Confounding Contradictions

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.- Winston Churchill

Upon starting this paper, I had already decided wholeheartedly which side of this political debate I would align myself to. I had no illusions of a rainbow-tinted world in which everyone ruled themselves ‘justly‘ and independently, no naïve perceptions as to how absolutely wonderful the world would be without government. The concept of anarchy, or any kind of fictional government Henry David Thoreau was suggesting in his highly acclaimed Civil Disobedience, seemed dangerously radical, even to a infamously left-leaning liberal such as myself. The opening paragraph alone seemed

Needless to say, continuing to read only strengthened my predisposed notion of the author’s naivety and my incredulity that such a half-baked scheme could be so respected almost a century and a half after it’s publication.

The first two paragraphs were disappointing, failing to meet even the lowest of standards I’d set for this essay. Thoreau argued predictably and unpersuasively against the ‘evils’ of all governments in general, taking on the republican-friendly motto of ‘The best government is the one which governs the least’ (Page 1, Civil Disobedience). He makes what seems to be a very convincing argument for the incompetence of the American government at one point, but in his efforts to invoke logos (no, surprisingly, it’s not pathos this time), he left out one crucial element. The logos. Sure, the idea of making the government our official scapegoat