Guest Post by Doug Casey via International Man
Rousseau was perhaps the first to popularize the fiction now taught in civics classes about how government was created. It holds that men sat down together and rationally thought out the concept of government as a solution to problems that confronted them. The government of the United States was, however, the first to be formed in any way remotely like Rousseau’s ideal. Even then, it had far from universal support from the three million colonials whom it claimed to represent. The U.S. government, after all, grew out of an illegal conspiracy to overthrow and replace the existing government.
There’s no question that the result was, by an order of magnitude, the best blueprint for a government that had yet been conceived. Most of America’s Founding Fathers believed the main purpose of government was to protect its subjects from the initiation of violence from any source; government itself prominently included. That made the U.S. government almost unique in history. And it was that concept – not natural resources, the ethnic composition of American immigrants, or luck – that turned America into the paragon it became.
The origin of government itself, however, was nothing like Rousseau’s fable or the origin of the United States Constitution. The most realistic scenario for the origin of government is a roving group of bandits deciding that life would be easier if they settled down in a particular locale, and simply taxing the residents for a fixed percentage (rather like “protection money”) instead of periodically sweeping through and carrying off all they could get away with. It’s no accident that the ruling classes everywhere have martial backgrounds. Royalty are really nothing more than successful marauders who have buried the origins of their wealth in romance.
Romanticizing government, making it seem like Camelot, populated by brave knights and benevolent kings, painting it as noble and ennobling, helps people to accept its jurisdiction. But, like most things, government is shaped by its origins. Author Rick Maybury may have said it best in Whatever Happened to Justice?,
“A castle was not so much a plush palace as the headquarters for a concentration camp. These camps, called feudal kingdoms, were established by conquering barbarians who’d enslaved the local people. When you see one, ask to see not just the stately halls and bedrooms, but the dungeons and torture chambers.
“A castle was a hangout for silk-clad gangsters who were stealing from helpless workers. The king was the ‘lord’ who had control of the blackjack; he claimed a special ‘divine right’ to use force on the innocent.
“Fantasies about handsome princes and beautiful princesses are dangerous; they whitewash the truth. They give children the impression political power is wonderful stuff.”
Is The State Necessary?
The violent and corrupt nature of government is widely acknowledged by almost everyone. That’s been true since time immemorial, as have political satire and grousing about politicians. Yet almost everyone turns a blind eye; most not only put up with it, but actively support the charade. That’s because, although many may believe government to be an evil, they believe it is a necessary evil (the larger question of whether anything that is evil is necessary, or whether anything that is necessary can be evil, is worth discussing, but this isn’t the forum).
What (arguably) makes government necessary is the need for protection from other, even more dangerous, governments. I believe a case can be made that modern technology obviates this function.
One of the most perversely misleading myths about government is that it promotes order within its own bailiwick, keeps groups from constantly warring with each other, and somehow creates togetherness and harmony. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of the truth. There’s no cosmic imperative for different people to rise up against one another…unless they’re organized into political groups. The Middle East, now the world’s most fertile breeding ground for hatred, provides an excellent example.
Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together peaceably in Palestine, Lebanon, and North Africa for centuries until the situation became politicized after World War I. Until then, an individual’s background and beliefs were just personal attributes, not a casus belli. Government was at its most benign, an ineffectual nuisance that concerned itself mostly with extorting taxes. People were busy with that most harmless of activities: making money.
But politics do not deal with people as individuals. It scoops them up into parties and nations. And some group inevitably winds up using the power of the state (however “innocently” or “justly” at first) to impose its values and wishes on others with predictably destructive results. What would otherwise be an interesting kaleidoscope of humanity then sorts itself out according to the lowest common denominator peculiar to the time and place.
Sometimes that means along religious lines, as with the Muslims and Hindus in India or the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland; or ethnic lines, like the Kurds and Iraqis in the Middle East or Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; sometimes it’s mostly racial, as whites and East Indians found throughout Africa in the 1970s or Asians in California in the 1870s. Sometimes it’s purely a matter of politics, as Argentines, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and other Latins discovered more recently. Sometimes it amounts to no more than personal beliefs, as the McCarthy era in the 1950s and the Salem trials in the 1690s proved.
Throughout history government has served as a vehicle for the organization of hatred and oppression, benefitting no one except those who are ambitious and ruthless enough to gain control of it. That’s not to say government hasn’t, then and now, performed useful functions. But the useful things it does could and would be done far better by the market.
Editor’s Note: Sociopaths are drawn to the government. They seek power and control over others through coercion, taxation and more.
Unfortunately, there’s little any individual can practically do to change the course of these trends in motion.
The best you can and should do is to stay informed so that you can protect yourself in the best way possible, and even profit from the situation.
New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released a guide that will show you exactly how. Click here to download the PDF now.
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Hell yes we need the state. What would we bitch about without it?
(laugh)
“Is The State Necessary?”
absolutely. there is always a state. what the socio-pathic fringe of the right wing objects to is not the state, but rather anyone besides themselves being that state. not only that, they crave to be the state. they want to be executive and legislative and judge and jury and executioner and priest and prophet and patriarch in and of themselves by themselves on their own recognizance and with no other competing authority in sight.
Wow, that wasn’t partisan at all.
yep.
(looking at the down votes) … nope?
The author shouldn’t fool himself.The American experiment was possible ONLY because of the colonists ethnic composition. Liberia anyone??????????
It was way more than ethnicity. There was a degree of religious homogeneity, a large amount of cultural homogeneity, and nearly all were raised in a culture in which the rights of man and the Renaissance were as integral to life and beliefs as everything else. Today, it is hard to find two white people who still believe in freedom, liberty, private property rights, religious freedom, the right to self ownership, medical freedom, etc.
“There was a degree of religious homogeneity”
the protestants and catholics wouldn’t have agreed with that – it wasn’t until kennedy that america tolerated a catholic president. and iiuc the leadership of the time was mostly deist, not christian. and I believe it was jefferson who edited his own version of the bible to remove all reference to any miracles – not an orthodox guy at all.
“a large amount of cultural homogeneity”
the north and the south wouldn’t have agreed with that. in fact the individual states would never have agreed with that – they were barely able to unify at all, what unity they had was always viewed as conditional, and what unification they achieved broke apart 90 years later.
“was possible ONLY because of the colonists ethnic composition”
you don’t think “these truths” can be self-evident to other ethnic groups?
I beg to differ. That “ethnic composition” had plenty of divisive instances among themselves.
speak for yourself there, hoss. a lot of us just want to live our lives, dont bother anybody and nobody bother me.
“don’t bother anybody and nobody bother me”
sounds great, doesn’t it? until you realize that what is meant by that is that The True Individual is a borderline sociopath who does not, cannot, take into account Other People and rejects the notion of Other People existing and touching him and affecting him in any way – he experiences that as Oppression and seeks to rid himself of it. that’s why so many on the sociopathic fringe of the right reject cities, live in such isolated circumstances, consider the united states an “open air prison”, call themselves smart and everyone else stupid, take up long-range shooting, store 100,000 cartridges of ammunition, and talk about one-shot-one-kill – because what they want is not to be left alone, but to be alone, and they intend to make that happen.
Nope. Not one bit. Are there functions that need to be performed? Sure. Is it appropriate to allow any group that kind of uncontrolled power or authority? NOT AT ALL.
“Is it appropriate to allow any group that kind of uncontrolled power or authority? NOT AT ALL.”
so then who performs the necessary functions? individuals acting on their own recognizance?
cooperatively should replace “on their own recognizance”
“cooperatively”
sure. leading to groups, leading to organizations, leading to disagreements, leading to opposition, leading to government – which the original poster opposes, because he does not allow for serious disagreement, because he does not take into account the existence and effects of people other than himself. so this idea of “coops not government” is ephemeral and by “cooperation” is meant “cooperation with me”.
It does not have to be progressive, and if it is not aggressive won’t be.
The Browning High Power is a fine weapon.
and the opposition has lots of fine weapons too.
The American Revolution was a whim of luck that a like-minded group of individuals were concentrated in one place at that time. The people that came here were hardy stock not afraid of the sea journey that took the weak and sick. That were looking for something BETTER.
Scotts came to flee English boots on their necks. Huguenot French came for religious freedom. The common thread for the vast majority was freedom from something they were being oppressed by. The gigantic mistake the British crown made was trying the same crap with these people by using them as tax slaves. The irony is huge here. Britain probably could and still would have controlled the vast majority of their territories if they didn’t do that. But you can’t leave any ruler or politician with a big pile of money left on the table. They cannot resist.
What we have now is a portion of the population that willingly pays for the rest to not do anything. We are complicit in the nanny state by voting for these idiots, and paying for the forever-children to do nothing and produce more forever-children.
Money is the life blood of the governmental tick that has grown to gargantuan proportions. The law of unintended consequences is playing out across the board, as states like California now face a huge deficit due to tax collections being way down.
Yes, they are praying to the dark god that they get a federal bailout. They may get one, but it probably will be too little, too late. And it will not slow or stop their endless void of money suck anyway.
We are seeing Britain’s onerous taxation on a larger scale and the end game will not work out the way they planned. Being king of a steaming pile of shit is nothing to aspire too, yet here we are.
That is the weakness of all those that strive for power over others with evil intent, and can there be any other kind?
If you take away everything that the plebes have in order to finance your wealth and power, eventually all the plebes either die, move away, or have no more left to give. Or they rise up in rage and that is not something that turns out well. Marie Antoinette and her severed head speak volumes.
Hubris and serious greed make for a giant ego and blindness of an extraordinary magnitude.
“Hubris and serious greed make for a giant ego and blindness of an extraordinary magnitude”
on both sides.
(yes virginia, there is an other side.)
There is indeed more than one other side. One of the great problems in modern political discourse is the binary framing on almost every issue that sets perception against experience making effective (win-win) compromise impossible.