Government

No man has ever seen a government. Even legislators, regulators, and tax collectors who live in the midst of government have never seen it. Yet most people treat it as a concrete entity which has real individual existence. They petition it, beseech it, idolize it, pay homage to it, and bow down to it. Millions of Americans go on sightseeing trips and make pilgrimages to its marble structures and temples.

Actually, government is no deity, no refuge and strength worthy of our adoration. It is an organization of people who watch over and control the affairs of other people. It is legislators, regulators, tax collectors, judges, and policemen. Although they call themselves officers of the government, they are the government. They give the signals of what shall be done and preside over the doing of it. They inspect, direct, seize, censure, command, assess, license, authorize, endorse, admonish, prevent, and correct.

It is difficult to find a moral foundation for the authority of these people over their fellow men. Surely, they may render important services by protecting man’s natural rights and guarding him against the wrongs of his fellow men.

But so do all other vocations and occupations; the producers of food, clothing, shelter, education, and transportation render highly beneficial services.

Throughout human history the Protectors of society have used their power to become the aristocrats and oligarchs, the rulers and tyrants. In free societies, according to Thomas Jefferson, “it is jealousy, and not confidence, which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power!”

It is unlikely that Thomas Jefferson would call our society “free.” The jealousy of the Founding Fathers has given way to an abiding faith in government passing out favors and largesse. Many legislators, regulators, and tax collectors now are preoccupied with benefits and entitlements, allotments and allocations, public works and personal perks. To them, all questions of state, all matters of right, merely are questions of power.

Political power always feeds on its spoils; it dies when its victims refuse to be despoiled.

Hans F. Sennholz