Posted on 01/04/2002 5:34:10 AM PST by tberry
The Myth of 'Limited Government'
by Joseph Sobran
We are taught that the change from monarchy to democracy is progress; that is, a change from servitude to liberty. Yet no monarchy in Western history ever taxed its subjects as heavily as every modern democracy taxes its citizens.
But we are taught that this condition is liberty, because "we" are – freely – taxing "ourselves." The individual, as a member of a democracy, is presumed to consent to being taxed and otherwise forced to do countless things he hasn’t chosen to do (or forbidden to do things he would prefer not to do).
Whence arises the right of a ruler to compel? This is a tough one, but modern rulers have discovered that a plausible answer can be found in the idea of majority rule. If the people rule themselves by collective decision, they can’t complain that the government is oppressing them. This notion is summed up in the magic word "democracy."
It’s nonsense. "We" are not doing it to "ourselves." Some people are still ruling other people. "Democracy" is merely the pretext for authorizing this process and legitimizing it in the minds of the ruled. Since outright slavery has been discredited, "democracy" is the only remaining rationale for state compulsion that most people will accept.
Now comes Hans-Hermann Hoppe, of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, to explode the whole idea that there can ever be a just state. And he thinks democracy is worse than many other forms of government. He makes his case in his new book Democracy – The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order
Hoppe is often described as a libertarian, but it might be more accurate to call him a conservative anarchist. He thinks the state – "a territorial monopoly of compulsion" – is inherently subversive of social health and order, which can thrive only when men are free.
As soon as you grant the state anything, Hoppe argues, you have given it everything. There can be no such thing as "limited government," because there is no way to control an entity that in principle enjoys a monopoly of power (and can simply expand its own power).
We’ve tried. We adopted a Constitution that authorized the Federal Government to exercise only a few specific powers, reserving all other powers to the states and the people. It didn’t work. Over time the government claimed the sole authority to interpret the Constitution, then proceeded to broaden its own powers ad infinitum and to strip the states of their original powers – while claiming that its self-aggrandizement was the fulfillment of the "living" Constitution. So the Constitution has become an instrument of the very power it was intended to limit!
The growth of the Federal Government might have been slowed if the states had retained the power to withdraw from the confederation. But the Civil War established the fatal principle that no state could withdraw, for any reason. So the states and the people lost their ultimate defense against Federal tyranny. (And if they hadn’t, there would still have been the problem of the tyranny of individual states.) But today Americans have learned to view the victory of the Union over the states, which meant an enormous increase in the centralization of power, as a triumph of "democracy."
Hoppe goes so far as to say that democracy is positively "immoral," because "it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C." He argues that monarchy is actually preferable, because a king has a personal interest in leaving his kingdom in good condition for his heirs; whereas democratic rulers, holding power only briefly, have an incentive to rob the public while they can, caring little for what comes afterward. (The name "Clinton" may ring a bell here.)
And historically, kings showed no desire to invade family life; but modern democracies want to "protect" children from their parents. By comparison with the rule of our alleged equals, most kings displayed remarkably little ambition for power. And compared with modern war, the wars of kings were mere scuffles.
Democracy has proved only that the best way to gain power over people is to assure the people that they are ruling themselves. Once they believe that, they make wonderfully submissive slaves.
January 4, 2001
Fredrick Bostiat in "The Law" talked about 'A' and 'B' ganging up on 'C' and called it "legal plunder".
What scares me is this may be the last generation to read an article like this and understand the ramifications to the health and well being of civilization. The next generation is only looking for a good time and to be entertained in the next 30 minutes.
You know what sucks? To memorize, quote and believe in the Constitution, and be called a radical. That's what a conservative used to be.
Does being refered to as somebody who doesn't "understand the realities of modern government" count in this category as well?
How nice, reality means nitpicking legal syntactical definitions and making sure that the loot of conquest is directed to the "correct" causes. No thanks.
Also excluded should be: government employees and other recipients of government payments, grants or welfare. Federal government employees were of course meant to be excluded from voting by the original setup of the District of Columbia.
Great line.
Unfortunately, most, if not all of the abuses of power are enabled by interpreting the Constitution as saying things that it plainly does not. There is no fundamental wisdom if we can interpret it to mean whatever we think it ought to mean.
This paragraph illustrates the whole problem with thinking in America today. There is a disconnect here that I, personally, don't understand. Lets take it one point at a time.
We have now all learned that large air planes can be turned into dangerous weapons. The only solution is government (which can either ban or regulate).
According to the logic here, the only solution is to ban airplanes. Airplanes are one of the most regulated products ever built anywhere. They are regulated as to to the standards of construction, distribution, purchase, operation, maintenance, and the whole of it's existance. The federal government regulates who may fly it, who may ride in it, who may own one, who may maintain it, who may load it, who may control it, who may paint it, etc. It is regulated to the point that there is not a single aspect of an airplane that doesn't have a government regulation or law about it. So, the only thing left is to ban it.
I don't think that is going to be an acceptable solution. Or is your thinking that the only problem is, the right people have not been doing the regulation?
Similarly, we are at the doorstep of tremendous breakthroughs in biology and health care. Plants that generate drugs, bacteria in place of pills, transplants of all kinds, etc. The list is endless and has endless possibilities for making life better. Only government can finance much of the research.
Horse feathers.
And, only government can control what obviously needs to be controlled. For example, we need designer drugs, not designer anthrax.
If you haven't heard, the designer anthrax was a government product. If you want truly useful drugs, get the government out of the drug regulation business. All the FDA has succeded in doing is slow down and make more expensive any progress in this area.
Government, in all cases with very, very few exceptions, is not the answer when you need something useful. There is not single government program that has ever produced a useful thing. Generally it has hindered progress, not helped it along.
Those core value are found in the Constitution but they are simply paid "lip service" by so called (neo)conservatives.
You say "The simple fact of the matter is that the more complex life becomes the greater the need for Government" but the truth is that life has become more complex mainly because the "federal" government has stuck its nose into every facet of our live and that federal tyranny has cause much of the complexity. If we were really adhering to limited federal government do you believe that bin Laden or anyone else would be attacking us or that we would have Timmothy McVeys?
The reason we are embroiled in so much international and domestic strife is because of federal world and domestic intervention.
If you stick you nose in someone else's business where it constitutionally doesn't belong, don't be surprised if you get it bloodied.
This still leaves all the people who pay these taxes and yet receive a net gain from the feds. All the federal contractors, recipients of loans and grants, etc.
Wickard v. Filburn - 1942
You have the Cause and Effect backwards.
All you are saying is that to maintain society as it presently exists, a government is needed.
No anarchist would disagree; it goes without saying that every aspect of our society presupposes the existence of a government.
If it requires coercion and theft to build the railroads, then perhaps we shouldn't have built railroads. Stated differently, if it requires a government to have welfare or social security, then perhaps we shouldn't have welfare or social security.
In short, you are simply saying there is no way to maintain prison society without prison guards; you assume at the outset that the prison society is something that must be saved at any cost.
For all other purposes, there are better-fitted human institutions.
Agreed.
...wish I could bookmark... damn new format...
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