Oh Yeah?

In Britain today there are millions of people who (dishonestly) believe that 'government' means the same thing as 'civilisation'.

As children, we (and Australian and Canadian children) were told of the Roman Empire, and how it brought the rule of law and was a civilising influence.
Also roads and buildings.
Of course, the fact that the Celtic road network was just as comprehensive and was designed for trade rather than military force projection, was not mentioned.
But the point is this:
an effort was made to equate governance with civilisation.
And this has persisted.

The world is filled with people who think the answer to (truly) receding civilisation is more government.
Their stock response to anything that strikes fear into their confusion is 'there ought to be a law about it'.

Today we have no civilisaiton, except perhaps a few thin remnants in America; there is no acceptance of a valid and overarching system of ideas to sustain the nations through the coming darkness, less so than there was in 1940 and certainly less than there was fifteen years ago.

What we have now is a clique of repressive states, some aspiring to the traditions of Liberty in name only, some less worried about niceties, all seeking to impose governance as the sole qualifier for membership of the group, as if this was defining civilisation.
Dimly, they sense that cultural connections need to be made, so we are confronted with chancing end-runs which attempt to snatch leadership for long enough to become a 'defining' moment, such as this weekend's Al Gore rock abortion.
Their eagerness to give way to any chance tsunami of bullshit is supposed to prove that they are 'democratic', something they have snatched from the mouths of their elders and betters as being essential.
But the fact is that civilisation is nearly dead, and it is civilisation that makes governance either worthwhile or possible, not the other way around.

Civilisation for example would be represented by the mass acceptance of Objectivist or at the very least, Libertarian ideals, although Libertarianism would leave us as vulnerable as the Celts to the Romans.
But we don't have civilisation today.