Originally Posted by
acoldspoon
Problem with your example is that the vast majority of statistics used by the author of this article were healthcare related and have everything to do with international NGO's & GO's (WHO,MSF,MDM,ICRC,USAID,ect.) responding to crises in Somalia and little little whatsoever to do with the success of Somalia's lack of government. Sri Lanka saw improvements in both their healthcare system and in their national economy following the tsunami. This doesn't prove tsunamis are good for a society any more than the majority of statistics cited in the Somalia article prove a lack of government is good for a society. Statistics can be twisted to show almost anything, and the cited article is a good example of such.
I don't think the article is championing no government, only showing that it can be not as bad as some would have you think--that there is a natural or cultural order that will form in the absense of strong central gov't, and that it can be a workable solution even in the modern world. I mean, what are you going to do, post some other statistics to show how bad it is over there? The attempted creation of a centralized government by outside forces in the 60s is the cause of most of the unrest today.
The Tuesday Night ride was a nice example of self-policing peacable assembly. It is centralized authority inserting itself without welcome that is the problem.