The nation of Somalia is not effectively governing since the 1990s or before and is often described as a failed state. Naval piracy, kidnapping, terrorism, and other violence are constant problems. The US travel advisory for Somalia is currently: don't, and then lists precautions like drafting a will and other steps to prepare for your potential kidnapping or murder.
Due to its ineffective governance, the country is used as a counterpoint to arguments that government is evil -- i.e., something will fill the void, and without a centralized government with policing capabilities and some sort of effective government services, you're likely to get extreme poverty and violence.
Somalia has a patchwork of petty warlords exerting arbitrary and unlimited authority within their fiefdoms. This is a far cry from a debate about the limits of the proper authority of congress to intervene in employment contracts. You’re engaging in a lazy rhetorical argument that’s basically a straw man.
No, I'm engaging in reductio ad absurdum and while I'd cheerfully agree it's lazy rhetoric this forum doesn't lend itself well to long-form arguments which unfortunately the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle indicates is required for a complete deconstruction of the standard anti-government babble that gets traded here and elsewhere.
Surely there’s a distinction to be made between a discussion of the proper role of the state and devolution into stateless warlordism. I’m not sure that making a reductive argument against the worst possible interpretation of what small government types advocate really adds to the discourse.
Maybe not but then the next best thing is an exhaustive examination of what happened to Kansas when the libertarians took over, which takes several paragraphs and you're still left with a hazy picture because federal programs kept the state from collapsing completely. Anyway the entire ethos can be summarized in a single sentence: "I got mine, everyone else can go fuck themselves" which as an ideology ignores our species only strength: cooperation.
In particular, is it caused by a constitutional form of government that requires lawmaking authority to rest in elected rather than unelected officials?
