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
I'd better modify that. For "any" read "the most egregious"; I'm not going to make this a full-time project.
Even if this were true, it would be irrelevant. In private business people make exactly as much as someone else is willing to pay them. Bureaucrats make exactly as much as they are capable of extorting from people in the productive economy. The one has nothing to do with the other. If you want one of those higher private salaries, go get one and stop complaining. Why don't you?
and for those of us who are protecting you from the real world, there are no non-Fed counterparts to compare us to.
I never asked for your protection racket and I want out of it. Why won't you let me be free? That you won't is proof of what a fraud the racket is.
you complain that my salary is paid by taxes taken from your pay at the point of a gun; what about the taxes taken from mine?
I've told you before. Anything you net has been taken from other people. It makes no difference how many shell games they play with the money. The net is stolen. The rest is shuffled around - in part, I suspect, so you can pretend you pay taxes.
You responded: I never asked for your protection racket and I want out of it. Why won't you let me be free? That you won't is proof of what a fraud the racket is.
The 'protecting' I was talking about is the Intelligence Community and the military that protects this country from far more dangers than you'll ever know about. Read before you prattle. Now tell me again about the protection racket you're complaining about. And, hey, do you think I should be stripped of my right to vote like Aurelius does?
I knew dang well what you were talking about. The goons who fund terrorists. Did you know that your "intelligence community" (oh, sorry. I forgot the caps. < /sarcasm >) spends wastes more money than the entire Chinese defense establishment. Or that the military spends wastes more than do the next nine countries combined, six of whom are allies?
This is not defense. It's offense. Meddling in 140 countries around the world, while simultaneously making Americans objectively more vulnerable to danger than the citizens of countries without any army at all.
But you've changed the subject. Why do you force me to pay for this racket? I don't want your "protection".
And, hey, do you think I should be stripped of my right to vote like Aurelius does?
I already said that before we got off on this tangent about how you pay taxes. Aurelius had it right. You shouldn't have it, although it would be different if we had a civilian army. Until 1970, the Swiss actually limited the right to vote to members of the militia. A good idea.
You still haven't answered the question. I don't want your "protection". Why do you force me to pay for it?
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!
This quote comes to mind....."Every evil which has befallen our institutions is directly traceable to the perversion of the compact of union and the usurpation by the Federal Government of undelegated powers."
-President Jefferson Davis, CSA
Standard response from you boys, isn't it? Love it or leave it. My Costo Rican flag is just a little rebellion against the tyrants. Pathetic, I know. But there you have it.
And how do you figure we're instigating terrorist attacks against the U.S.?
You're the "intelligence" "expert". Could you please tell me how much of the American taxpayers' money you stole to bankroll al Queda over the years? Oh yes. I forgot. It's classified so we peons can't find out what you do with our money.
And why do I waste my time with a traitorous idiot?
Stealing the taxpayers' money to support terrorists is what I call traitorous. The sad part is that you power-drunk goons are too idiotic to understand it.
You're a delusional paranoid, and not even as entertaining as the others that rant against the U.S. Show me where one penny has gone to al-Qaeda. And why would we fund them? That should be good for a laugh. I'm doing all I can to at least help you be entertaining. Now the rest is up to you.
By the way, the country's flag that you display is Costa Rica. Whadda a maroon!
You're an ass who doesn't even know what his own employer is doing. Of course, that's typical of a bureaucrat. Al Queda and the US have certainly cooperated in Kosovo. Of course, I should really have talked about all the unsavory regimes the US props up across the globe. Also you jerks have this strange habit of turning against one after propping it up for years. Saddam Hussein's Iraq is only one example.
By the way, the country's flag that you display is Costa Rica. Whadda a maroon!
You think I didn't know that? Or what? Just a tribute to a little country which still believes in freedom.
"Civil servant" is a contradiction in terms. Look at the way you insult me. If I called a private company, people treat me with respect even though they owe me nothing whatsoever. Bureaucrats treat people like dirt even though we pay your salaries. Hypocrites and thieves.
Since the Republicans were socialists from the beginning (of the big business variety), there was no one left to defend small government anymore.
Wilson, who in my book was the worst President ever, then gutted the Constitution with the 16th through 20th amendments, established the Federal Reserve Bank, and got involved in a European war while running roughshod over American liberty at home.
This led directly to the all problems of the twentieth century - the rise of socialism and totalitarianism. While Wilson has a lot to answer for, it's probably true that it was inevitable. If he wasn't there, someone else would have done it, just as someone else would have done what Bryan did. They were simply responding to the temper of their times.
Unlike American Democrats, the British Liberal party never sold out. So Labour took their place, giving the Brits one big business party and one socialist party, just like in the US.
As you've pointed out, the work done in the Intelligence Community is classified and not released for the most part to the public. So where do you get off telling me what is done? Yes, the U.S. deals with unsavory characters at times, but that's the real world. We can't all go running off to Costa Rica and pretend like we don't have responsibilities to our family and country. But, as far as al-Qaeda is concerned, perhaps if we had some contact with them we may have been able to predict the 9/11 attacks.
You think I didn't know that? Or what? Just a tribute to a little country which still believes in freedom.
I was pointing out the fact that you misspelled the name of the country, hence the bolded 'a'.
"Civil servant" is a contradiction in terms. Look at the way you insult me. If I called a private company, people treat me with respect even though they owe me nothing whatsoever. Bureaucrats treat people like dirt even though we pay your salaries. Hypocrites and thieves.
Let's go back and visit the first exchange between us. It was from you, responding to a 'conversation' I was having with another Freeper:
You don't pay any taxes at all. The gov't plays a shell game wherein it gives you money and then takes some back. It still remains true that that all of this money was originally stolen from people in the productive economy...I don't allow my servants to decide how to run my house - for obvious reasons. If you want to decide what happens, get yourself a real job instead of pretending that that you "serve" the public you extort a salary from.
Talk about rude and insulting. You insinuate that I don't pay taxes, when I would be willing to bet I pay more in federal taxes than you; and insinuate I do nothing productive for the country (I've stayed behind to help protect it; what do you do?). Sure, you can say some of my replies have been less-than-genteel, but I have this funny habit of treating people the way they treat me. If you had been decent I would have treated you in the same manner. But since you started with baseless insults I simply have no option other than pointing out the stupidity and possible insanity of your replies.
By the way, you must not get out in the real world much or else you would know that private companies are just as likely to insult you as any one else. Some are great and some are terrible. Go to any fast food franchise or retail store and see what the quality of service is like. Hit-and-miss. But that's here in the real world; it may be different in the little fantasy world in your head.
Don't mean I agree, but I'm glad to see you lay it out there. A few things:
Whereas I see world salvation in W.J. Bryan's three defeats at the prez polls, you see the end of the world in his "Gold Cross" speech. Nevertheless, some sixty-six years before him, Daniel Webster said:
"There are persons who constantly clamor. They complain of oppression, speculation and pernicious influence of accumulated wealth. They cry out loudly against all banks and corporations and all means by which small capitalists become united in order to produce important and benefiicial results. They carry on mad hostility against all established institutions. They would choke the fountain of industry and dry all streams. In a country of unbounded liberty, they clamor against oppression. In a country of perfect equality, they would move heaven and earth against privilege and monopoly. In a country where property is more evenly divided than anywhere else, they rend the air shouting about agrarian doctrines. In a country where wages of labor are high and beyond parallel, they would teach the laborer that he is but an oppressed slave."Btw, Wilson was not responsible for the 16-20th amendments. 16 & 17 came of events during the Taft administration, and the 18th & 19th amendments were not Wilson's doing. And what problem you have with the 20th I cannot imagine, unless you prefer better weather during inaugurations (the city of Washington long lobbied Congress for April or May inaugurations for the better weather).
The Federal Reserve came of five years of strenuous effort by the most conservative, capitalist-defending of Senators, Nelson A. Aldrich (you may recognize his name in Ford's V.P. Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, his grandson).
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