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… is from page 119 of Aeon Skoble’s exemplary 2008 tract, Deleting the State [2] (original emphasis):
So if it is not justified to take violent action against the government, the other side wonders, what’s the point? What is the ‘payoff’ of a theory in which government is illegitimate? It is to undermine the idea that coercion is necessary for social order, or that it is beneficial to human society. It is to point the way towards the continual need to scale back the scope of state power. It is to affirm the priority of liberty and its necessary connection to human flourishing, and keep us mindful of the ways in which the state, and our often unthinking obedience to it, hinders that flourishing.