Political Governments Aren't Like Street Gangs or Organized Crime Families

Political governments ARE street gangs or organized crime families.

They claim turf and try to defend their turf lines (territory with "borders").

Within that turf, they operate various extortion/protection/monopoly rackets and viciously/violently suppress competition with those rackets (whether that competition is in the form of competing rackets, or in the form of voluntary market mechanisms offering similar but superior goods and services).

They rumble with other gangs for various reasons -- to expand their turf claims, to extort tribute, obedience, or affiliation from other gangs on other turf, etc.

They loudly deny being what they are. The government version of "it's not a gang, it's a club" or "it's a fraternal organization" or "it's community self-defense" or "our gang takes care of people on its turf, we support charities, we go to church, we're not like those REAL crooks" is "government is all of us, working together," or "we're legit because we govern with the consent of the governed."

That last claim is part of the problem: The big differences between the Crips, the Bloods, or MS-13 and a political government are:

1) that a higher percentage of the (government) gang's victims believe the gang's guff; and

2) that a higher percentage of the (government) gang's members do too -- as Frank puts it in "Scarface," they get high on their own supply.