What Do We Owe the State?

I’ve had a lot of response to my column on Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s new book Democracy – The God That Failed , most of it enthusiastic. [See the column of December 20, 2001, "The Myth of ‘Limited Government’."] A surprising number of citizens of this democracy have lost faith in the state, democratic or otherwise.

It’s amazing how seldom we ask the most basic questions. What is a state, anyway? Where does it get its authority? Might we be better off without it?

These are serious questions. One scholar estimates that during the twentieth century, states murdered about 177 million of their own subjects. And that doesn’t count foreigners killed in wars. In order to justify their own existence, states had better be doing someone a lot of good, or be able to show that in the absence of states, even more people would have been slaughtered. Neither proposition is credible.

"Wait a minute," someone will say. "You’re mixing apples and oranges. Sure, there are bad states, like the Soviet Union, which murder millions. But there are also good states, which don’t murder people and which protect their people from bad states."

Well, it’s possible that a mildly rapacious state may afford us some protection against a much worse one, just as one neighborhood gang may offer safety against another. But all states are rapacious, almost by definition.

What is a state? It is the ruling body in a territory, which claims a monopoly of the legal right to command obedience. It may demand anything – our earnings, our services, our lives. Once the right to command is conceded, there are no limits on its power.

Many people think a state is a natural necessity of social life. They can hardly conceive of society without the state.

This would be plausible if the state confined itself to enforcing natural moral obligations – that is, if it protected us from robbery, murder, and the like, otherwise leaving us alone. But what if the state itself robs and murders, claiming the authority to do so?

Any two men will usually agree that neither may justly take the other’s property or life. Nor does either owe the other obedience; that would be slavery. But somehow the state claims what no individual may claim – a right to the lives, property, and obedience of all within its power. The state asserts its "right" to do things that would be wrongs and crimes between private men. And most people accept this claim! They think they have a moral duty to obey power!

So why do people think they have this duty? Of course, as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued, the state ultimately rests on its power to kill (or otherwise harm) those who disobey it. But this is a threat, not a duty. If I demand your money at gunpoint, you will obey, but the gun doesn’t create an obligation, merely a menace.

But the state pretends that all its demands, however arbitrary, are moral obligations, even though those demands rest on force. If it were confined to demanding only what decent people do anyway – refraining from murder, robbery, et cetera – it might be bearable. But it never stops with reasonable moral demands; at a minimum, even the most "humane" and "democratic" states use the taxing power to extort staggering amounts of money from their subjects. The predatory tendency of the state is inherent and expansive, and nobody has found a way to control it. No control can long withstand the monopolistic "right" to demand obedience in every area of human activity the state may choose to invade. Systematized force – which is all the state really is – follows its own logic.

Legal forms, moral rhetoric, and propaganda may disguise force as something it is not. The idea of "democracy" has persuaded countless gullible people that they are somehow "consenting" when they are being coerced. The real triumph of the state occurs when its subjects refer to it as "we," like football fans talking about the home team. That is the delusion of "self-government." One might as well speak of "self-coercion" or "self-slavery."

No, the state, now grown to a monstrous magnitude, remains what Albert Jay Nock called it: "our enemy, the State." Maybe Professor Hoppe is dreaming. Maybe anarchism couldn’t be sustained. Maybe the evil of systematized force can never be eliminated in this fallen world. But why pretend such an evil is a positive good?

The problem with most Bible quoting advocates of statism is that they fail, just as the Romans's failed, to address these "Pay unto Ceasar what is due to Ceasar" quotes with the question that *MUST* be begged. Namely, what is "owed unto Ceasar"?

I'll give you a quick and simple answer. Nothing. Ceasar breaks the Golden Rule of God, and therefor his demands are not in accordance with Divine law. If he is "illegitimate" in God's eyes, then we owe him nothing. Same with the "obey legitimate authority" argument. It begs the question of What is Legitimate Authority? Again, anyone who disobey's God's law (the Law and the Prophets, as Jesus said) is not owed any allegiance. I don't have a Bible in front of me right now, so I can't give exact verse, but I will try to get exact verse later tonight or early tomorrow if anybody refutes this.

The crown of England was the powers that be , ordained by God.

Then you must be in disagreement with the following words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

I assume you recognize the words, and are aware of the source thereof.

These same words ought (but probably don't, since they've got most of the guns) cause our "leaders" to tremble.

"Give unto Ceasar the things that are Caesar's" is more or less a "shrug" answer, isn't it? Add to it the rest of the verse..."and to God the things that are God's".

I've always seen this verse as walking hand in hand with the point made in this one

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,...
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

There's another place that gives the same sort of feel to materialistic importance as compared to spiritual importance. "Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead."

BTW, your post #39 is stunning. I agree with about 85% of it, have felt that most of my life, in fact.

Anyone who does not understand that at the core of this nation is our individual sovereignty and Rights has already silently and likely unknowingly acted to overthrow our rightful form of government and gets whatever they historically deserve.

You mean, like the government we are forced to deal with today? No, I guess they are KNOWINGLY doing it.

Some people are natural extroverts. Others (the libertarians, mostly) seem to be natural introverts. Nothing too unusual about that state of affairs.

I think it's in part a purely American phenomenon. In other cultures, "I" takes a back seat to "We", when it comes to defining personal identity, and the responsibilities of the individual towards the interests of the group as a whole. Not so here. No wonder so many Americans feel themselves to be so lonely.

Friend, the former republic known as the USA is a pure social democracy where the minority of voters pay the majority of taxes and vice versa. There is no salvaging this mess, and it does not matter who holds elected office. Fifty years ago, Bush would have been laughed out of the Republican party as a pseudo-conservative Keynesian. Now, people no longer even know the difference. Very few people around here have picked up on the fact that the hike in FICA taxes just about cancels out the minuscule income tax cuts (which are already in danger of repeal).

I could go on, but you get my drift. As Walter Williams says, it's time to part company.

Some people are natural extroverts. Others (the libertarians, mostly) seem to be natural introverts. Nothing too unusual about that state of affairs.

I think it's in part a purely American phenomenon. In other cultures, "I" takes a back seat to "We", when it comes to defining personal identity, and the responsibilities of the individual towards the interests of the group as a whole. Not so here. No wonder so many Americans feel themselves to be so lonely.

I'm not sure about this answer, to be honest. I don't think of myself as an introvert. When I'm with friends I'm quite open, gregarious and happy. I don't clam up when others are around who are not my friends, I just kind of disregard them unless they say something intelligent. In other words, I disregard them.

As to lonely? Not really. I don't crave the attention of the shadow rabble in this Bizarro world. I don't feel the need to "connect" to people who are nothing more than automatons spewing the party line. Goodness no! I have friends, I know that a handful of others in the world are like me. Not lonely, just disconnected from this mad world and its insane occupants. Sort of like Wonko the Sane in the Hitchhiker series, only not quite so isolated. If that makes sense.

I could go on, but you get my drift. As Walter Williams says, it's time to part company.

That is good advice. The question is, to where?

I've given Costa Rica some serious thought, as has my wife. I speak Spanish quite well, and the lingua franca in CR is English for all intents and purposes anyway. American english, if that gives you a hint at what's going on in CR right now.

I know several Doctors and other high intellect professionals are quietly taking vacations there last year and this year to scout out a place to move to. My wife and I are probably going to do some scouting on our own either the end of this year or beginning of next year.

The problem is, I really do think that Empire America will eventually swoop down there and put an end to the expats. War on Terrorism, and all that stuff.

The other option is to fight. I can't stomach just sitting here much longer and not doing anything. And just "giving in" is not an option, not for me at least.

Hopefully we'll be long gone by the time that fighting starts. And if it doesn't start, well, that much more reason why I wouldn't want to be here, short of a complete reformation of our government and a full restoration of the Bill of Rights.

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