"You WILL use our services and you WILL pay for them or we WILL kill you."
This is the statement of a crime syndicate. It is also the statement of every government that has every existed. Sure, governments may differ regarding which services will be provided and how they are chosen, but the fundamentals are always the same: textbook racketeering. So, given that governments operate exactly the same way that crime syndicates do, what is the real difference between them? Answer: one is legally sanctioned, and the other is not. When we acknowledge this basic truth, the real purpose behind laws becomes painfully obvious: to legitimize gang violence. Think of all the deplorable acts that are a staple of crime syndicates: threats, coercion, kidnapping, ransom, burglary, theft, assault, "silver or lead", murder, monopolies... Now, lets use legal terminology to convert those same criminal acts into legitimate government actions: ordinances, taxation, arrest, bail, serving a warrant, asset forfeiture, subdue, eminent domain, war, jurisdiction... For every horrible crime you can imagine, there is a legal government equivalent. Even worse, because these crimes have been legitimized, they are now far more pervasive and widespread. Laws are tools for sophisticated gangsters. That is their purpose. It is an age-old scam that is kept alive by irrational fears of "chaos" should the scam ever collapse. ---Sasan
