Some maggots' nest of little local government thugs looking for a way to build a powerbase.

Yet Tahrir had something far more important: a mass of Egyptians whose unwillingness to leave, despite attacks by security forces and government thugs, constituted the revolution.

One month later, former President George Bush quit the association after it distributed a fund-raising letter that compared some Federal agents to "jack-booted government thugs."

Before Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections last year, government thugs terrorized opposition activists for months, killing dozens.

At least once, government thugs in leather jackets roughed up the national hero.

Do not do foolish things, tell your government thugs not to do foolish things.

With the National Rifle Association no longer talking of "jackbooted government thugs," even the above-ground political activity of the far right is now little noted.

Timothy McVeigh, lest anyone forget, was an N.R.A. member, not a "government thug."

He also commands the different police regions which have government thugs (Baltagija) operating to suppress demonstrations in certain key areas.

No one is being murdered by government thugs, and the corrupt old guard is in exile in the nightclubs of Panama City.