– You’ll remember from yesterday that we have some question as to the actual divinity of the Egyptian dynastic rulers. Certainly, either the Egyptians had some doubts themselves, or they were among the most impious people who ever lived. Pharaoh was supposed to be a god. He was supposed to be in charge of everything, even the annual flooding of the Nile, the weather…life, death, you name it. But that didn’t stop him from getting the old heave-ho from time to time. Rival groups didn’t wait for God to decide who would sit on the throne. Men fought it out.

We don’t have any way of knowing about the pharaohs’ divine bona fides. We just note that as a theory of government, it does the job. Government claims the right to tell you what to do. Using the blunt instrument of ‘government’ some people are able to categorize, regulate, tax, inspect, dragoon, conscript, enslave, bully, incarcerate, murder and push around other people. Why do the other people stand for it? That’s the general subject of these little reflections.