In a coup kill the enemy leader – this is really basic stuff (but too difficult for Washington D.C. types).

Sadly most,although not all, South American governments are, to some extent, going down the same road as Chevez.

Sometimes leftists learn a bit – for example Lula in Brazil is more moderate than he might be.

But I suspect this is just because he fears economic collapse would undermine his future and the future of his party.

That was admitted by the President of Peru – his previous Administation had led to economic chaos, and he has made it plain that he will not be radical this time BECAUSE IT WOULD UNDERMINE HIS POSITION AS PRESIDENT AND THE FUTURE OF HIS PARTY.

Chevez has made the calculation that economic chaos is GOOD for his future – the more poor people the better as they will be filled with hate for anyone who is not poor (other than the great leader of course).

Where their are signs of hope the main stream media downplay them – for example the vote in south eastern Bolivia for greater autonomy.

“Devolution” is good when it means more power for statists (as in Scotland) but bad if it means less power for statists (as in Bolivia).

So the media either ignore the vote or declare it the work of wicked rich people.

Yes, as a man of great influence said: “There is no morality without choice.”

Thus, those who, in the exercise if their own objectives, no matter how “noble,” would constrain choice by others, constrain morality – in all human interactions.

True, individual choices may conflict, as they often do in the preference for an unwilling mate, and thus the choice goes unfulfilled or frustrated. That is a very different matter.

There is no “untimely death.” A life spent in self-sacrifice is only truly lost if so spent only for self gratification.

Life, in all its events, is not simply a matter of choices.

Morality, however, is entirely a matter of choices.

Our choices are all that we have in our favor. Our choices are what count.

But, that is what makes having the broadest range of choices available precious; and, makes it vital that we deal with – at whatever risks, even death – those who would, without absolute necessity, limit or constrain freedom of choice.

Then we ought to go about our business armed and prepared, dealing with any violent thugs that cross our paths.

We will never move fast enough to catch all of the violent terrorists, searching amongst the vast legions of harmless idiots, and those that we don’t catch will tenaciously find a way to single-handedly negate all of our work–if, in running around like idiots, frantically looking for trouble, and dying in vain, we have neglected the work of defending our moral fiber where we can.

An untimely death is not a lost life. Only a life spent in self-sacrifice is truly lost.

Life, in all its events, is not simply a matter of choices.

But, that is what makes having the broadest range of choices available precious; and, makes it vital that we deal with – at whatever risks, even death – those who would, without absolute necessity, limit or constrain freedom of choice.

Strangely, there are, even today more societies available for those who do not believe in that precept than there are for those who do.

Trying to deal with irrational people, however, isn’t likely to be very productive. Generally speaking, they are beyond all help. Even if we show them the right, they probably lack a mind with which to recognize it. Attempts to reason with them are a likely way to provoke hostility, perhaps getting oneself killed.

The only way to eradicate the irrational is to prevent its spread until at last it has killed all of its adherents.

RRS: broadly speaking, the metacontext is marxist jargon for the conceptual framework in which society operates.

Gah! The term is most associated with W.W. Bartley and Popperian thought generally! I usually describe meta-context as the shared unspoken axioms within which a discussion takes place.

Views like those of n005, need to be expanded to consider :The Madness of Crowds, the lynch mob, a USMC squad on attack and in desperate defense – then turn to the operative differentials of the brain and the mind. Hunger and other demands of the body can drive the former to override the latter, and does in mobs, as we see these days.

I am not a psychologist, and I do not intend to be. Examining the irrational is a waste of time, effort, and life. It is not my responsibility, any more than it is my responsibility to explain the motion of fission debris.

As an individualist, I avoid dealing with irrational people as much as possible, and will find freedom no matter how unfree the world is. Socialists can fool some people, and screw up some of the world, some of the time, but they won’t ruin the whole planet forever.

As for the quibble: quibbles about terminology can only arise when the concepts in question are poorly defined (or when participants in the quibble disagree on definitions). Thus, the reasonable response to such a quibble is to narrowly define the terms involved such that there can be no such disagreement. Which brings me to the crux of my previous argument: as far as I can tell, the original point “the motivation of government is government” stands under any reasonable set of definition of terms; thus, since this seems the case, here the quibble over definitions is asinine.

You make it all sound so simple; so long as we ignore that “cultures” shape the internal motivations of individuals within them, and certainly affect the external motivations (responses and reactions).

Terminology is the means by which we exchange thought. Thought is what forms concepts. Concepts frame the evolution of cultures. ‘Tis worth a quibble perhaps?

Further, societies, once established, tend to be self-selecting. People unable to abide by the culture of a given society will tend not to remain in said society, thus reinforcing the consensus.

By definition, government is the society of those who govern. Since, in a democracy, entrance into said society generally requires a large expenditure of resources, it can be relatively easily assumed that those who comprise a government are the individuals who most wish to govern. Rich people become rich because they covet money; politicians become politicians because they covet power. (Although it is true that not all those who covet money become rich, I doubt there are all that many rich people who do not covet money; the same can be said for politicians.)

Likewise, it is the no surprise that the consensus motivation of a group of such individuals is the act of government itself – or, as Mr. de Havilland put it, “the prime motivation of government is to be in government.”

Since such seems rather obviously apparent to me, I fail to see why there is such quibbling over terminology in this thread. Whatever the terms and definitions you want to use, it is still clear that the emergent behavior of the set of individual actions by those in power will tend to be to increase their power.

Motivation (Psychiatry) is classed as internal and external, active and responsive (or reactive). This is not posted as mere pedantry. Practically all that is discussed here is of Human Conduct (a wee bit’a Science and Technology, plus the wonders of the world).

Views like those of n005, need to be expanded to consider :The Madness of Crowds, the lynch mob, a USMC squad on attack and in desperate defense – then turn to the operative differentials of the brain and the mind. Hunger and other demands of the body can drive the former to override the latter, and does in mobs, as we see these days.