government

When people talk about freedom, what is meant? Do we mean we want to do whatever we want? Isn't that really anarchy? A lawlessness. That is the setup for this article on the hypothetical nation called Iargalon. What if there was a country with virtually no government, where the people could settle on a piece of land and be left unmolested by laws imposed upon them by others. But how would this be possible? Doesn't every society need order. Without rules, without government with the power to maintain order wouldn't there be chaos?

Imagine this Iargalon with a minimal government with a main responsibility of merely the national defense of the country. This centralized government would have virtually no ability to tax. No ability to dictate a national agenda. The key to all of this would be a society built on respect for personal contract; Caveat Emptor. -- buyer beware. This would mean that each person is ultimately responsible for making sure the contracts they enter into are for mutual benefit. On this principle, whatever government there was, it would hold people to their contracts. Obviously this would need to be a society where people were noble and honorable. But are humans by nature, noble and honorable? Are we instead, by nature greedy and self-serving? Isn't this why we implement government; so as to impose on other people things that force them to behave noble and honorable...or at least how we interpret noble and honorable?

So, you have this Iargalon where the people come together to form a more perfect union. They elect a government of officers from among the people; not career politicians but people who will return to their daily lives as farmers, tradesmen, and business people after they serve their limited terms. There would be no class of people such as politicians. To raise a military, for the common defense of the nation, would require local militias that would be called and rotated at all times for the maintaining of a standing army. This conscription would be necessary, modeled much after the IDF Regular Service, and would require all able-bodied, able-minded persons of a specified age range to serve at rotating and limited time in the military. The idea of career military service should also be resisted in this new nation.

Okay, so we now have thousands of years of human civilization to take into account; you would think we could look at the evidence and determine the best system of government. To this end, I've taken Wikipedia's post on the various government types and I've created a personal government analyzer. What this thing does is analyzes your answers to 25 questions to determine which type of government system you would most like. Granted, this doesn't tell us which is the best, since every person's answers could be different based on an entire host of factors. To get at which government is the "best", we'd have to define what we mean by "best". Best for what? For example, a totalitarian form of government might be considered "best" at maintaining order and stability whereas anarchy may be considered "best" at allowing individual freedoms. What follows is a list pulled from the Wikipedia post that make up the Excel-based analyzer. Give it a try. Download the attached file, enable macros/content and fill out the form by selecting AGREE/DISAGREE in column G. Then press the ANALYZE button. To start again, press the NEW SESSION button. I did it a fews times; once answering as if I wanted the most stable government, and then another time wanting the most free government. You'll be given upto 3 types of governments based on your answers. The results seemed pretty accurate.