“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”
-H.L. Mencken
Why does this site exist and what will you get out of it? Every blog is something of a vanity project and a catharsis for thinking out loud and this suits both for me. Aside from writing a book, a blog is a legacy that may last far longer than I do. Nothing really disappears from the Internet and I am certain there are folks in the government who are always interested in maintaining a watchful eye on blogs such as mine because they represent the most direct philosophical threat to their very existence.
In an earlier phase of my intellectual development, I had been seduced by the heady siren song of limiting government which sounds like the most viable solution but on closer examination is the most silly of chimeras. There is no historical precedent in the Western world throughout its entire history of a government birthing from calving off another or rising out of the ashes of extinction of the previous regime and containing themselves within the confines of power originally set forth at their germination. None. There are plenty of empty promises and proclamations of purity but the usual suspects will be self-selected to seek to rule others; most of whom are socio- or psychopathic. Politics is nothing more than the nationalization of human transactions where the converse is the complete privatization of the planet; the latter is the charter of this blog. Nationalization is the government seizure (there is no polite term) of a product, service or behavior. This can happen with something as mundane as the circumference of grapefruit to something as epic in scope as the forfeiture of health care or the use of the innumerable malum prohibitum laws on the books. For those who take a longer view of history, it becomes abundantly clear that governments in their life stages until their eventual deaths which are inevitable rarely seem to calculate second- and third-order effects of their meta-behaviors. I always presume that while good intentions may be the standard apologia for the lion’s share of government action and behavior, this is simply an intellectual smokescreen with the same vapidity of hate crimes, hiding what is the nature of government which is the threat or use of violence against anyone or anything which either refuses to comply or pay the assessed tribute. One should never measure a government’s behavior by its intent but the fruits of its actions. And that is bitter fruit indeed for the totality of human history. It is almost as if we have been in a fever-dream surrounded by inmates in a vast prison state which has effectively through indoctrination trained people to consciously think that harming others through fining, jailing, maiming and killing is the only blueprint for any possible society. Think of that, a near consensus among thinking human beings that the only way to organize a just society is through terror. Terrorism is the use of politically motivated violence against non-combatants or innocents in a kinder parlance. One might say that the Global War on Terror which has exponentially increased the size of government has been pointed in the wrong direction.
We have friends and relations who enjoy boasting of law and order. The tough guys who pronounce that the latest police beating was warranted and the prison rape the men will endure while caged for their sentence is perfectly justified for their crimes even if the offense were as banal as a paperwork violation, avoidance of taxes or an infraction against the tens of thousands of law no normal human could comprehend much less have an awareness of. Remember that it is all about the law and not the human context because context is totally absent from government calculus. It is part of its power. I have mentioned before that every American is subject to indefinite detention in the alleged justice system the Federal government and its subsidiary political elements known as states have erected. It is another tool in the arsenal of democracy that is the fancy name for mob rule subject to the kakocrats at the top of the system. The government has been successful beyond their wildest expectations in creating a captive and occupied population from which they derive both their material succor and the sophisticated means to bully and control tens of millions of humans. The government must erect these officious and brutal means of suppression otherwise the small percentage of liberty minded folks who chafe at living on a feedlot and having their lives micromanaged would set a very bad example for the rest who would take notice of the people who elect not to abide by the system. As with the likelihood of secession looming ever brighter, once the first person is allowed to opt out of the government confines, a stampede will commence that will be unstoppable. This is why the IRS is invested with such formidable power to fine and cage recalcitrant taxpayers.
America has conducted a brilliant government campaign to put the state at the top tier of idolatry and the family and individual volition at the bottom. This has been a two-tiered assault. The government makes it very inconvenient to fight its depredations as an individual and ensures that the education system is kept in a tight orbit around government supremacism. Most of my readers have attended some college and have seen first-hand the absolute monopoly of the government supremacist mindset among faculty, administration and student alike. When one suggests that non-violence may be a preferable building system for a peaceful society instead of the enslavement of government, one is almost universally scorned. Is it not interesting that all the fevered anti-war rhetoric from the “left” has disappeared since the election of the latest scoundrel to the Presidency? The collectivism permeates the American academy with very little exception and this from doyens in the humanities and social “sciences” whose jobs may belabor 8-12 hours per week unless they have paid teaching assistants available. The rest of the time certainly is not used to practice critical thinking but to sharpen the same weak-minded rationalizations of the academy to justify the ultimate goal of extinguishing every private aspect of human life. They prettily dress the rhetoric is high-minded humanitarian goals but in the end they are the intellectual equivalents of prison guards in their moral imaginations.
And then we have the mooing from certain sections of the feedlot about the sacred Constitution and returning to our roots to regain our liberties. Fat chance since the germination of that document gave us the leviathan we labor under today.
Here is a thought experiment for you: the next time you have a convivial discussion of politics or society with your friends and family, tell them to see if they are capable of conducting the discussion without advocating the initiation of violence on their fellow humans. See if the conversation about politics will in any fashion examine alternatives to inherent violence and compulsion. While I despise the false front of Left and Right which are simply degrees of collectivism, you will notice that even the “peace” advocates tend to embrace the use of force domestically and the “hawks” tend to glory in the killing of humans around the globe. Yet, it is hard to distinguish between them anymore especially since the latest occupant of the White House, despite a rather elegant Leftish pedigree, is indistinguishable in his actions from his neoconservative/socialist predecessor. The government program of indoctrination has been so thorough that most will be speechless and unable to communicate because government is not about the noble ideas of securing rights or ensuring liberty but the cardinal opposite. In its most naked and unadorned form, it is simply a cop. Invested with all we have come to expect from that particular class: a base viciousness with no limit whatsoever in the ability to cage, maim and kill for crimes that would not exist within the realm of common sense or decency. Killing in the name of love, indeed.
I plan on embarking on a quixotic and scintillating quest in the near future to explicate why cooperation and non-violence (except in response to initiated violence) are the preferable and virtuous way to order a society. This may be a Sisyphean task but a necessary one. We owe it to our children to offer a better future and not a more comfortable (for now) prison cell.
“A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. The result — and a natural one — has been that we have had governments, State and national, devoted to nearly every grade and species of crime that governments have ever practised upon their victims; and these crimes have culminated in a war that has cost a million of lives; a war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth. And these crimes have been committed, and this war waged, by men, and the descendants of men, who, less than a hundred years ago, said that all men were equal, and could owe neither service to individuals, nor allegiance to governments, except with their own consent.”
– Lysander Spooner
Notes in the Margin: I am looking for original essays that explain why roads, law and a myriad of other “public” goods and services must be privatized. Please note that my use of the word privatized does not mean the contracting out of a service by a government entity but the complete divorce from any government grasp or reach. It will be published under your name and I reserve the right to edit for grammar and spelling but not content.
Thanks Bill, you’re right. Most of the talk on oranges and tangerines is just about yield, but then oddly enough, grapefruit get particular mention about size, e.g.:
A grapefruit of size 64 shall contain not less than 150 cubic centimeters of juice… the Department of Citrus is hereby authorized to establish by regulation different sizes, including changes in diameter ranges for existing sizes, for grapefruit based on the number of grapefruit as packed commercially.
I guess there’s an extra active grapefruit lobby in Florida.
It’s actually kinda interesting, in a ridiculous sort of way, to skim through legislation like this, especially when they get to parts about fees and enforcement.
I have come to the conclusion that there really is no such thing as “limited government”. Any such entity will degenerate into a full blown tyranny. In short, there are only two extremes: tyranny or liberty. Any imagined in between state is actually the process of a government progressing towards it inevitable tyrannical end.
For the sake of my argument, I am using the word “government” in its commonly (mis)understood meaning. My actual argument should read, “there is no such thing as a limited state” For a good definition of the state do a search with the terms “Hoppe”, “definition”, and “state”.
Charlie,
Outstanding point on definitional standards and I concur on the impossibility of limited government.
Bill
A mighty task indeed>those in “power” have and will do anything to maintain that status. By corralling the populace and marginalizing the dissenters-the illusion of order is perpetuated. That begs the question—to work for change within the system or divorce completely from that system?
Paul,
The system is designed to thwart any attempts within to reduce its scope of control and power do divorce is the obvious answer.
Bill
Walter Block is an Anarco-Capitalist associated with the Ludwig Von Mises Institute that has written considerably on the privatization of public services.
I love Block and his “Defeending…” book was a seminal eye-opener for me.
So, your essay thing. You want it all encompassing or do you mind if one decides to focus on certain things. I have a great understanding in highway robbery (government roads). I also have a passion for debunking coliseum building (the vikings need a new publicly funded stadium). Would you like it with a bunch of foot notes, cause detailed researching takes more time than writing.
Jose,
I use hyperlinks as footnotes so that is more than sufficient. I look forward to a contribution.
If I understand you correctly, you believe that there has never been a society where government has actually benefited people rather than oppressing them. Can you tell me when there has ever been a time when anarchy has benefited people?
It benefits you everyday as you walk through your life. Despite the government’s best efforts to control everything you do, your conduct yourself as you wish among friends and family and I suspect you neiother injure, kill or steal from them not because the government says it is bad but because you know it is poor and unproductive behavior.