It would be great if law schools did devote attention to The Federalist. But they should also devote an equal amount of attention The Antifederalist. The "antifederalists" had keen insights into some of the problems with the new Constitution (as well as the true intentions of its proponents). For the most part, the prescience of the antifederalists has been ably demonstrated.

That is how E. J. Dionne E. J. Dionne saw it:

[T]here are Republicans in Congress whose top priority is to force through legislation making the Bush-era tax cuts for the best-off Americans permanent, thus expanding the deficit by about $700 billion over the next decade.

So on the one hand, we have to cut, cut, cut because fiscal catastrophe is looming. On the other, we have to make the problem worse by shoveling more money to the rich because...taking care of those with tidy incomes is contemporary conservatism's highest purpose.

It may be contemporary conservatism's highest purpose to take care of those with tidy incomes. My purpose--a libertarian purpose--is to take care of anyone with any income. But I digress.

On Dionne's view (not that he is the only one who has it) when the government doesn't take your money, it is giving you money, or, to put his way, shoveling money to you.

Your money. Shovelled to you just because someone decided not to take, or to take less than previously was being taken from you. How generous!

You know, by that sort of logic (I'm being generous in calling it logic) if you and I pass each other on a sidewalk and don't rob each other of the money in our bill-folds (or wallets) then we have each made a gift to the other of the money we didn't take. What generous people you and I are!

What Dionne wants to know is why cut taxes when the deficit is so big? These people. I cannot recall the last time I heard anyone on the left say, "Okay, now it's a good time to lower the tax rates for everyone, including the rich." For almost every year I've been following politics, I have heard leftists complain about Republicans lowering taxes for the wealthiest Americans and (I love this part) balancing the budget on the backs of working families. We couldn't lower tax rates for the wealthiest Americans before the present malaise. We can't do it now.

It would be nice if they would stop pretending they'll ever think any time is a good time for tax rate cuts for all of us, including the so-called rich.

It would also be nice if they would stop arguing (still being charitable) as if the deficit is the fault of the rich. Most of what the unfederal government does--and spends money on--isn't constitutional in the first place. Why in hell should any one pay the bills of a government who cannot be prevailed upon to obey the "law of the land"?

P. S.

The reason I didn't post on this until now, is I didn't want to look like a partisan, unlike Dionne. I like to discuss the issue of taxation as such, not as part of some statist party's political platform.

The following was posted to my Facebook page as a response to a similar piece by one of my friends. The original is re-printed below, for purposes of authorial attribution and needful context.

Juan gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is as clean and good as it was when his ancestors pumped it up from wells they dug themsleves without the help of tree-hugging liberals. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are as safe to take as ever because some smart capitalist, in addition to financing the research which brought the medication to market, also determined that knowingly, willingly and negligently killing customers isn't a workable business plan. He also knew that where he failed, one of his competitors might succeed, putting him out of business and his employees out of work.

All but $10 of Juan's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Juan gets it too. Aside from the fact that he didn't ask for it, he also wouldn't need it if not for the insurance in the first place. You see, Juan is the curious sort who long ago wondered why the costs of just about every other good or service on the market has a tendency to go down, except for healthcare. Reluctant to take the word of people who give him things he did not ask for and then demand gratitude, he looked into the matter himself and determined that using the insurance model to pay for health care is one of the things driving up the costs--that and his government's dictate that there are no such things as pre-existing conditions. Then, too, are all the regulations which arbitrarily add to the cost of it all.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Juan's bacon is as safe to eat as it was when his great-grandfather and grandfather were growing pigs on the family farm in South Texas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, now, thanks to regulations and all those other good things he asked no one to do for him, his pork costs a hell of a lot more than it did a century ago (adjusting for inflation, which was also brought to him by his government). Not only that, but thanks to all these regulations, and licensing fees, and inheritance taxes, Juan's ancestors could not today afford to go into farming in the first place, leading Juan to believe that the primary purpose of these regulations is, for the most part, to limit the entry of new competitors to the no-longer-very-free market.

In the morning shower, Juan reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some enterprising capitalist accurately forecast that consumers would have a preference for his product over his competitors' precisely because it was labelled. Juan, of course, doesn't really care as long as it cleans his @#$%ing hair, so he has no intention of expressing gratitude to anyone for it. He paid for shampoo that cleans his hair--label or no label--and he received shampoo that cleans his hair--label or no label. He figures that if he ever really wanted to know what was in his shampoo he could have called and asked the producer to email him a list. Or he could wash his hair, and the rest of his body with lye soap, like his ancestors. Again: he didn't ask anyone for this shit in the first place. After all, even if he could easily pronounce Dodecylbenzenesulfonate, he doesn't have a degree in chemistry so he has no @#$%ing idea what the hell it is, anyway.

Juan dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean not because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air but because the people who own those polluting factories discovered they couldn't breathe the shit in the air any more than people who don't own factories. On his view the liberals don't want clean air; they want purified air--or just fewer factories, which they will get due the costs of building and managing new ones. (You know, like oil refineries.)

He walks on a government-provided sidewalk because it's there, whether he wants it to be or not, whether he asked for it or not. If being lectured to by liberals--in addition to paying his taxes--is the price for walking on a sidewalk he didn't ask for, then he'd rather walk in the mud, like humans did for thousands of years without having to be made to kiss meddling liberals' asses for an alternative. (He smiles at the probablility that those humans who walked in the mud for those thousands of years would consider liberals to be whinning, snivelling little pusses. The Spartans would have killed them, or exiled them: dead weight.) As he walks, he shares the sidewalk with children on their way to the elementary school, supported at the local level by his property taxes and at the federal level by his income taxes. (His own children go to a private school, for which he foots the entire bill.) He tries not be too miffed that the people responsible for taking his money in the form of taxes then turn round and lecture him on the gratitude he owes them for what they have provided him at his cost and depriving him, in the process, of those things he might have preferred to spend the money on--had he been allowed to keep it and employ it as he, the earner of the money, saw fit. "Thugs and racketeers," he mutters to himself. "I wish they'd grind this sidewalk to powder and blow it up their asses."

As he stands in the subway car, tolerating his government-subsidized ride to work, he fondles the .45 semi-auto in his overcoat and hopes two things: (1) he doesn't get caught with it since his caring and benevolent government won't let him be responsible for his own safety without its kind permission (any more than it will permit him to be responsible for his own ride to work); and (2) he never has to use it (because his benevolent government doesn't exactly own and manage the safest subway system in the world). He politely smiles at the liberal standing next to him, lecturing him on the benevolence of the government, who takes money from people who for the most part never use the damn thing in the first place. The liberal demands gratitude from Juan for an opportunity he didn't ask for--the "opportunity" to be a contributor. The liberal says, "I object to people like you enjoying the benefits I and my ilk provide and criticizing us for providing them." He tries not to laugh too hard: this liberal don't provide shit; he's a @#$%ing fast food restaurant manager who receives tax credits.

Juan begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, because he doesn't belong to a union and is not bound to a collectively bargained employment agreement, which limits his pay to a figure approved by his union "brothers". Therefore, because of his superior marketable skills, as well as his skill as a negotiator, he makes better money than his unionized peers in other organizations. He has medical benefits, it's true. But this is not because liberal union members fought and died for it. (Another thing he didn't ask anyone to do for him.) It's because of U.S. domestic policy in WWII. Due to government policy, Juan learned in his private school, inflation grew both before and during WWII. As a “remedy,” caps on wage increases were imposed by the government. (Another financial set-back provided by your benevolent government.) In response, employers began to offer their employees health insurance to soften the blow and attract quality workers. ( WTF, mate? Imagine that: employers providing health care insurance, not because they were commanded by a benevolent government, but rather because of market considerations. Sometimes, it's an employees' market, not an employers' market. Again: WTF?) The federal government did not consider an increase in health benefits a violation of these wage controls, and the IRS (bless them for their infinite wisdom and generosity) ruled that health benefits were tax exempt for workers. After the wage caps were abolished, health insurance benefits became the norm and were not eliminated. Now, of course, these benefits, which started out as market driven benefits, are rights. And liberals want us to kiss their asses for (not!) procuring them for us. Thank you (relatively) free market.

It is noon-time and Juan needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. It's true that Juan's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some liberal wanted to protect Juan's money from bankers he determined were unscrupulous and ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. But Juan, again because he was privately educated, suspects that the liberal had no idea what unscrupulous actions the bankers took. Juan, on the other knows that the banking system wasn't ruined until after the stock market crash. Juan further knows that the stock market crash followed in predictable fashion on the heels of a great boom, a boom which was itself created by a fraudulent banking practice called "fractional reserve banking", which Juan, since he thinks its fraudulent, opposes. If banks were prohibited from practicing fractional reserve banking, he wouldn't need the @#$%ing FDIC. We wouldn't need the Federal Reserve, either, which would do away with inflation.

Unlike Joe the Republican (maybe!), Juan doesn't have a Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage or a below-market federal student loan. Consequently he doesn't feel a duty to express gratitude to some elitist liberal who decided that Juan and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime--things which cost him (i.e., the elitist) nothing. Juan wonders two things: (1) Who the hell is the liberal to decide for him what would make him better off and then to force it upon him? and (2) Why do liberals, since they feel so strongly about it, not start their own mortagage and student loan companies and extend below-market loans to the objects of their concern? Better yet, he thinks, why don't liberals found, fund and operate their own free universities? You know: do something that actually costs them--and only them--their own @#$%ing money.

It is true that Juan attended a state funded university. But he attended it, not because it was state funded but because it was in a city he wanted to live in while he went to college. He'd have gone to that state funded university even if it were private. (He spent six years working his way through that university for his bachelor's degree; he'd have had no problem spending eight years working his way through a private one). Moreover, he'd have had no problem taking out a market-priced student loan, spending fewer years working his way throught school and paying the loan off from money earned from his improved employment conditions. Juan happens to believe that without state funding inflating both the costs of a university education, as well as the grades awarded by universities, there could be more private universities. This increase in the number of universities, all competing for students, would drive down the cost of a university education. (It's a supply and demand kind of a thing. A liberal wouldn't understand.) Finally, as a believer in privately funded university education, as well as personal generosity, Juan is a member of his alma mater's alumni association and gives as generously as he is able to financially support his university.

Juan is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world. It's also a bit more expensive than it needs to be because it has features required by law he might not have wanted in the first place had he been asked. This, again, is because some meddling liberal fought for unreasonable car safety standards. As he drives out to his father's he remembers his great-grandfather's car that didn't even have seat belts because in those days, seat belts were optional; and his great-grandfather didn't think he needed them. Juan admits that he himself would have purchased them, but wonders what it would be like to live in a country where an adult is free to make such decisions for himself. What a country that would be.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the fourth generation to live in the house financed by three previous generations of capital accumulation--no inheritance taxes. The house didn't have electricity until Juan's dad was almost out of high school. It's true that some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification, which, naturally, cost the liberal nothing. The electric company ran the wires out there, but lost a lot of money because there were few customers: Juan's family and their neighbors didn't have shit that ran on electricity in the first @#$%ing place, and had no immediate plans to buy such things. But you can't expect your average, city-dwelling, big-government liberal to know shit about country living.

Juan is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father, who lives on a farm, remember, lives on the money his still-productive farm generates for the family. Yep. His dad and mom handled their money well, making sure, as well as they could, that they could take care of themselves so Juan wouldn't have to. Not that Juan would mind: he loves his parents. (He knows there are liberals who think he shouldn't have to take care of his parents, but he doesn't care what they think. These are not their parents!) And it's a good thing his parents were smart with their money, too: Social Security don't pay squat. Who the @#$% can live off it? Certainly not Juan's parents.

Juan gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The liberal radio host keeps saying that liberals are good and conservatives are bad. (Libertarians are probably worse than bad.) He doesn't mention that the benevolence bestowed by liberals like himself cost them nothing or, at most, a pittance. He doesn't understand why conservatives aren't grateful.

Juan muses aloud: "First they take our money, then return a fraction of it in the form of things we didn't ask them for. Then they demand our gratitude and call us hypocrites for living the life they have forced upon us. What the hell are we supposed to do? Rip out the seat belts? They have made it illegal not to use them. For this, we are to be grateful? Cabrones."

P. S. -- Joe Republican, who in Juan's opinion is almost as much a statist as any liberal, can speak for himself.

*********************************************************************

"The Life of Joe Republican"
by Hector Cruz

[Or; "How a Liberal Does Ad Hominem, Specious and Tendentious all in Seven Hundred Words or Less"]



Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

[The President of the United States]shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.... ~ U. S. Constitution, Art. I, section 3.

Many people (including people on the right) are angry with the President for not issuing an Executive Order suspending enforcement of the Jones Act. Think of it: The President of the United States, constitutionally charged to see that the laws are faithfully executed, is to issue an order suspending the faithful execution of certain laws, as convenient.

Of course, the rationale is that this is an emergency of the sort which necessitates the suspension of this law, maybe others. Emergency -- that is the most common excuse used by tyrants to justify their excesses. One "emergency" after another; one suspension of law after another -- soon enough you have the Julio-Claudians and their successors running things.

It is odd that complaints come from the right, given their ire at the federal government's failure (or refusal) to enforce federal immigration law.

Supporters of this enforcement suspension cite the Bush Administration's suspension of it during the Katrina emergency. Robert Bluey explains a proffered distinction between the two events (here), such that Bush's suspension of the Act was justified, but Obama's would not be. But even if this distinction isn't valid, we are still talking about the suspended enforcement of law. Slow down and think that through. The President of the United States, because there is some crisis (you know, that thing which, according to Rham Immanuel, permits government to get away with things it otherwise could not), issues an Executive Order suspending enforcement of a law. While we're at it why not, if and when necessary, suspend enforcement of the Constitution, like Lincoln virtually did during the War to Prevent Southern Secession, or Wilson during World War I, or FDR during the crisis known as The Great Depression?

For the record: Like Senator McCain, I think the Jones Act should be repealed. (Wow. Something he and I agree upon. Who knew?) But so long as it remains in force, I'd prefer to see the POTUS exercise a habit of not picking and choosing which laws he shall faithfully execute and which laws he will not.

These people -- it's never satisfactory for them just to warn parents, and (HORRORS!) let parents decide whether to buy their children Happy Meals which include toys. Of course, they have warned parents; but parents (darn them!) insist on buying Happy Meals for their children. Since the parents won't stop buying, the only alternative is to make McDonald's stop selling the offending product, the product, that is, which offends the Center for Science in the Public Interest, not the parents.

It used to be that parents warned kids to run away from strangers offering candy, but companies have made an end run by laundering their perfidy through electronic media. Now kids absorb countless commercials touting premiums based on their favorite characters -- Shrek, Batman, Barbie, Beanie Babies, etc. -- and, surprise, surprise, ask their parents to take them to McDonald's. Consumer-marketing guru Adam Hanft said, "Happy Meals proved that you could actually 'brand' a meal and make children harass their parents for it."

The Federal Trade Commission has reported that fast-food companies--with McDonald's by far in the lead--spent $360 million in 2006 on toys to market children's meals. In the same year, fast food restaurants sold more than 1.2 billion children's meals with toys to children ages 12 and under, accounting for 20 percent of all child traffic at those restaurants. It should be no surprise that companies employ the practice--it works.

As one reads the article, one gets the impression that, for Jacobson and his ilk, the only market players involved are restaurants like McDonald's and children, where the children are the consumuers. The parents? Oh, those are the people who are "pestered" by the children into talking them to McDonald's and are, apparently, impotent in resisting this pestering. Some of us -- neanderthals, no doubt -- would say this marketing to children via toys works because -- and only because -- parents allow it to work. Jacobson knows better. It's McDonald's; and they've got to be stopped.

Granted "kids absorb countless commercials...and...ask their parents to take them to McDonald's" and that children can be motivated to harass their parents for a product. But the question remains: Who is in charge here? As Bill Cosby might say, "These are not your children!" (I can't tell you what my mother would tell Michael Jacobson.)

I recall the last time I attempted to pester my parents into something. I was about seven years old. Not only did I not get what I wanted, but my pestering was so aggressive I got something I most certainly did not want (but was told I asked for) -- and I got a lot of it!

The children may "pester" and "harass" but Mommy and Daddy are the push-overs who drive the little whiners to McDonald's. Mommy and Daddy are the ones who spend their hard-earned dollars on Crappy Meals. Why doesn't the Center for Science in the Public Interest sue the damn parents? I'll tell you why: McDonald's has more money.

Scumbags.

If a judge blocks a moratorium on off-shore drilling it presents a set of simple legal questions:

(1) Does the President of the United States have the Constitutional authority to stop off-shore drilling? (And, if so, in which article or amendment are we to look for this authority?)
(2) If the POTUS does have this authority, then under what circumstances is he legally authorized to do so?
(3) Do the circumstances under which the present moratorium was placed meet the Constitutional criteria?

Judge Martin Feldman has blocked the moratorium, asserting that it fails legal muster. Thus far the media are more concerned with Judge Feldman's oil holdings rather than the legal questions presented. In this article, Michael Kunzelman is pleased to inform us that "Feldman's financial disclosure report for 2008...shows holdings in at least eight petroleum companies or funds that invest in them, including Transocean, which owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig...." Kunzelman is kind enought to go on to report that it is not clear "whether Feldman still has any of the energy industry stocks."

I'm sure Kunzelman thinks he's a brilliant guy, but the fact is his sub silentio argument is that Feldman's argument is one he holds only because he probably owns oil stock. But this sort of reasoning, if it can be called reasoning, is logically fallacious. Specifically, it is called a Bulverism. It's the "You assert P because you are a Q" sort of argument, meaning, tacitly, of course, that P is false. Kunzelman writes nothing -- and I mean nothing -- about any legal argument the judge may have had. Pathetic.

Note: Judge Feldman's ruling simply "prohibits federal officials from enforcing the moratorium until a trial is held." A trial? What a travesty of justice! Oh! But wait! What's this?

No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....

I think that's in the Constitution somewhere. I could be wrong. But I'm not.

This moratorium constitutes the deprivation of the liberty of oil companies to engage in their business. Due process of law? A trial? With a jury sitting as finder of fact? Good heavens! What next? Rule of law?

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The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants. ~ Albert Camus

It is easy to believe the story that the purpose of the $20 billions in "escrow" taken from BP is to make sure that BP meets its liability. But this is due to ignorance. The fact is, BP is already in process of meeting its liabilities. Soon after the spill, BP announced that it would pay all justifiable claims resulting from the oil spill. It opened 25 claims offices. As of June 15, it had approved initial payments that amounted to $63 million, and was expected to rise to $85 million by the end of the week, to businesses claiming $5,000 or more in damages. So it wasn't that BP had merely said it would meet its obligations. It was already doing so when the shake-down occured. BP created its own fund, appointed its administrator, and determined staffing with a view to ensuring only qualified persons, businesses, and governments would be reimbursed for losses. There was no need for this action.

Then, of course, there is the law. No provision of either the U.S. Constitution or the U. S. Code authorizes the executive branch to take this sort of action. Even if an escrow account was needed, such accounts are supposed to be managed by the judiciary. Well, until now anyway, in the United States I used to know.

Someone commenting on this said this action was necessary in order "to make sure BP pays up front, since we know damn well they will try to use every trick in the book to funnel their wealth to their shareholders or executives when the check comes due for the incredibly expensive disaster they've inflicted on us."

This extra- constitutional, extra-legal action was necessary for our welfare. Never mind that there has been no trial. No finder of fact has found for any plaintiff, assessing BP's liability for anything. The executive branch, according to this commentator, must punish BP for a crime "we know damn well" they will commit.

Of course...



Thus, an oil spill is such a crisis as requires suspension of the rule of law.

The point of this "escrow" account isn't to make sure that people get their money. The point is to make sure they get it from Obama. Remember these ladies?



And this one?



When the time comes, the right people will remember that they got their money -- Obama money -- from Obama, not BP. That is priceless.

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This reminds me of something I was saying here. It may be that, as Eland puts it, "Tea Partiers are right-wing Obama-haters rather than liberty-lovers. And like their icon Sarah Palin, they seem proudly ignorant of history." But they probably can more easily be transformed into the sort of liberty lovers Eland and I would like than leftists can be.

I just finished listening to the oral arguments in the Citizens United case, something I've been wanting to get to for some time. One can't deny she knows the law. Of course, it's her view of the Constitution and its application that would be objectionable. But there were some disturbing elements in her arguments.

"The effects of false and pernicious propaganda cannot be neutralized except by a thorough training in the art of analyzing its techniques and seeing through its sophistries." ~ Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited"

The nomination of Elena Kagan reminds me of a recent column by E. J. Dionne, on what it is marxists -- I mean, liberals -- need to do in the fight over the Supreme Court.

He begins his Monday, 26 April 2010 column by writing:

The genius of American conservatives over the past 30 years has been their understanding that the most effective way to change the country is to change the terms of our political debate. On issue after issue, they have done just that.

Sensible regulation was cast as a dangerous quest for government control. Modest measures to alleviate poverty became schemes to lock the poor into "dependency." Advocates of social insurance were condemned as socialists. Government was said to be under the sway of a distant "them," even though in a democracy, government is the realm of "us." And attempts to achieve a bit more economic equality were pronounced as assaults on liberty.

Notice that regulations, which Dionne calls "sensible", are simply cast as a quest for government control, as if that regulation is sensible which Dionne and his ilk call sensible. Disagreement is not principled; it is simply framing.

The furor over Arizona entails belief that it is a crime to be in the United States, but not in any single state, illegally, as well as that enforcement of immigration laws requires racial profiling when performed by state agents but not federal agents. Right. We all know how ethically up-standing the unfederal government is.

Limbaugh thinks what bothers the Left about Arizona is the left's need of illegal voters. Perhaps. But there is something else for the Left to worry about. For perhaps the first time since the 19th century we have a state taking upon itself to enforce the terms of the U.S. Constitution, in response to federal malfeasance.

If illegal immigrants don't have to obey federal immigration law, why should U.S. citizens obey a federal law requiring the purchase of health care insurance? Oh. Yeah. The unfederal government will actually enforce the latter. That's right. I guess the real question is: Will the unfed object to states passing laws making it a crime for state citizens to disobey the law requiring the purchase of health care insurance, or will the unfed be glad for the help?

Frankly, I think it would be great if we had immigration policies even half as sensible as Mexico's, with all of which I entirely agree and support, by the way.

Yes, I read the bill.

as I was doing, below, and for which I was criticized by my old arch-nemesis, "Q":

Just as the role of the state has transformed science and deformed it, the role of the state has been to deform education and learning. Compulsion and public tax support are the common destructive elements. The right-wing or tax-supported approach — the current matter of government aid to Lockheed, which developed from government contracts, is instructive — with its twin of compulsion must be confronted.

School has become the world religion of a modernized proletariat, and makes futile promises of salvation to the poor of the technological age. The nation state has adopted it, drafting all citizens into a graded curriculum leading to sequential diplomas not unlike the initiation rituals and hieratic promotions of former times. The modern state has assumed the duty of enforcing the judgment of its educators through well-meant truant officers and job requirements, much as did the Spanish kings who enforced the judgments of their theologians through the conquistadors and the Inquisition. Two centuries ago the United States led the world in a movement to disestablish the monopoly of a single church. Now we need the constitutional disestablishment of the monopoly of the school, and thereby of a system which legally combines prejudice with discrimination. The first article of a bill of rights for a modern, humanist society would correspond to the First Amendment to the US Constitution: "The state shall make no law with respect to the establishment of education." ~ Leonard P. Liggio, reviewing Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, here.

Clearly, Liggion and Illich are dominated by their prejudices and religions indoctrinations.

Razing the Servile State V

Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is the lord of his own farm, and can do anything he wants, raise anything any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants? ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

We are one in the State

Another of the dogmas of our servile state is that there is a thing called "society", which is superior to individuals and even has a collective mind of its own. "We", as a society, are more important than "I". Moreover, "we" and "I" are related such that, in some significant ways, something "I" have is something "we" have. The servile state needs us to think in terms of "we" because it needs us to believe that all of the significant things in life are accomplished, by this "society", seeking its collective good through the state, not by individuals seeking personal satisfaction or self-interest. (That would be almost immoral!) The servile state needs us to think like this, otherwise the justification for much that it does evaporates. For example, "I" have a duty to the poor; so do you. Clearly, "we" have a duty to the poor, unless you want to argue that no one has a duty to the poor. (The State -- the march of God upon earth -- never exactly informs us how we come to have these duties. Its prophets tell us we have these duties and that shirking these duties would put us, heaven forbid, on the wrong side of history. But I digress).

That "we" have a duty to the poor is to say "society" has a duty to the poor -- "its" poor. The poor are "ours" to do something about. "We", the argument generally goes, can really only fulfill our obligation to "our" poor by government action. To take care of "our" poor most efficiently, the state must be "our" agent. Only by mean of the state can "society" do its duty to its poor. Otherwise, provision for our poor will be chaotic, anarchic -- you doing one thing for some of the poor, me doing another thing for others of the poor. (And, worse, some of us doing nothing.) There are those whom we as individuals cannot reach; or those who cannot avail themselves of the provisions you and I make. What is to happen to them? The only way "we" can fulfill "our" obligation to the poor is by government programs: government, with it's virtually unlimited resources, can reach into places we, as individuals, cannot and provide a safety net.

Of course, if you and I ("we") have this duty, then, arguably, so does everyone else, even if they don't recognize such a duty. This points to another superiority in having "our" duty to the poor fulfilled by government: some people are obviously not (unlike you and I) employing their (personal) means to fulfill their duties to the poor. Since government exists to make sure we all perform our all of our obligations (right?) it makes perfect sense that government should employ tax law to ensure that these people also perform their duties. If the State is not doing it, then "we" are not doing it. This sad state of affairs cannot be permitted to exist. By means of state power, then, even those who recognize no duty to the poor can be made to do their duty. (Never mind that they don't think they have this duty. "We" know better. "We" know which is the right side of history.)

Yours, mine, and ours

All of this sort of thinking is true for any other problems "we", as a "society", may have: homelessness, drop-out rates, the high costs of university education, health care, even obesity. "We" have a duty in these matters; and government is rightly employed as "our" agent in doing "our" duty. "We" must do something about "our" obesity problem, like appoint an Obesity Task Force. It's for "our" children, after all. Now, you might think it's not "our" obesity problem. The only people who have an obesity problem are the obese, those specific individuals who happen to be obese; and it's their problem. Their obesity can be a problem for "us" only if "we" have a property interest in their persons. Formerly, the assertion by one person of property rights in another person was called slavery. And that used to be bad. Now, it's not called slavery, so long as the ownership of each of us is by all of us, instead of by any one of us. I cannot own another person, but "we" can. (Note, however, that this mutual ownership does not extend to the womb: "we" still cannot prohibit a woman killing her unborn child. It also does not extend to our sexual organs: "we" cannot prohibit pre- or extra-marital sexual relations, certainly not homosexual relations. Unless, perhaps, the state, which soon may be paying our health care bills, decides that it's in "our" best, collective, interest to prohibit certain sexual acts between certain sorts of people. I don't say which sorts of people, but don't worry, it's for our collective good. But I have digressed.)

You would, of course, be wrong to think that obesity is a problem only for the obese. Why? Because "we" know better. And "we" can't let you get away with thinking like that: it's selfish. Besides, if this notion, that what I have and what you have is something that "we" have, were rejected, much that government presently does would also have to be rejected. If "we" do not have a duty such that government is "our" agent in fulfilling "our" duty, then government acts improperly -- immorally -- in taking resources from us (individually) without our (individual) consent. (Our collective consent matters only if our property is collective.) Government simply becomes the means whereby those who control it do as it pleases them to do, with other peoples' resources, calling those resources "our resources".

All this talk of "we" reminds me of the answer my parents used to give when I asked, "How much money do we have?"

"We," they always told me, "have no money. Your mother and I have some money. You have whatever you've saved of your allowance. But we have no money."

No "I" in Team

We have the same problem when it comes to the decisions that "we" make. These decisions always assume that the resources involved are "ours". "We" have enough money. There is no reason why "we" cannot provide for universal health care coverage. There is no reason why "we" cannot educate "our" children the way other nations educate "their" children, no reason, in fact, why "we" cannot give all of "our" children the same education. "We" must work together. What very few of us seem to understand is that we have no money; we have no children to educate. (If you and I have children then you must be my wife -- or a previous girlfriend.)

Furthermore, on the subject of the decisions that "we" make, this notion that "we" (for all practical purposes) have all things in common means that public is superior to private. We get a hint of this notion from the rejection of the claim that the market can and will police and regulate itself, as well as that there is no problem with a public option health care plan making end-of-life decisions because, as His Beatitude Himself has said, "Those decisions are being made now" (i.e., privately, which is bad). "We" can only dispose of "our" resources publicly. That which is public is for selfless purposes, and is for people, while that which is private is for self-interest, and is for profit. So long as the notion that public is superior to private persists, the servile state is here to stay. And this notion rests in turn on the notion that "we" are more important than "I"; the individual doesn't matter. You can really only believe that public is superior to private if you don't think very highly of the individual. As Political Officer Putin said in "The Hunt for Red October", "Privacy...is often contrary to the public collective good." The public sector serves the collective good, all that is good for all people in the community, not just some of the people. That sounds reasonable, until you realize that, in fact, what is good for all people in a given community is really decided by just some of the people, a handful of individuals, in a given community. On a national scale it's even worse: You simply cannot have a 300 million member community. You can say you have it; but you don't. And, of course, as long as the people you're controlling think a 300 million member community is possible you'll continue to be able to control them. (You'll need to make sure no one is able -- allowed -- to change their minds. But how could you possibly do that?)

In pursuit of "our" common destiny, we are often told that "we" are in "this" together. Being in this together, whatever "this" is, justifies collective action. Because "we" are all in "this" together we can't permit an individual to say, "I'm not in 'this' with you." And we must each pay our fair share. This justifies not only the income taxes we pay, but the government's possession of so much knowledge of our sources of income (and our expenditures) as to be able to ascertain whether we each are paying our fair share. Of course, in the same way that only a fraction of us decide what "our" collective good is, a fraction of us also decide what this "fair" share is. Apparently, "we" think one's "fair" share increases as one's income does. But what is the "this" in which "we" all are in? We should really know, because whatever "this" is, it means we're all living the same shared life, pursuing the same shared goal in accordance with the same shared plan, or that we should be. We must be mobilized like an army; anything we do, we must all do, even if some of us don't want to do. And anyone who objects is a traitor.

Strange Bed-fellows

This vision of unity has had some interesting supporters over the years. And they haven't been fans of liberty. "Unity" -- as used by this type, is the motto of empire-builders. This is especially true of empire-builders who like democracy; it provides a patina of legitimacy: the people ("we") have spoken, so we have the consent of the governed. Unity is more important than liberty, which is, in fact a threat to our unity.

France once consisted of a multitude of provinces; and most Frenchmen thought of themselves as citizens of their respective provinces, not as citizens of a nation-state called France, a republic, "one and indivisible" (sound familiar?). France, to these people, was little more than a region of Europe, a relatively loose band of independent provinces. It was not a single entity. The declaration of the existence of this artificial man known as The French Nation, or The Republic of France, meant the demolition of all those smaller units, the provinces. (And this, whether the people in those provinces wanted this demolition or not.) Even during the monarchy, France was still a highly decentralized region. In 1789 there were 80 provinces, each with its own laws, its own customs, its own political traditions, its own history of resistance. The frenchman's sense of nationality, to the extent that he had one, was tied to the specific province in which he lived. As late as 1871 a study revealed that two-thirds of French public school children did not identify France as their nation, but instead named Alsace, Aquitaine, or Normandy as their nation! Few of them spoke the language which the government had designated as French. To create what we now know as France, those who wanted to create it had to flatten out all these regions, all their unique laws, all their unique customs, all their unique political traditions, all their languages. In short, for the sake of this France, the liberties of these people to think had to be flattened -- the liberty to think of themselves as Alsacian, or Aquitainian, or Norman had to be stamped out. They were going to be Frenchmen, and think of themselves as such, whether they wanted to or not.

The present state of affairs -- "unity" -- did not merely happen, and not just in France. It was through a concerted effort, from the top, down, by people who always know better than the ignorant masses. They know what the ideal sort of nation is. They also know that everyone should want this ideal nation to be realized. On 7 September 1789, Emmanuel Sieyes said, in the Constituent Assembly, "France must not be an assemblage of small nations, each with its own democratic government. She is not a collection of states. She is a single whole, made up of integral parts. These parts must not have each a complete existence of its own. For they are not wholes, joined in a mere federation, but parts forming a single whole.... Everything is lost once we consent to regard the established municipalities, the districts, or the provinces as so many republics joined together only for the purposes of defense and common protection." (Quoted by Donald Livingston, here.) The only adequate response to people like Sieyes is, "Oh, yeah? Says who?" Really, who says France must not be an assemblage of small nations? And on what authority? We are not told.

The same thing happened in Germany. What we now know as Germany was an agglomeration of independent smaller kingdoms, principalities and city-states. Even during the period of the so-called Holy Roman Empire, this was true. The Emperor's power was severely restricted and the territories of the empire were ruled by the kings, princes, dukes and even bishops or abbots of the member-territories of the Empire. The Emperor at no time could simply issue decrees or govern autonomously. In the empire's final years, his few powers were restricted by the Peace of Westphalia, which required him to submit to all decisions of the Reichstag. From 1648 until the Napoleonic wars, Germany consisted of some 234 countries, 51 free cities, and about 1,500 independent knightly manors. Of this multitude of independent political units, only Austria counted as a great power, and only Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Hannover could be considered major political players. This remained the case until the process of unification began, in the 19th century, by Napoleon, who created the Confederation of the Rhine, and was completed under Bismark, who also created the Prussian welfare state, noting how, in Napoleon III's France, people who looked forward to government pensions were much more amenable to increasing government regulation of their daily affairs, having been bound to the state through "chains of gratitude", as one of Bismark's advisors reportedly put it.

The names associated with this idea of unification should alert us: Sieyes, Napoleon, Bismark, Hitler (well, it's true), and Marx; and let's add Hamilton, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Herbert Hoover and, certainly, FDR. These are not friends of liberty.

What these all have in common when you think about it is a denial of the notion, expressed in The Declaration of Independence, of the consent of the governed. Sieyes and his ilk gave no attention to the question whether the people living in those small nations with their own democratic governments and traditions wanted to live in integral parts of his "single whole". They did not matter. Consent of the governed? Pish-posh. Sieyes knew what France should be. Bismark and his ilk knew what Germany should be. Hamilton and his ilk knew what the United States should be. As I said, those who love this vision of unity are not lovers of liberty. They do not permit you to think of yourself in terms that satisfy you. Here, in the United Servile States of America, one should not, indeed one dare not, think of himself first as a Texan (or a Californian, or Alabamian) and then an American. (Of course, this is not as objectionable as thinking of oneself as a Christian, or a Muslim, first and then an American.) One must always think of himself as an American first. And, as an American first, one cannot really even think of himself as an individual. An American is, first of all, a subject of the government seated in Washington.

"But James," someone will say, "what about co-operation? We need to co-operate with each other. This go-it-alone, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps mentality is what got us into our current economic mess." But the fact is, there is little point in encouraging co-operation. We are co-operating -- whether we want to or not. There is as much need in extolling to us the virtues of co-operation as there is in remonstrating with a team of horses on their need to co-operate with each other. A team of horses co-operate because they have no choice but to do so: they've been hitched up and their efforts are co-ordinated (dictated) by The Driver. All of "us" are co-operating in saving the planet, even if some of "us" don't think it really needs saving (or, at least, not in the way "we" are going to do it). All of "us" are co-operating in saving companies deemed "too big to fail", even if some of "us" think they should fail. All of "us" are paying for the public education of "our" children, even though some of us are also paying (or have already paid) for the private education of our own children. Oh, we're co-operating. Some of "us" just don't realize how much -- and how little -- choice "we" have in the matter.

Part VI

(Razing the Servile State IV)

[T]here is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But...I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose.... ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Habit is the most shameful disease because it makes us accept any misfortune, any pain, any death. Through habit we live with odious people, we learn to bear chains, to submit to injustices, to suffer; we resign ourselves to sorrow, to solitude, to everything. Habit is the most merciless poison because it enters us slowly, silently, grows little by little, nourished on our unawareness, and when we discover we have it in us, our every fiber has adjusted to it, our every action is conditioned by it, there is no medicine in existence then that can cure us. ~ Orianna Fallaci, A Man

In this posting I mentioned a certain paradox involved in one of the dogmas underlying our own United Servile States of America, the dogma that the state is owed virtually unquestioned obedience, and to some extent, even a modicum of adoration, by its subjects. (And, if not the State, then, at least to some, the Head of State.) It's a paradox because this union of free and independent states owes its existence to the fact that the founders dared first to question and then to deny obedience to the British Crown. What I mean by "virtually unquestioned obedience" is that one may question, one may challenge, but in the end, after the questions and the challenges, one should obey. This mentality, if accepted by the Founders (excuse me, the so-called Founders), would have had the Boston Tea Party and similar acts, but never, ever, The Declaration of Independence. And certainly there would have been no war to pursue the ends set forth in the Declaration. The colonists questioned and challenged. But eventually, they also refused to obey. Big time. And what they refused to obey was an increasingly extra-constitutional government. A king who did not have to obey the laws was not worthy to receive obedience from his subjects.

Why did the Revolution come? (Actually, it was a secession, but never mind that just now.) Was it just a matter of high taxes? Did they just wake up and say, "We don't need this King business anymore"? The Revolution can be difficult to understand, because we just really don't understand the legal grounds set forth in the Declaration. The Declaration was much more than a bitch list; it was a list of charges and specifications. It was an indictment. The Declaration of Independence accused King George of violating the law of the land; he, the one whose office it was to enforce the laws had violated the most basic and important of those laws: the British constitution. The King of England may very well have desired to execute the revolutionaries as rebels, but that would have been an instance of the pot calling the kettle black. It was his own violation of the law, the argument in the Declaration goes, which effectively severed the ties between him and his subjects in the colonies. Having broken that law himself -- repeatedly -- he had no business insisting upon obedience. Furthermore, his own unlawful acts were acts of war against the colonies, making him the enemy of the colonies. (They may have been unduly influenced by Rutherford's Lex Rex.)

The Old Patriotism

The old patriots were a vastly different breed of men. Among other things, they would occasionally tar and feather tax collectors and customs officers. They objected to most of the laws they lived under because they objected to the idea of "virtual" representation, preferring direct representation, by which they meant that the British parliament should be composed of members of each of the geographical areas in which the British subjects lived. The Government, however, accepted the notion that Parliament conducted business for the entire empire. This difference of opinion is what raised the matter of taxation without representation, as well as that of the consent of the governed, both of which notions go back to Magna Charta.

The Old Patriotism was a patriotism of resistance to authority exercised extra-constitutionally. That's an important point: the Founders didn't have a problem with authority per se, but with authority exercised extra-constitutionally, especially when it came to taxes. This is the import of the clause in the Declaration that King George III had "combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation." In referring to our constitution they were not speaking of the Constitution of the United States (it didn't exist); they were speaking of the British constitution, even referring to "our British brethren." The Old Patriotism didn't die right away after the Revolution. Thomas Jefferson actually received death threats -- in writing -- while in office. One anonymous writer wrote: "Thomas Jefferson. You are the damdest fool that God put life into. God **** you." (Try that today!) I don't think President Jefferson sent anyone after these people. Death threats and cursing with eternal damnation -- try that today. Heck, let a man exercise his constitutional right to bear arms, even at a venue attended by the President and the pusillanimous patriots on the left will be all up in arms over it, so to speak. (My own dear mother fears for me referring to President Obama as "His Beatitude" or "His Humptiness", wondering how long I'll get away with it. Get away with it -- my how times have changed. At least I haven't called him the "damdest fool that God put life into" -- not that I would.)

The New Patriotism

By contrast, we should say that the New Patriotism (a patriotism which comes in Left and Right varieties) is a patriotism of acquiescence, even in the face of "a long train of [extra-constitutional] abuses" beginning, arguably, with the causes of the War for Southern Independence. (Some would have it that alone demonstrates a lack of patriotism on my part.) King George III should have been so lucky as to rule over a people as acquiescent as we have become. Let some officeholder engage in an extra-constitutional act (wage and price freezes, gold seizures, discarding of states' rights, telling us which light bulbs we may install in our own homes, which cars we may buy, how fuel-efficient they must be, whether property-owners may decide whether to permit smoking on their property, etc) and we'll whine, moan, groan, gripe and complain. But, in the end, while it does not go on unnoticed, it does go on unchallenged. The Old Patriotism meant loving your country and your countrymen enough to hold rulers accountable to the laws. A ruler who would not himself obey the laws was the very definition of a tyrant, regardless the level of his benevolence. The New Patriotism (should we call it "Yankee Patriotism"?) means loving your country so much as to accept any number of violations of the law of the land, rather than invoke "consent of the governed" and dissolve the political bands which would bind people to such government. And that (i.e., this "new" patriotism) put an end to any effective challenge to law-breaking officeholders.

For the left, the new patriotism means subordinating oneself to the state when the state is pursuing leftist goals. So, if this be the case then true patriotism is to pay one's taxes. To be a tax resistor, like, say, one of the founders, is to be unpatriotic. Paying ones taxes, even to a government which acts as extra-constitutionally as good old King George, is a most holy, patriotic service. To criticize a President for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize amounts to siding with the nation's enemies. For the left, despite their "Founders" talk, the Founders were actually as nutty as those anti-government American Patriot Movement types. For the left, who secretly love strong arm leadership tactics (except when it serves what they mistakenly call free market capitalism, but is really state capitalism, or Crony Capitalism), King George must really be a secret hero of theirs. Sort of the antithesis of the homophobe who is really a latent homosexual, the left, for all their talk of loving liberty, really love tyranny. And patriotism is service to their tyrannical (but benevolent) aspirations.

For the right, the new patriotism means subordinating oneself to the state when the state is pursuing rightist goals, what they (also mistakenly) call free market capitalism. So if the state declares war, and cannot fill the ranks of the military with volunteers (unpatriotic bastards!) and there is a draft, patriotism means submitting to this forced labor arrangement, doing your patriotic duty. Accept the fact that your country has eminent domain over your very body, as well as your land.

The New Patriotism is Statism. How else to explain the fondness for Abraham Lincoln one finds among both Rightists and Leftists. One can find the likes of Christopher Hitchens to defend Lincoln's extra-constitutional abuses on the grounds that the Constitution was for the Union, and during the Civil War there was no Union. (You see, the states which did not secede counted for nothing, except during presidential elections, and for tax purposes, but not for civil rights. Sorry.) Even the freedom loving Rush Limbaugh can be counted on, virtually every Presidents Day, to sing Lincoln's praises: "Golly gee, folks, he saved the Union. If it weren't for Abraham Lincoln, the United States would be two separate countries." It is almost as if the life of anyone in any of those states remaining in the Union could possibly have been adversely affected by those states which departed the union. Somehow or another, each of us has some sort of property stake in each of the states and we're being robbed, or worse, if a state, or twenty, leaves the union. A union one can never leave isn't a union: it's a collective, you know, like the former Union of Soviet Swallowed Republics. Of course, Limbaugh, along with Whigs such as Lincoln, is enamored of our super-power status. I guess that's his real problem: two "American" countries means no super-power status for one "American" country. (I know: my lack of patriotism is showing. But I prefer freedom to super-power status.) Can you imagine if the American Revolution had failed? Brits the world over would be saying of King George III things like, "By Jove, if not for that eminent and blessed monarch -- a statesman and a scholar if ever there was one -- the British Empire would be fifty or more separate countries scattered hicklty picklty about the globe like toys in a nursery! In short, we'd have a ghastly mess!"

Implications of The New Patriotism

The New Patriotism, requiring a certain subordination of oneself to the interests of one's country ("Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.") presents a problem. It also hints at a solution to the problem. In a sense, if one's country is something more significant than the geographical location in which one resides, however it may be governed, then one's country is an abstraction. It is difficult to serve or revere an abstraction. An abstraction really cannot command loyalty very well. But persons can do. This is why it never fails that the notion of subordination to the state leads to acceptance of a single person as autocratic dictator, that one who, somehow, is the very embodiment of the nation ("Hitler is Germany and Germany is Hitler").

It's easy if the leader has acquired a claim on that loyalty. We have to a certain extent come to that state of affairs. As Anne Davies recently expressed it, "Most Americans revere the presidency even if they take issue with the office holder." It's debatable when this began, maybe with Lincoln, maybe before. I don't know; and I don't really care. Certainly, FDR achieved some personal reverence, what with people having little icon corners in their homes devoted to him, or to his memory. As far as my grandmother was concerned FDR had personally saved my great-grandfather's life. (And this was odd because that man is one of those who tried, ultimately successfully, to teach me to distrust government and its motives. I always got the idea that (1) he denied the idea that FDR saved his life and (2) even if FDR had saved his life the price was too high. He always told me to get all the education and training I could because those are the only things "they" can't take from you. He never said so, but I always had the impression that "they" meant "the government".) We have seen some of this on the part of both Right and Left in this country. On the Right there was the notion that opposition to President Bush (especially as regards the war in Iraq) evinced a certain lack of patriotism. Recently the Left have equated Rush Limbaugh's desire that His Beatitude fail with a desire that the country itself fail. In both cases the President is treated as a sort of elected Fisher King, opposition to him is opposition to the country itself. To wish ill upon him is to wish ill upon the country.

It is this sort of reverence for either one's country (as an abstraction), or for the head of the government (or of the state) that makes the state servile. Servility requires reverence: there is no servility without reverence; and if there is no reverence, servility is impossible. Hence, the paradox of life in the land of the free: our obedience to an ever-increasingly extra-constitutional, authoritarian state is -- ready yourself for it -- entirely voluntary. Our political ancestors tarred and feathered that law-breaking King George's bureaucrats, and we mouth off about respecting the office if not the man. We are, now, law abiding people, even if our leaders aren't. Extra-constitutional acts still bother us, but not as much as it bothered our ancestors. Barbarians -- the sort of people who today would probably tar and feather anyone attempting to enforce anti-smoking regulations in private establishments. This is the result of a slow-growing habit, a habit of deference and reverence -- if not for the office-holder then for the office. The servile state relies upon this for much of its power; it relies upon public opinion, specifically, among other things, that the reverence and deference -- the respect -- accorded these individuals is a necessity. But is it? If we started talking to, and about, these people as if they really were servants, as if they really did work for us, and not the other way around, what would happen? It would be a form of tyrannicide. Razing the servile state doesn't require any bloodshed, certainly no assassinations (those are usually counter-productive in the extreme). Razing the servile state requires a shift in opinion of what constitutes patriotism. If one want's to sing of one's country as the land of the free and the home of the brave, then one should act like he loves liberty, for himself and his countrymen. Rather, we are told, that love of country is best expressed by paying ever-higher taxes to provide for the needs of one's countrymen: housing, education, healthcare, whatever they need. The Old Patriotism is the patriotism of the Founders, lovers of both the First and the Second Amendment. It was the Old Patriotism that threw off the chains of that law-breaking monarch. The New Patriotism is a patriotism fit for serfs, a patriotism that works only for the ruling class, whether they are the Crony-Capitalists of the Right or the Crypto-Socialists of the Left. They need your (new) patriotism; they need your love and your obedience. But they'll settle for your obedience.

Oh, question and challenge as much as you want, so long as you obey. That's the New Patriotism. And the alternative, they say, is anarchy and chaos. Oh, the phantom menace of it all!

Part V