alt Hacker NewsI agree that there's no difference in principle between the government of the land you live on ordering the cell phone company to send a text message to everyone about wildfire danger; and ordering the cell phone company to send a text message to honest and loyal men about confronting the traitors and criminals and protecting the people and honor of the country. This is simply what it means for a national government to exist at all - a local monopoly on the use of legitimate violence in order to enforce the law. Everything a government does, from laws regulating food ingredient labeling to collecting the social security tax from paychecks to organizing a formal military to fight a rebellion, is ultimately backed up by men with guns telling people what to do.
True, but let's talk about that word "legitimate" for a minute.
Let us accept that sending a text message about wildfire danger is legitimate. (I'm sure there are some here who will argue that it is not, but let's ignore them for the moment.)
Sending a text message "to honest and loyal men about confronting the traitors and criminals and protecting the people and honor of the country" could be legitimate use of the threat of violence to defend the country. Or it could be a horribly illegitimate abuse of power, in a much more fundamental way than a wildfire warning could ever be.
So that's what bugs me about your examples. The second one is far too open to illegitimate use. And if the use is illegitimate, then the monopoly on violence is not legitimate either. (At least not within US civic philosophy: "Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed", and all that.)