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An Anonymous Coward writes:
Found this interesting bit of history at the NY Times
George H. W. Bush: Hello, Mikhail.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev: George, my dear friend. It is good to hear your voice.
G.B.: I greet you on this momentous day, this historic day. I appreciate your calling me.
M.G.: Let me begin by saying something pleasant to you: Merry Christmas to you, Barbara and your family. I had been thinking about when to make my statement, Tuesday or today. I finally decided to do it today, at the end of the day. So let me say first Merry Christmas and very best wishes.
Well, let me say that in about two hours I will speak on Moscow TV and will make a short statement about my decision. I have sent a letter to you, George. I hope you will receive it shortly. I said in the letter a most important thing. And I would like to reaffirm to you that I greatly value what we did working together with you, first as vice president and then as president of the United States. I hope that all leaders of the commonwealth and, above all, Russia understand what kind of assets we have accrued between the leaders of our two countries. I hope they understand their responsibility to preserve and expand this important source of capital.
Gorbachev goes on to say that he is handing off control of the USSR's nukes to Russia in an organized fashion. Bush thanks him for that and then recalls the fun they had tossing horseshoes at Camp David.
With all the talk of Trump and Putin being business buddies, it looks like there is at least some precedent of the two cold war country leaders carrying on a civil conversation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:10PM
I will grant you this: if men were angels, such a system would work. Heck, I'll even give a stretch that if the contract enforcers were angels, it could still work and be vastly better than what we currently have.................
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:20PM
One blessed, ordained monopoly on violence (a "government") is what requires men to be angels; in contrast, a market of competing service providers negates the need for such angels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:01PM
Ah, ok, I'll just rob you at gunpoint then since violence will be democratized. There won't be anybody to stop me if I've convinced the whole village that there's just something wrong with you.
I mean, I guess you could take it up with my preferred contract enforcer who oddly enough always thinks I'm right. At least, I don't understand why I'd pay somebody to enforce contracts who thought I was in the wrong every now and then. The customer is always right!
(No, you're not allowed to weasel out of this criticism by saying but but but that's not ancap!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:05PM
You are still making remarks about centralized, blessed, ordained monopolies on violence.........