, like eminent domain and deadly force.
Ordinary people - churches, too - have a role to force politicians to respond. Governments are not impressed with theories, but governments are impressed with people who change their minds about things.
If you can't even manage to to force your own presumably democratic governments to allow you to do good things for yourselves, then you probably deserve to become extinct.
The difference between corporations and governments is governments have a monopoly on force. It's a lot easier to vote with your feet or your wallet than it is to change a government with your vote.
I don't hold America responsible for the largely oppressive governments in the 22 Arab countries. There are repressive Arab governments that are our allies and there are those that are our nominal enemies. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference to what extent we're involved in propping up those governments.
As a general rule, governments are unlimited in their powers. All free governments, perhaps all other governments, are entitled in some shape or other to make laws and to repeal or amend them.
...governments, including free and democratic governments, are not really friendly to freedom and democracy. They abhor any rule of law that limits their powers and penchant for social engineering.
Bosses are no more inevitable in state and local governments than dictators are in national governments. They will arise and prosper, nevertheless, if true believers of democracy - citizens devoted to the democratic ideals - do not constantly oppose them.
Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn.
There's a lot of thought that bitcoin will be a huge threat to existing tax systems or existing ways governments have of controlling currency flows across their border. I personally think governments will do what governments have always done: they will adapt.
The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments' plans.
And as a matter of fact, governments don't act, governments only react. The bankers make the decisions, and then governments decide how are we going to adjust to this. Government can't do anything unless the bank gives them the money to do it.
Despotic governments can stand 'moral force' till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.
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.
I hope that the German people will never again make the mistake of believing that because the American people are peace-loving, they will sit back hoping for peace if any nation uses force or the threat of force to acquire dominion over other peoples and other governments.
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