There is literally nothing you could do with respect to a government election, whether voting for, or voting against, or abstaining from voting entirely, that statists will not interpret as legitimating the State. Statists will interpret any damn thing you could possibly do as legitimating the State; that’s just what statists do.

— Predictive value

What connects the protection of the authenticity of American money with the protection of the life of an American president? Yes, there is something here we must decipher.

— The Secret History of the Secret Service

Q: What does “state failure” mean?
A: A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community. The 12 indicators cover a wide range of elements of the risk of state failure, such as extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay. States can fail at varying rates through explosion, implosion, erosion, or invasion over different time periods.

— The Failed States Index 2007: FAQ and Methodology

The unvarying civilized disparity of a 10% elite ruling over a 90% peasantry has not changed—it has merely shifted from the lord-serf relationship of classes, to the geographical distribution of North America and Africa.

— The Shape of Collapse, #5: Africa

We cannot build a state that has another state inside it, we cannot build an army that has armies inside it.

— Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in Diwaniya during a June visit.