> The lesson of this article: Government has only one means to carry out its policies: force (more precisely, threat of force).
This is simply factually false. Government has all the means available to any other institution or person available.
You seem to have reversed the common definition of government as whatever entity or aggregate of entities exercise a monopoly on legitimate use of force into the idea that the government somehow magically loses access to every other tool that people and groups of people have.
All right, I revise my statement to "government has only one means to enforce law: force"
I suppose there are some "policies" (not laws or taxes) which can be encouraged or enacted by spending money. Doesn't detract from my point though. This is still a humorous case of some over-credentialed nitwit at WaPo "discovering" what most educated children should be able to tell you about the rule of law.
This is simply factually false. Government has all the means available to any other institution or person available.
You seem to have reversed the common definition of government as whatever entity or aggregate of entities exercise a monopoly on legitimate use of force into the idea that the government somehow magically loses access to every other tool that people and groups of people have.