"The System that organizes citizens of the United States into groups and communities in the year 2005 (call it Government, if you like) is alike all prior iterations of human ?government? in one essential way: It acknowledges that Cohesion is desirable, and further, it acknowledges that Cohesion is a condition for which the majority of people ?under rule? are prepared to sacrifice some degree of personal freedom. We?ve already discussed how strange it is that pain and discomfort are community-building forces. No answer yet to why that is, but there it is. It being already known by the architects of government, for much instructive experience throughout history, that the imposition of behavioral standards upon the people is an effective means to achieve ?discomfort?; it being also known and well understood that the threat of Alienation from the Community (especially when the alienating mechanism is Moral Shame) is a potent inducer of self-recrimination, which has the handy dual benefit of enforcing compliance (from within, sans police force) and of keeping those under rule in a perpetual state of discomfort, which gives you that nice cohesion effect... more