Really? We’ve government agencies that regulate water to make it safe to drink, require licenses in order to drive vehicles, make roads that are smooth with rules about speeds and the like. We’ve got a government agency that keeps bridges from falling down, which I’m quite keen on.

I’m a smash the state anarchist, but I can also see that governments can and do perform many useful functions. Most of them are so painfully boring we forget they exist. Governments decided that primary education should be a public service, so they setup and pay for schools. They regulate companies so they don’t send out chemicals in our environment that cause cancer.

Most of what governments do in the west is supremely boring. They’re just trying to follow their stupidly complicated regulation. They’re not being authoritarian.