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RE: What if no one is in charge?
My son told me we should obey the policemen because the government owns the roads; which is a compelling argument.
They don't actually claim to own the roads, though. They manage them on behalf of the public.
If you wreck your suspension on a pothole you can't sue the government.
Those who believe they're in charge assign themselves all of the benefits of ownership and none of the responsibilities.
The only good reason to obey the police is that they can shoot you with impunity if you don't. The police are not the government; at best they are the government's wage slaves, at worst, their hired thugs.
I find it funny that roads are always the go-to argument on behalf of the State, as if private roads don't exist. In fact, in the bad old days of the railroads, ALL roads were privately owned, at least in the US. I was born in a country where private business wasn't legal until 1988, so my perspective is a little different.
In the US, we had a transcontinental highway network built primarily with private funding long before the federal government took over. I have driven across bridges that were financed privately by the communities that wanted them using (and promptly repaying) capital from local banks.
Government monopolizing a thing and funding its operation through extortion doesn't create authority.