In other words, after your politician sticks you with a hot poker while stating "It won't hurt a bit", it is silly to give him the benefit of the doubt when he says he wants to do it again, but "this time, will be different!" After a point you are just willfully being ignorant of the facts.

Excuse me, but that is a misreading of history.

The level and extent of violence perpetrated by rulers, and those who aspired to rule, exceeds by orders of magnitude, anything ever done by those who desired to live without rulers.

It was apologists for the state who perpetrated the notion that anarchy=chaos, despite the evidence that large scale chaos is induced by the state.

What is the state, but a formalized tribal structure.

"When you are not tenured, you need to give people the benefit of doubt since otherwise life, without hope, would be unbearable.
Posted by: Per Kurowski | Aug 30, 2008 10:43:35 AM"

Specifically, people from the government or who aspire to government positions, as Marcus said, offer false hope…just words, empty rhetoric. What they will do is suck all hope out of everyone.

I haven't been a big fan of Labor Day. It seems to me like a big propaganda event staged by the political class in honor of its union enforcers. But I was thinking about the fact that I'll be working tomorrow, and it occurred to me that a great many people will be working tomorrow. People who don't have to work, but want to and will anyway, for reasons all their own. Such people are worth a celebration. So, here's to people who believe in honest work – and the political class can kiss my ass.

As opposed to the costs imposed by giving politicians the benefit of doubt?

The cost of hope with regard to the political process is to sustain the leechery. No, not lechery, leechery.

…you need to give people the benefit of doubt since otherwise life, without hope, would be unbearable.

Hope for what? That political animals will change their stripes?

People from the government are really there to help, are they not?

That's exactly what the religious say about those who don't believe in god.

I have been an atheist for many years, but I have recently become apolitical as well – and the experience of becoming an atheist is remarkably similar to the experience of becoming apolitical. When one begins to view religious sentiment, or political sentiment, from outside the framework of beliefs and propaganda that one has been exposed to, evidence of the absurdity of those beliefs appears at every turn. At this point I would say that religion is simply a form of politics. I include both the religious and the political in my understanding of "the political class".

When you are not tenured, you need to give people the benefit of doubt since otherwise life, without hope, would be unbearable.

Palin/Jindal 2012!

So you admit it's evil? That's a start.

It's a belief, but it is a fact that many hold that belief.

I'm not so fortunate as to have learned the sum total of human history, but I do know that there are a great many examples of the private provision of what are usually alleged to be "core" government services that cannot otherwise be provided.

http://tinyurl.com/6eglsp

That we need a government is a fact. Take any city as an example in this country (or any other) during a police strike and you'll quickly realize how wrong that needing a government is just 'an opinion' (don't quote me some foolish rant about how the private sector can provide a definition of property rights and provide a more or less neutral arbitration of those rules- this has NEVER happened and taking human nature into account this can never happen).

What size and scope the government should be is a matter of opinion. Below a certain threshold there is no opinion (anarchy is indeed short and brutish) and above a certain threshold there is no opinion (Stalin and Mao). There seems to be a rather large gray area.

Due to the self interestedness of EVERYONE, it is self-evident to all libertarians that politicians (who control the police and military) need to be given only a very modest amount of power.

I wish people would think before they posted anything that may be wistful or positive about anarchy. It's filled only with violence. The closest thing humans ever came to anarchy was a tribal state. Every tribal state in recorded history provided a level of violence that is truly shocking and disgusting.

For starters try:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html