Has anyone ever changed their mind because of this forum?

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate
No, my argument was simply that creation of government cannot precede the existence of private property.

I know that was your argument. When I talked about circular reasoning I was addressing your support for that argument.

By saying that private property cannot exist without government, is to imply that there was no private property before government.[/b]
Okay.

A government is a monopoly of coercion over a given geographic region. In the sense that it remains a monopoly, it is "official," at least to those who it rules.
Okay, are you sure there's no "monopoly of coercion" in Ethiopia? You don't think certain leaders or certain groups have a monopoly? ANd I don't like your definition because frequently governments do not have a monopoly over coercion. Take the case of rebels. Did the US government disappear when McVeigh used coercion in OKC?

A government may not have a 100% monopoly, but it is close. For instance, no other entity would be able to extract $2 trillion+ a year from its citizens.

What the heck? Your statements contradict each other right off the bat. There cannot be any economy without private property.

I think there can be an economy with property (sans the "private").

No, actually there can't. That was tried in the USSR. Economist Ludwig von Mises showed in his famous calculation argument that without private property prices cannot form, and no one can know the true value of anything. It becomes sheer chaos.

I am assuming that you are referring to "legal rights" bestowed upon you by "government." In other words, you believe that in order for you to own anything you have to go into a voting booth and anonymously punch holes in a card, or have other people anonymously punch holes in a card, and "elect" some politician who will create some bureaucracy which will eventually tell you that you own something that you thought you owned in the first place. Hmm, interesting concept of private property.

I'm saying private property is a social construct that requires a sovereign to enforce it.

It is a social construct, that is for sure. There is no such thing as a sovereign though. If there was, I'd like to see some pictures of it. Maybe for you Bush is the sovereign and the war in Iraq is a Holy War?

Here is an interesting question BTW. What would happen if people like you stopped believing in "government" and "sovereigns?" i.e. what if there was an "election" and no one showed up to vote? Would private property really cease to exist?

Maybe God would see that people were no longer anonymously punching holes in pieces of paper, and then blow up all of our property with a lightning bolt.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate
No, my argument was simply that creation of government cannot precede the existence of private property.

I know that was your argument. When I talked about circular reasoning I was addressing your support for that argument.

By saying that private property cannot exist without government, is to imply that there was no private property before government.[/b]
Okay.

A government is a monopoly of coercion over a given geographic region. In the sense that it remains a monopoly, it is "official," at least to those who it rules.
Okay, are you sure there's no "monopoly of coercion" in Ethiopia? You don't think certain leaders or certain groups have a monopoly? ANd I don't like your definition because frequently governments do not have a monopoly over coercion. Take the case of rebels. Did the US government disappear when McVeigh used coercion in OKC?

A government may not have a 100% monopoly, but it is close. For instance, no other entity would be able to extract $2 trillion+ a year from its citizens.

What the heck? Your statements contradict each other right off the bat. There cannot be any economy without private property.

I think there can be an economy with property (sans the "private").

No, actually there can't. That was tried in the USSR. Economist Ludwig von Mises showed in his famous calculation argument that without private property prices cannot form, and no one can know the true value of anything. It becomes sheer chaos.

I am assuming that you are referring to "legal rights" bestowed upon you by "government." In other words, you believe that in order for you to own anything you have to go into a voting booth and anonymously punch holes in a card, or have other people anonymously punch holes in a card, and "elect" some politician who will create some bureaucracy which will eventually tell you that you own something that you thought you owned in the first place. Hmm, interesting concept of private property.

I'm saying private property is a social construct that requires a sovereign to enforce it.

It is a social construct, that is for sure. There is no such thing as a sovereign though. If there was, I'd like to see some pictures of it. Maybe for you Bush is the sovereign and the war in Iraq is a Holy War?

Here is an interesting question BTW. What would happen if people like you stopped believing in "government" and "sovereigns?" i.e. what if there was an "election" and no one showed up to vote? Would private property really cease to exist?

Maybe God would see that people were no longer anonymously punching holes in pieces of paper, and then blow up all of our property with a lightning bolt.

I'd be happy to respond but you're gonna have to work on the formatting. I'm not really sure what's so helpful about the alternative bolding thing. And when you use both bolding AND quoting it makes it a complete mess.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose
I've noticed that he often tries to back or run away from many different arguments.

Don't take it too hard - it seems to be a fairly common thing.

Haha... I typically ignore him, though he's not nearly as bad as he was around the election. I just thought his dismissal was funny. He'd have a lot better chance of winning this argument with me than with Dissipate, but he's free to pick his poison.

 

[AmbitV]

Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: AmbitV
Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

Now I'm REALLY confused. I thought we were descended from chimps, not baboons???

 

[kogase]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: AmbitV
Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

Now I'm REALLY confused. I thought we were descended from chimps, not baboons???

We're descended from neither. At least, there are no popular theories that say we are.

 

[kogase]

Also, does anyone besides me notice that the thread has been hijacked? To answer the last question posed to me, my stance on gun control was changed from a solid "for" to a solid "against".

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Condor
Yeah, I used to doubt libs. Now I know that was a moderate stance!

LOL

I lean liberal, but the extremist Liberals on this forum sometimes make me feel that I should be conservative. I have to fight that feeling off!

Maybe I'm just more annoyed by people that somewhat share similar ideology.

So what is an example of an extremist liberal position?

Look on the bright side, extremist liberals (like me?) make the moderate liberal position seem more reasonable in the eyes of the majority.

 

[RabidMongoose]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Condor
Yeah, I used to doubt libs. Now I know that was a moderate stance!

LOL

I lean liberal, but the extremist Liberals on this forum sometimes make me feel that I should be conservative. I have to fight that feeling off!

Maybe I'm just more annoyed by people that somewhat share similar ideology.

So what is an example of an extremist liberal position?

I should have been more clear. I was referring to certain looney people, not specific ideas that I would probably agree somewhat with.

 

[AmbitV]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: AmbitV
Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

Now I'm REALLY confused. I thought we were descended from chimps, not baboons???

actually we descended from a gravitational singularity.

 

[krcat1]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Condor
Yeah, I used to doubt libs. Now I know that was a moderate stance!

LOL

I lean liberal, but the extremist Liberals on this forum sometimes make me feel that I should be conservative. I have to fight that feeling off!

Maybe I'm just more annoyed by people that somewhat share similar ideology.

So what is an example of an extremist liberal position?

Look on the bright side, extremist liberals (like me?) make the moderate liberal position seem more reasonable in the eyes of the majority.

Actually, the make it more dangerous to be close to you politically that not.

 

[aidanjm]

Originally posted by: krcat1

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Condor
Yeah, I used to doubt libs. Now I know that was a moderate stance!

LOL

I lean liberal, but the extremist Liberals on this forum sometimes make me feel that I should be conservative. I have to fight that feeling off!

Maybe I'm just more annoyed by people that somewhat share similar ideology.

So what is an example of an extremist liberal position?

Look on the bright side, extremist liberals (like me?) make the moderate liberal position seem more reasonable in the eyes of the majority.

Actually, the make it more dangerous to be close to you politically that not.

So-called 'extreme' positions have eventually becomes the mainstream position with so many issues. Extremists can forge the path for others to follow. I think this is especially true where civil and human rights issues are concerned.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: krcat1

Originally posted by: aidanjm

Originally posted by: RabidMongoose

Originally posted by: Condor
Yeah, I used to doubt libs. Now I know that was a moderate stance!

LOL

I lean liberal, but the extremist Liberals on this forum sometimes make me feel that I should be conservative. I have to fight that feeling off!

Maybe I'm just more annoyed by people that somewhat share similar ideology.

So what is an example of an extremist liberal position?

Look on the bright side, extremist liberals (like me?) make the moderate liberal position seem more reasonable in the eyes of the majority.

Actually, the make it more dangerous to be close to you politically that not.

So-called 'extreme' positions have eventually becomes the mainstream position with so many issues. Extremists can forge the path for others to follow. I think this is especially true where civil and human rights issues are concerned.

The issue is that the path they are forging leads to a cliff! People have to be responsible for themselves. Liberals want to yield that responsibility up to higher powers. I believe in myself! Religious people are tainted by the same desire to shed responsibility, yet the teachings don't support that. I put liberals and religious lunatics in the same category! Liberals simply aren't able to see themselves in that light.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate
No, my argument was simply that creation of government cannot precede the existence of private property.

I know that was your argument. When I talked about circular reasoning I was addressing your support for that argument.

By saying that private property cannot exist without government, is to imply that there was no private property before government.[/b]
Okay.

A government is a monopoly of coercion over a given geographic region. In the sense that it remains a monopoly, it is "official," at least to those who it rules.
Okay, are you sure there's no "monopoly of coercion" in Ethiopia? You don't think certain leaders or certain groups have a monopoly? ANd I don't like your definition because frequently governments do not have a monopoly over coercion. Take the case of rebels. Did the US government disappear when McVeigh used coercion in OKC?

A government may not have a 100% monopoly, but it is close. For instance, no other entity would be able to extract $2 trillion+ a year from its citizens.

What the heck? Your statements contradict each other right off the bat. There cannot be any economy without private property.

I think there can be an economy with property (sans the "private").

No, actually there can't. That was tried in the USSR. Economist Ludwig von Mises showed in his famous calculation argument that without private property prices cannot form, and no one can know the true value of anything. It becomes sheer chaos.

I am assuming that you are referring to "legal rights" bestowed upon you by "government." In other words, you believe that in order for you to own anything you have to go into a voting booth and anonymously punch holes in a card, or have other people anonymously punch holes in a card, and "elect" some politician who will create some bureaucracy which will eventually tell you that you own something that you thought you owned in the first place. Hmm, interesting concept of private property.

I'm saying private property is a social construct that requires a sovereign to enforce it.

It is a social construct, that is for sure. There is no such thing as a sovereign though. If there was, I'd like to see some pictures of it. Maybe for you Bush is the sovereign and the war in Iraq is a Holy War?

Here is an interesting question BTW. What would happen if people like you stopped believing in "government" and "sovereigns?" i.e. what if there was an "election" and no one showed up to vote? Would private property really cease to exist?

Maybe God would see that people were no longer anonymously punching holes in pieces of paper, and then blow up all of our property with a lightning bolt.

We went through this debate some weeks back. Without order, there is chaos. Government brings order. In chaos, no one is safe and nobody owns anything because the next bigger guy simply takes what he wants. Think bully in the sandbox.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: Dissipate

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Dissipate
No, my argument was simply that creation of government cannot precede the existence of private property.

I know that was your argument. When I talked about circular reasoning I was addressing your support for that argument.

By saying that private property cannot exist without government, is to imply that there was no private property before government.[/b]
Okay.

A government is a monopoly of coercion over a given geographic region. In the sense that it remains a monopoly, it is "official," at least to those who it rules.
Okay, are you sure there's no "monopoly of coercion" in Ethiopia? You don't think certain leaders or certain groups have a monopoly? ANd I don't like your definition because frequently governments do not have a monopoly over coercion. Take the case of rebels. Did the US government disappear when McVeigh used coercion in OKC?

A government may not have a 100% monopoly, but it is close. For instance, no other entity would be able to extract $2 trillion+ a year from its citizens.

What the heck? Your statements contradict each other right off the bat. There cannot be any economy without private property.

I think there can be an economy with property (sans the "private").

No, actually there can't. That was tried in the USSR. Economist Ludwig von Mises showed in his famous calculation argument that without private property prices cannot form, and no one can know the true value of anything. It becomes sheer chaos.

I am assuming that you are referring to "legal rights" bestowed upon you by "government." In other words, you believe that in order for you to own anything you have to go into a voting booth and anonymously punch holes in a card, or have other people anonymously punch holes in a card, and "elect" some politician who will create some bureaucracy which will eventually tell you that you own something that you thought you owned in the first place. Hmm, interesting concept of private property.

I'm saying private property is a social construct that requires a sovereign to enforce it.

It is a social construct, that is for sure. There is no such thing as a sovereign though. If there was, I'd like to see some pictures of it. Maybe for you Bush is the sovereign and the war in Iraq is a Holy War?

Here is an interesting question BTW. What would happen if people like you stopped believing in "government" and "sovereigns?" i.e. what if there was an "election" and no one showed up to vote? Would private property really cease to exist?

Maybe God would see that people were no longer anonymously punching holes in pieces of paper, and then blow up all of our property with a lightning bolt.

We went through this debate some weeks back. Without order, there is chaos. Government brings order. In chaos, no one is safe and nobody owns anything because the next bigger guy simply takes what he wants. Think bully in the sandbox.

From where I am standing the government is chaos, and the free market is order. No one owns anything because the government (the biggest bully in the sandbox) takes what it wants, when it wants, where it wants. All the way from the grand delusion called the federal government down to the municipality.

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: AmbitV
Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

That's a nice fairy tale, although I don't think it would make a very good bedtime story.

 

[GregMal]

Never argue politics.
Never argue religion.
You can't win............
.
Oh...taxes are a close 3rd.........

 

[cKGunslinger]

Sure, as I've mentioned before, I changed my entire stance on same-sex marriage after a lengthy, *civil* debate with other posters here last year. Sometimes, someone else has that once piece of logic, tuned to your thinking style, that can makes things much clearer for you, whereas the relentless "You're just a stupid bigot who hates Group X" arguments just fuel the fire.

Guess which kind you see more of here?

 

[MCWAR]

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Sure, as I've mentioned before, I changed my entire stance on same-sex marriage after a lengthy, *civil* debate with other posters here last year. Sometimes, someone else has that once piece of logic, tuned to your thinking style, that can makes things much clearer for you, whereas the relentless "You're just a stupid bigot who hates Group X" arguments just fuel the fire.

Guess which kind you see more of here?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CK is one of the few here that have ever made me think about my positions. Mostly because of his common sense approach to things. I dont always agree with him but its always a civil discussion.
There,s the message board mentality of flame those you disagree with that causes such discourse here. I dont agree with the hard left or the hard christian element of the right too often. But in normal day to day life I have both as family and best of friends that I love very much. I have been guilty of the slam and flame, but usually after people loose all common sense and post total crap and absurdity just to get under the other sides skin.
You may catch me defending the christian position after some hard core anti christian starts a stupidity flame just for the ske of the BASH. Then I get called a fundy or somthing of that nature. Same in reverse.
Bad thing is most of these people would find me quite a nice guy if they really new me. And probably the other way around.

 

[Stunt]

who's got the link to the gun control thread?

 

[Infohawk]

Dissipate, guess you didn't want to reformat to make your post clearer.

Anyhow, I have a question for you. Imagine there is no government. You possess land. (I'd assume you think you have it as private property). I come along and kill you and take over possession of the land. Who's "private property" is the land? Mine or yours?

 

[judasmachine]

I've loosened up some but I don't think I've switched sides on anything. Can't think of anything specific off the top of my head. I'll have to think about it.

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: AmbitV
Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

Now I'm REALLY confused. I thought we were descended from chimps, not baboons???

I thought we where descended from Apes...

 

[KevinH]

Originally posted by: MCWAR

Originally posted by: cKGunslinger
Sure, as I've mentioned before, I changed my entire stance on same-sex marriage after a lengthy, *civil* debate with other posters here last year. Sometimes, someone else has that once piece of logic, tuned to your thinking style, that can makes things much clearer for you, whereas the relentless "You're just a stupid bigot who hates Group X" arguments just fuel the fire.

Guess which kind you see more of here?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CK is one of the few here that have ever made me think about my positions. Mostly because of his common sense approach to things. I dont always agree with him but its always a civil discussion.
There,s the message board mentality of flame those you disagree with that causes such discourse here. I dont agree with the hard left or the hard christian element of the right too often. But in normal day to day life I have both as family and best of friends that I love very much. I have been guilty of the slam and flame, but usually after people loose all common sense and post total crap and absurdity just to get under the other sides skin.
You may catch me defending the christian position after some hard core anti christian starts a stupidity flame just for the ske of the BASH. Then I get called a fundy or somthing of that nature. Same in reverse.
Bad thing is most of these people would find me quite a nice guy if they really new me. And probably the other way around.

Aye. I agree with a lot of what CK says.. I see him as a sort of moderate conservative to my own moderative liberal (more in line with Kibbo/DonVito etc) believes.

Back to the original poster's questions...I will say I started out adamantly against the war. After reading the forums, I still am against the war, but I"ve modified my position somewhat. I've since come to the conclusion that although it was a mistake the US made to go into Iraq but it's something we have to see through (or at least a viable exit strategy can be made). I know that a lot of people jsut want to say "let's get the hell out of Iraq" but seiorusly. Can we really do that and be fair to the Iraqi people at this point? I think the US would be even worse if we did osmething like that.

 

[kogase]

Originally posted by: Tabb

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: AmbitV
Let me break it down for you guys. Once upon a time men were nothing more than baboons with large brains. Survival of the fittest meant resources belonged to the strongest. The ones with "private property", in some broad sense of the term, were the ones who could bash in the skulls of any other smart baboons. Eventually, though, some baboons realized that by cooperating with one another, they could increase their chances of fending off any outside threats to their "private property". Thus, the first tribes and hence "governments", again in a broad sense of the term, were born. Eventually these cooperative associations developed to the point where rules were laid out for how each individual's property was to be respected, and hence law and the modern idea of "private property" developed.

So there can be different senses of the term "private property", and we need to be careful about what we're referring to. Some radicals might advocate a return to the baboon-in-the-jungle idea of "private property", but that's clearly a very different sense of private property than modern day civilized notions of private property, which clearly require some form of government.

Now of course, the government can take different forms, and we can dispute the proper form of government. Private property might exist under a totalitarian state, for instance, as long as the leader forces everyone to respect property rights. But it's clear that coercion of some sort is required for there to truly be private property that does not simply fall into the hands of whoever happens to be the strongest.

Now I'm REALLY confused. I thought we were descended from chimps, not baboons???

I thought we where descended from Apes...

Look... NO. I already tried to get people to think about this, but I guess I failed miserably. No one has ever claimed that humans are descended from apes, chimps, or baboons. The theory is that humans and apes share a... wait for it... COMMON ANCESTOR.

Edit: Oh yeah, and chimpanzees are apes. Baboons are monkeys.