What if panarchy existed during the Bush 43 Administration? If people could choose their national government, I can well imagine that there would have been a lot less funding for the dreadful excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq, and that both wars would have been concluded far more quickly as a result. Without monopoly government, without winner-take-all government, the extremes that government is prone to would be reduced, the damage done far less painful and enduring.

What if panarchy existed in today's Iran? What if half the people, instead of futilely marching against the unelected supreme rulers, could choose a government that respected every man, every woman?

What if panarchy existed in Myanmar? What if the people could choose a government not led by military thugs who cared only for themselves?

What if panarchy existed in the Sudan, so that the people of Darfur could separate themselves from the government in the east that seeks to destroy them?

What if panarchy existed in Spain, where political autonomy has been denied to the Basques for generations, where the right of self-determination is quashed by force and met with murderous resistance. Could these two peoples, who differ in some ways yet share much as well, not find a way to dwell side by side in panarchy and peace?

What if panarchy had existed in China, or Russia, or Germany during the first half of the last century? Would the governments of those countries have been able to murder so many of their own people?

Without panarchy, governments are territorial monopolies of coercion. Some governments have stronger traditions of restraint, but the temptation to go beyond the limits of constitutions and the rule of law effects all governments eventually, because they are human institutions, subject to every kind of human weakness. Those governments with weaker restraints turn more quickly and disastrously toward totalitarianism and the destruction that it inevitably brings. Those with stronger restraints are slower to be corrupted, but the temptations to seize power overwhelm all at last. The corruption of power is legendary. The temptation to acquire power can be resisted by few. The very nature of government as a monopoly of coercion makes it prone to misuse. And finally, the amazing ingenuity of the human being assures that, if the possibility to wield greater power over others exists, it will be taken by someone.

Only the absolute recognition of human rights, most particularly the right of each person to freely choose or reject their government, can protect the human family from the ongoing scourge of government turning against its own. If giving consent to be governed does not include the right to reject one government and to embrace another, it is without meaning.

Is it likely that the government of a small town in South Jersey shall begin murdering its citizens? I certainly hope not. But the right of a government to exist as a territorial monopoly of coercion must be contradicted at every level, beginning at the lowest levels of government, so that it can in turn be denied at the higher levels where tyranny does exist around the world. If a human person is unable to freely choose their government here in smalltown America, how could we expect the right to exist at the national level anywhere else?