[dpatru]

Asserting that the speaker shouldn't make arguments because he's not "a grand political philosopher" and that his comments are a "low brow form of idealogical dribble" does not contribute to a good discussion. It's ironic that this is how you attempt to raise the level of discussion.

My comment was in response to the suggestion that government was popular because it solved people's problems and that therefore libertarianism or anarchism is unworkable. "Yep, the world really is that simple - abolish government and things will get better. It's a shame so many people don't realize how easy it is to fix all of their problems."

My response was that government does solve problems, just in an illegitimate way. Government solves people's problems by giving them benefits that they would not otherwise have, at least not without a lot of work.

The situation is like slavery of pre 1860s in the southern United States. Slavery was obviously wrong, but it survived because it "solved problems" for its constituents.

In both cases eliminating the injustice would result in making the lives of many of the system's beneficiaries worse off. Specifically, in this case, people are willing to accept the rule of evil people like those portrayed in House of Cards because it makes their personal lives more pleasant than it would be otherwise.