How much State do we need?

Starting roughly with Classical Liberalism concerned Americans have taken us to where we're teetering on full-blown socialism.  And so the question looms over us: should we or shouldn't we go all out for complete state rule? 

For those who fear we're about to become another Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea, perish the thought.  It can't happen here because we're Americans.  Our leaders and political candidates have only our best interests in mind.  Seriously contemplate for a moment the overwhelming success of the War on Drugs as an example of their concern.  See here and here if you need help. Or if you prefer something on the indisputable success of government schools try this essay by John Taylor Gatto, named New York City Teacher of the Year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991.  And who could argue with the claim that the government's foreign wars are creating a safe and prosperous world?  Let's not forget the forever solvency of the government's safety net programs, either.

Discussing a society in which coercion has no legal role has been out of the question, and for good reason.  Everyone knows anarchy is chaos, and we also know we have to entrust our lives and the lives of our children to powerful elites who understand our needs -- all 320 million of us.

Remember, we've been told since day one that under anarchy anything goes.  Your friendly neighbor becomes your mortal enemy.  We could rob, murder, and rape and get away with it.  The strong would crush the weak or enslave them.  Anarchy's the ultimate Robber Baron wet dream.  This is why a large part of us, but not a majority, continue to do the same thing over and over by casting their votes on Election Day to keep society from breaking down.

You could ask: Have we not suffered "a long train of abuses and usurpations" that "evinces a design to reduce [us] under absolute Despotism"?  Is it not "[our] right, [and] duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for [our] future security"?

Today that passage is bundled with right-wing paranoia.  More importantly, it was penned by a slave-owner.  A white male slave-owner at that.  Who listens to him?  (Some slaves did, a year later.) Free stuff is more important than freedom.  And so the cheers go up among the net takers of government largess. 

Sane conclusion: The only way to end government abuse permanently is to remove "government" from the chart permanently.  Be sure to check out the links and my recent articles for further information.

And by the way, Anarchism:  The political theory that a community is best organized by the voluntary cooperation of individuals, rather than by a government, which is regarded as being coercive by nature. [source]

One more by-the-way: American colonists won a war of secession against the most powerful nation on earth without an officially established government.  

George Ford Smith is the author of eight books, including The Flight of the Barbarous Relic, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution, and The Fall of Tyranny, the Rise of Liberty.  He is also a filmmaker whose latest work is a five-minute documentary about the Christmas Truce of 1914, A Christmas to Remember.