Your Friend, the Federal Government

An unfortunate byproduct of democracy is the conflation of the State with society. Attendant to this problem is the prevalent use of the collective pronoun “we”: “We are the government,” “we are at war,” “we owe it to ourselves” … are all just lies that do litle more than provide cover for the pernicious, irresponsible expansion of State power (which always comes at the expense of social power).

In his brilliant essay, “Your Friend, the State,” Joseph Sobran cuts through this collective State dogma.

If I were a pagan, I might fancy I heard the Olympian laughter of the gods when modern men think of their rulers as their friends. Common sense would suggest that those who have power over you, and can use it to kill or enslave you, are, more properly speaking, your masters and enemies. We’re supposed to think that the system that can extort half our earnings from us is benevolent?

The state is a parasite on its subjects, but in America its subjects have acquired the habit of speaking of the state as “we.” As in: “We are fighting a war on terrorism.” There can be no greater triumph for the parasite than for the host to think of it and itself as a single unit. It’s as if a man were to refer to himself and a blood-bloated leech under his skin as “we.”

… No, it’s even worse than that: they think their enemy is “us.” The enemy becomes the self.

What exactly is this institution that people have allowed to define themselves?

Author of the indispensable “Democracy: The God that Failed,” Hans-Herman Hoppe, puts it bluntly:

[I]f only one had better understood the nature of the state, and did not believe in miracles.

As a territorial monopolist of legislation and the money-printing press, the State has a natural tendency to grow: to use its “fiat” laws and “fiat” money to gain increasing control of society and social institutions. With “fiat laws”, the State has the unique power of threatening and punishing or incentivizing and rewarding whatever it pleases. And with its “fiat money”, it can buy-up support, bribe, and corrupt more easily than anyone else.

[Unmasking the State] for what it really is: an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots—an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches. [emphasis added]

Still think Leviathan-on-the-Potomac is “we”?

Your Friend, the Federal Government is a post from: Classic Liberal Blog