> There is absolutely no moral high ground enjoyed by governments compared to mafia

You're conflating an occupying army with a democratically elected government staying within its borders. That seems like a huge leap to make, and is spoken like someone with no exposure to the realities of organized crime and its deleterious effects on society.

If you look at this chart: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regioni_d%27Italia#Dati_economi... and rank it by 'PIL Pro Capite' (Per capita GDP), the correlation with organized crime is fairly strong, whereas the country and government are the same. Migration from South to North continues to far exceed North to South: apparently people prefer better government and less crime to the opposite.

This sort of sophomoric intellectual exercise doesn't do justice to what you believe in.

I think the parent is not conflating at all, you are separating the same issue into two different issues.

Democratic means very little unless:

- Everyone in the nation voted

- All votes were equally well informed on what they were voting for.

- All parties running were held account to what they were promising.

Americans love going on about democracy as if it's a universal truth of virtue. Yet they live in a corporate plutocracy.

Seriously wiping out tens of thousands of people in the name of "spreading freedom and democracy" is far worse than anything any (all?) organised crime has ever done.

There is no occupying army in North Korea or Iran, but they still feel the force US lead aggression through use of sanctions.

Don't read this as a defence of the mafia and organised crime. They are (for the most part) an extremely destructive force on society. But they are little-league compared to the U.S war/propaganda machine.

There are many examples of people being loyal to local gangsters and paying fees each month in exchange for "protection" from a rival group.

Governments run the same scheme at a larger scale. Sure they "provide" things, but it's simply by taking money from people and paying other people to do work, meanwhile enriching the officers of government and creating entrenched wealth and power.

Sure, there are occasionally coordination problems that are solved by governments, but far more coordination problems are solved by private organizations and firms.

Any institution that has the ability to project force wherever it wants (via an armed hitman or a smart bomb) is going to tend toward corrupt behavior.

Your comment mentions governments acting within their borders which is an arbitrary distinction. Most of the atrocities committed by the US government happen overseas and the American public is misled about the level of brutality being inflicted.

There will always be some gangsters who are preferred to others, and perhaps some "politicians" are preferred to gangsters. But this is a distinction of degree not of kind.

If there's no difference, perhaps you'd like to elucidate on the difference between, say, Sweden and the average 3rd/4th world nation? I mean, with the reach of Sweden's government, it's gotta be a hellhole, right?

This line of argument is generally referred to as "jumping the shark". Obviously there's a difference.

Ok, I'll answer:

Sweden: The president travels by motorcade with posh limos and armed agents, guns hidden but ready.

3rd world regime: The leader travels around in an SUV with machine-gun wielding guards.

Why do both leaders need to travel accompanied by such a display of force? The pageantry of such displays intimidate rivals.

The mistake those in the thread disagreeing with me are making is to assume that just b/c governments are less often observed to blatantly harass their own citizens, they are more civilized than the small time crooks whose lack of power occasionally necessitates messier tactics.

National boundaries should be thrown out the window. Obama has ordered the death of thousands during his regime and his minions have carried out the orders with precision. The rest of us (citizens) are equivalent to distant relatives sitting at the dinner table with Tony Soprano exchanging smalltalk, complicit and abetting every single action and willfully ignorant of all the (mostly brown skinned) people being exterminated.

"Sweden" ... "The mistake those in the thread disagreeing with me are making is to assume that just b/c governments are less often observed to blatantly harass their own citizens, they are more civilized than the small time crooks whose lack of power occasionally necessitates messier tactics." ... "Obama has ordered the death of thousands"

And you're making a number of mistakes:

1) Treating "government" as one common set of practices around the globe. Say what you will about Obama and the United States, but governments with more local interests (e.g., Switzerland, Iceland, etc.) are almost certainly better than organized crime groups for both their internal people AND those outside their boundaries.

2) It's simply wrong to state that the Swedish president traveling around with guards and their "hidden" arms is a display of pageantry. Rather, it's a well-founded (and tragically necessary) act of self-preservation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme

What if the occupying army was sent by a democratically elected government? Is it OK because it happens to other people, far away?

If 'democratically elected' is a description that can be applied to the method via which Bush Junior made it to office then your question becomes even more ludicrous.