Organized force endowed with legitimacy

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views April 19, 2004]

Once we naively assumed (at least I did) that the best protection we could have was simply an impersonal, objective rule of law. Then the State discovered a new role for itself: special protections for particular categories: racial minorities, farmers, laborers, old people, women, the handicapped, children, even sexual perverts. The roll call of accredited victims continues to lengthen, and with it the powers of the State. It isn't enough to treat people equally; they must be made equal. (And not only people: animals too.) There is no end to it.

Limited government? Don't be silly. The only argument now is over what new roles (and powers) the State should appropriate. The change is stupendous, truly revolutionary, more radical than the change from Tsarism to Bolshevism. Terms like big government and creeping socialism are only lazy, inadequate nicknames for it. . . .

The State is more than organized force; it is force endowed with legitimacy -- that is, the approval of its subjects. And can we say that, as the State keeps expanding, its subjects will forever approve of it? . . . .

More and more people sense that the problem isn't just the Republicans or the Democrats, but the whole system of organized force. The government doesn't even respect or observe its own fundamental law as codified in the Constitution. Its legitimacy is wearing thin. . . .

The state is a human institution, sustained by human will. It isn't a given of nature, though it may at times seem so. There can be no moral "right" to a monopoly of force. Once significant numbers of men see that this is self-evident, the State will be in real trouble. By the standards of the Founding Fathers themselves, the U.S. Government has long since crossed the line into tyranny.

-- Joseph Sobran, excerpt from "Here to Stay?" Sobran's newsletter, March 2004. For the most candid insights on culture, government and society, subscribe to Sobran's.

Copyright © 2008 Issues & Views