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I know how it works. You're handwaving around the issue. Whether the big group of people tells the small group directly or funnels their wishes through some sort of committee is not really important. Why does *anyone*, big group or individual, have any right to impose upon others? What magical pixie dust differentiates a group of voters from a mob with pitchforks and torches?

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Agreement. The power comes from getting the masses to believe it exists. You gradually structure a situation where they punish each other for doing a certain thing, and then you control that thing.

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I just wanted to agree with you... and express my enjoyment that pvn also agrees with you. He said it was "voluntarily cooperating", but that's pretty much the same thing. So, we agree to what our "rights" are, and voluntarily cooperate in coming up with rules to protect those rights. This can range anywhere from "I own my body, and have the right to do with it as I want, so long as I'm not infringing on other's" to "We agree that we do not have the right to bring loaded weapons onto airplanes." If we disagree with the agreements, then we can try to persuade people to change the agreement, not follow it (and reap the potential consequences enforced by those who do agree), or move to a place that has different agreements.

I'm not sure if any rights are "inalienable" -- but maybe that's a topic for another thread? Not that I've been very good at not combining streams of thought into different threads lately. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]