GOVERNMENT, n. Organized gang activity involving extortion, coercion, and violence, the purpose of which is to protect the gang’s subjects from unorganized extortion, coercion, and violence, as well as that of other gangs. The time-tested theory behind government is that people are inherently treacherous, vicious, and greedy, and that the only solution to this problem is to hand a few of them near-unlimited power over the rest.
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–from the revised and expanded edition of The American Heretic’s Dictionary, the best modern successor to Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary
Sharp and Pointed 