Collateral damage

[Tom Kalbfus]

By your definition, the United Nation is a government without police, if some nation misbehaves and violates one of their laws on paper, then all this "government" can do is protest.

The United Nations is not a government, it is an organization of representatives of governments of independent states. It cannot create laws, only treaties between the governments of the independent member states. The member states usually agree to adhere to these treaties and to turn them into their national laws, which then gives them the duty to enforce these laws.

That is what I just said, it is amusing sometimes, when the UN condemns a certain action by a dictator, and then the United States goes to bring that miscreant to justice, and then the United Nations condemns the attempt to police its own edict, they didn't expect nor did they want their resolutions to actually be enforced! Sometimes the United States acts as a cop, the members of the UN vote in lieu of actually doing something to solve the problem they are voting on, you see they don't actually want to do something, but they want to be seen by their public as taking action against it, so voting at the UN is the least costly action they can take. They can condemn the actions of dictator X, their violation of human rights for example, and then they let the matter rest, the vote is the only action they intended to take, and then the United States uses that vote as permission to invade that other country which is violating UN rules, and most of the UN members vote to condemn the United States for enforcing their rules! I consider this to be kind of absurd! Lots of leftists say the United States shouldn't act as a World Cop, in fact they don't want a World Cop, they just want to pass empty resolutions on paper that don't do anything, and when someone tries to do something about it, they condemn it.

This is what I am thinking when people bring up the subject of a government with no law enforcement. If people are being murdered by some dictator, and the UN votes to condemn it an they do nothing else, the UN is not a government to them, as far as they are concerned it might as well not exist, that vote they take is just an effort by the nations of the World to wash their hands of the problem, and claim they did something by taking that vote at the UN! and hey don't proceed any further! When the US does something, that irritates them, because it puts pressure on them to do something in addition to taking that vote as well, and they don't like to do that, cause it means military commitments and possible causalities of their soldiers, they'd rather just take the vote, claim they "did something" and then claim they can do no more, cause its being blocked at the UN" etc!

 

[phavoc]

So if you take Robinson Crusoe, give him a badge and a gun, then he is a cop, right? Ole Robinson can probably salvage a pistol from his ship wreck, and he can pound a silver coin from that shipwreck into a badge that he can pin on his shirt, and since he is the entire population of the island he was shipwrecked on, would that make him a cop? My guess is Robinson Crusoe's island has a government type called a participatory democracy, and whenever Robinson wants to pass a new law, he votes on it, and then he pulls out his pistol, pins on his badge and enforces it!

If he has a gun, he's got the power.

But this is a silly comparison. We can make silly comparisons all day long and not actually accomplish anything.

If you want to call 7 people (all related) a polity, hey, that's your perogative. But in reality that gets called a family, of which there is an entirely different sort of political process.

So moving back into the real world, where you have various people who have come together to form a society, that's when you get a society (as opposed to a shipwrecked family). Or at least that's the generally accepted definition of a society. Assuming this society forms a government, you get a hierarchy established (human culture that is). If this government (and perhaps the society) decides to have representatives who enforce rules, codes, social mores, etc, then you have agents of the government.

Whether or not you want to call agents of the government the actual government (who makes decisions), or not, obviously can vary. I would argue that it's a generally accepted idea that if you are enforcing something you are an extension of the state, and thus in your interaction with society the enforcer is the defacto state. Not the entire state, but an arm of it. If you want to get extremely technical, then one could also argue only the person(s) who signs a bill into law is "the government". But then by getting so specific you obfuscate the actual process, as well as ignoring the fact that in governments where there is a legislative body that can over-rule a president or prime minister, then would you include the legislative body as THE government? Or just the president/prime minister? Or both? And this ignores the government types where you have councils, or dictatorships, or hereditary forms of government.

The more you try to specifically define what the government is, the more you will start failing to define anything.

When you see protests against "the state", many times the protesters are complaining about specific individuals, or legislative bodies. Or sometimes you see them protesting against specific agencies of the government. It varies a great deal depending upon the situation and the society.

 

[-Daniel-]

Combat with military firearms is quite deadly, we have generally realised that if we want to keep our characters alive it is better to avoid combat if possible.

I have always liked RPGs where combat was more deadly. I think it helps keep the actions of the players more realistic. They think twice before pulling out the guns and blazing away. :mrgreen:

 

[Condottiere]

Never join a game where one of the characters is named Leroy Jenkins.

 

[wbnc]

Never join a game where one of the characters is named Leroy Jenkins.

Or give a vital piece of gear to someone wearing a red shirt...if a stray round is in the air it will find him first.

 

[-Daniel-]

Never join a game where one of the characters is named Leroy Jenkins.

But with Leroy you get Chicken.... :mrgreen:

 

[Condottiere]

Headless.