This is an interesting point you both bring up, about borrowed time. I think the biggest way we can effectively reduce government is by showing people the logic and ethics behind doing so, combined with technological decentralization (i.e the internet.) The only reason government is so much more effective than say a mafia, is because it persuades people that its use of force is morally sound, while a mafia resorts to only paternalism (makes dependents) on the initiation of force. It is the institution of force rather than the decentralization of force which makes government so powerful. If people recognized the beast for what it is, even if it's not the majority of the populous, government reduces. So it's an ideological war more than anything. 

It's not as if this hasn't happened with anything else either. Most people view absolute government and monarchy rule as especially abhorrent. Most people today view slavery and rape as especially abhorrent. This was not true in history. If most people view government as inherently abhorrent, regardless of its size, then the monopoly it has on the initiation of force is broken, and as a society we can start working to reduce the initiation of force in its decentralized incoherrent form, as individuals or voluntary collectives. But as long as there is a monopoly on force (the state) this is impossible, due to its centralization of power. 

The best forms of small government and anarchy in history happened because government wasn't viewed as necessary in the majority (or all) affairs, not because the system was dismantled and left open for somebody else to come in or because a document limited it. 

Of course. I don't argue that it "works". Nothing does in the long run. There have to be revolutions eventually, and after each one you are always on borrowed time until the next one. We're well overdue currently. I only mean that, if it is true that legitimate power can only come from the consent of the governed - and everybody seems to agree on that in theory though they may violate it in fact on a daily basis - then huge swaths of the governed can't be dissolved into a massive empire in such a manner that a coalition of states can tell people in another state on the other side of the country how to behave in their own goddamn state, and oh, by the way if you try to leave the union we'll kill ya 'cause More Perfect Union.

As for anarchy, feels good and all that, but I can't see how a power vacuum isn't going to be filled by people who don't even have to pretend to like your stupid ass or care about your hahaha "rights". So in that sense, it's also on borrowed time. Additionally, it won't be long until people organize some thing that is functionally a state, anyway, whether or not they call it one. Just as surely as small government will always turn into big government, no government will always turn into some government. Best to keep it close, I think.

That's all true and a good explanation of how politics is downstream of culture. A rotten culture always manifests a rotten government. Once people accept that it is okay to use coercion against an innocent person for the greater good, it's all downhill from there.

I always love that argument against anarchy. "The worst thing about anarchy is that we might end up with Governments", so the worst-case scenario is what we have today? Ok, cool.

I can't really answer the points you raised in this post without delving too much into philosophy and we'll both be dealing with abstractions with no empirical evidence, I can't be arsed with all that, so I'm bailing on this one.

SamuelRSmith said:

Isn't this blaming the victim?