Government is . . . what?

I wouldn't want to say he's obsessed by the notion of government overthrow, but Diogenes has definitely been thinking about it a lot lately. All theoretical, he claims, and with no action contemplated, but still . . .

No--there's no way the old fellow would dive into such a daunting--not to say dangerous--project. What has been puzzling Diogenes regarding the overthrow of government is the question of just what government is. But you know that, don't you? So did we, until we really started thinking about it.

Diving into our store of dictionaries, we quickly discovered that the word "government" has a lot of interpretations. The definitions were pretty similar across several publications, and we settled on the Merriam-Webster version because it's the clearest.

Generally speaking, a government can be a theory of control or authority, a construct created for the purpose of implementing such a theory, or a group of people who exercise the control.

From Webster, we have "The organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions;" and, "The complex of political institutions, laws, and customs through which the function of governing is carried out;" and, "The body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization: such as the officials comprising the governing body of a political unit and constituting the organization as an active agency."

Now if the "what" of government is complex, the "why" of tossing one over isn't. Why do we seek to rid ourselves of anything? Because we don't like it.

Historically, government overthrow or major reform has usually been a matter of seeking more liberty or justice: The Magna Carta, the American and French revolutions. Russia's Bolshevik Revolution was headed in the same general direction, but was overtaken by despots. And there are examples of an overthrow going the opposite way: The Nazi takeover of Germany, for example, which replaced a constitutional republican form of government with a tyrannic autocracy.

So if one seeks to overthrow a government, preferably in the laudable direction of increased rights, justice and freedom, what level would one aim to bring down--the conceptual, the bureaucratic or the manifest? That's the question for next time.