On 2005-02-15T21:40:34+0000, Justin wrote: > On 2005-02-15T13:23:37-0500, Steve Thompson wrote: > > --- "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [snip] > > > As governments were created to smash property rights, they are > > > always everywhere necessarily the enemy of those with property, > > > and the greatest enemy of those with the most property. > > > > Uh-huh. Perhaps you are using the term 'government' in a way that is not > > common to most writers of modern American English? > > I think it's fair to say that governments initially formed to protect > property rights (although we have no historical record of such a > government because it must have been before recorded history began). > They then developed into monarchies which were only really set up to > protect property rights of the ruler(s).
It seems I've been brainwashed by classical political science. What I wrote above doesn't make any sense. Judging from social dynamics and civil advancement in the animal kingdom, monarchies developed first and property rights were an afterthought. -- Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter. --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936