Before I realized I was an anarchist...

I wrote the following before being introduced to the idea of anarchy. It's incredible how at the time I knew all governments were flawed but I just couldn't grasp the concept of a society without rulers. I keep saying I want to found a "government", when I really should have said society. -12/12/10

I think the US is flawed. Mainly because we lack so much freedom, but also because our government has way too much power and forces its citizens to live in fear.

I've been thinking a lot lately that the only way to fix America is to overthrow the government and start over. (Not that I have any desire to fix it, I plan on moving, just theoretically.) And to me that is a flaw in this style of government... preferably there would be a way to fix a government without bloodshed.

But I'm not sure that there is a way to do that. My ultimate measure of success of a government is the preservation of liberties, but is there a way to set up a government so that freedom will always be protected?

Democracy doesn't work, because eventually the people will get scared of something and will give up their liberties for protection and never get them back.

It seems like you could make a constitution-type document protecting peoples' rights, but everyone will ignore it eventually if the US can serve as an example.

A dictator or oligarchy could protect peoples' liberties... but it's risky putting power in the hands of a few. Especially when those people die or whatever and pass on the power. Maybe they can choose decent replacements... but after a few generations the chance of corruption or just incompetency goes up significantly.

I can't think of a way to permanently safeguard freedom. And this troubles me as a future founder of a government. Maybe a revolution every couple hundred years is the only way to do it.

After reading this, this note is probably more about my lack of trust in anyone but myself than government, but I still can't come up with a solution. I would be so pissed if I started a country based on freedom, only to have it look like the US 50 years later. I guess as long as I die before it goes bad I'll be happy.

It'd be great if someone could come up with a good style of government for me to use. Right now I'm leaning towards some kind of meritocracy, but that just seems like its doomed to corruption. Luckily I have a while to work out these problems.