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Comment by oleganza | Hacker News Reader

Reminder: the real reason Snowden cannot walk out of the airport not because of some virtual passport that US "revoked". It is because there are real armed obedient guys on the border who will not let Snowden go his way.

This whole story is not about privacy, spying or politics. It is about your personal inability to choose your phone company, internet provider, or a bank without confronting armed "state" which dictates what is allowed to you. Don't like NSA spying through Verizon? Build your own phone company. Oops, there are feds with an order to "cooperate".

Guns and violence are the problem, not all these abstract things like "rights" or "privacy".

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Actually this particular story is just about Snowden, not the details revealed in what he leaked, and certainly not about your personal freedom from government tyranny.

That's why I said "the whole story". This article about Snowden seeking asylum is written only because Snowden revealed some nasty stuff about his government and now this government is after him. And this stuff is "nasty" for some people only because they have no way to escape or debate it. It is unilaterally imposed on them without any discussion. And those who'd try to disobey would face big troubles from federal government. That's why Snowden is in trouble and that's why people are interested in what happens about him.

What you're talking about sounds like Max Weber's theory about the state being defined as any entity with the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

I think a valid question would be: can a government even exist without the possibility of exercising violence as a means of control? And if that's the case, is there any other means of organizing human beings which would enable this?

Check out two short books: everyday anarchy and practical anarchy by Stefan Molyneux. http://freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx

TLDR: voluntary ostracism vs. forced prison. Cages are only for the beasts.

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