Can There Be Good Government?
It can crush innocent lives.
For the past four weeks I have blogged on a trial in which a teacher named Tonya Craft is charged with child molestation. It has become convincingly clear the charges are false. But government can crush innocent lives, as we saw in the rush to prosecute these kinds of cases 20 years ago, resulting in the conviction and imprisonment of many people. (Most of the convictions were overturned.)
No entity is better than government at destroying life and property. As R. J. Rummel pointed out in his book Death by Government, a person in the past century was twice as likely to die at the hands of a domestic government as be killed by a foreign one. This is a frightening number, since it tells us that for all of the talk that we need to protect ourselves from enemies outside our national borders, perhaps the greater enemy is among us.
I admit struggling with the whole concept of “good government.” Like most people, I am outraged when I see individuals being mistreated (at best) by government agents and tortured and killed (at worst) by the same. William N. Grigg, via articles and his blog, has exposed violent acts that police and others acting under cover of government protection carry out against people who did not warrant such treatment. We know what evil governments can do, yet something in us makes us believe that governments can be better. We want “good government” even while the government we see falls well beneath that standard.
In fact, we should wonder if the term “good government” is an oxymoron. If it is government, can it be good? Unfortunately, even that question is fraught with ambiguity, as the definition of “good” differs among so many people.
For example, all of the members of the political science department that I share office space with consider themselves “liberal Democrats,” and while I like all of them, their view of “good government” is a government that regulates every area of our lives. They see a “good government” as one that provides cradle-to-grave care and “protects” us from the “ravages of private enterprise.”
To them the “market” is an entity that oppresses others. They believe the Wall Street meltdown came about because government was not vigilant enough in preventing “market failure.” Thus they want government to have powers that potentially can control nearly every action we perform.
Yet at the same time, they openly deplore the reports of torture and brutality. They express admiration for my blogging on the trial, yet what I am doing is opposing the very State that they support. I don’t call this hypocrisy, for in their minds one kind of government is legitimate, while the other is not.
The problem, of course, is that government uses the same powers to do both sets of deeds. My friends admire the fact that government seizes money from some people and then gives it to others in the name of welfare, but are outraged when government takes someone’s home so Costco can build a new store. My friends believed it was fine for the U.S. military to bomb Serbia and kill civilians, but it is not good when government kills civilians in Iraq. In other words, political consideration of each government act determines their reaction to it.
Six years ago Randall Holcombe wrote a controversial paper titled, “Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable,” in which he acknowledged that government clearly could not be “good” in any libertarian sense, but that it will always be there. Our job, he said, is to be eternally vigilant and try, even if we are unsuccessful, to keep it limited. I have no idea if his thesis is correct, but I do concede that we live in a “second-best” world and government always will be with us.
However, existence does not make something good, nor can vigilance keep it contained. I live with the realization that government is not good, but at least I can speak my piece and let other people know.
Comment by The Old Crusader on 5 May 2010:
"a person in the past century was twice as likely to die at the hands of a domestic government as be killed by a foreign one"
I wonder if Rummel (or anybody) did the calculation of how much more likely one is to be murdered by a foreign or domestic government than by a common criminal? I'm sure that it is at least another factor of two.
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Comment by Scott on 5 May 2010:
By definition “government” means we are “governed by” some entity. Humans must resist being governed by anything or anybody to the point of insisting on NO government (anarchy). Yes, some minimal form of government is inevitable, but an obsessive push for no governmet would lead to the least government.
Comment by Lynn A-B on 5 May 2010:
Excellent analysis of the dilemma we face and the ethical questions we must always ask ourselves. Consistency and logical thought are work, but too important to neglect. Thank you for the thoughtful essay!
Comment by The Old Crusader on 5 May 2010:
"a person in the past century was twice as likely to die at the hands of a domestic government as be killed by a foreign one"
I wonder if Rummel (or anybody) did the calculation of how much more likely one is to be murdered by a foreign or domestic government than by a common criminal? I'm sure that it is at least another factor of two.
Comment by Eben on 5 May 2010:
A 48 yr old friend is in our local county jail for his 3rd DUI, one year incarcerated with NO EXCEPTIONS, served, and then he had thirty days limited work release time to find a job. 49 applications later, with no hiring, he still is on work release, but cannot leave the jail for the next 45 days, except to go to work. Is this a double negative? One government program has a bicycle and helmet ready for his proposed 8 mile ride for a 9 pm to 7 am job, (a new bike with mandatory 3, once a week safety course instructions, so that the entity cannot be sued for providing a defective bike).
So the botttom line is that parts of government really work (job hunting assistance in parrellel with VA assistance) while another part limits visits, a half hour 2x weekly, 7 pm Wednesday and 9 am Sunday. How inconvenient for a service oriented visitor of one adult and unlimited children.
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Comment by Miles Hayward-Ryan - NZ on 6 May 2010:
The more we separate the powers of government, the more likely government can be benign. Elections every several years are not enough limitations on government. There is a need to split government into parts. For a start,the functions of government which scrutinize other parts of government should be under a separate electoral system. That includes audit functions, legal scrutiny, ombudsman roles, and many similar functions. But once started, there is no reason to stop splitting functions away from single centralized control. Let there be many elected leaders of the differing functions.
Let there be a president of health. Then Obama will be relieved on that onus. Let there be a president of Welfare. Only by Separation of Powers can we get limited government which will become benign. The whole lobby system is based on absolute power being centralized.
Comment by Frank Clarke on 6 May 2010:
Above a certain size — I don’t know what that is — government is uncontrollable and turns on its creators like the Frankenstein monster. It attains some ‘critical mass’ and takes on a life of its own.
The only plausible form of government which might (might!) warrant being called ‘good’ is one in which every individual and every group has the unquestioned right to secede, taking their authority, their power, their funding, and their legitimacy with them.
Secession is the only mechanism which could function as the control rods which damp the runaway reactor.
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Comment by willienelso3 on 8 May 2010:
miles:
that’s an interesting, intriguing idea. Thank-you.
willie
Comment by Daniel Shapiro on 10 May 2010:
Nearly everyone lumps together government and state. Government is a social mechanism to protect life, liberty, and property as stated in the Declaration of Independence. The 1789 Constitution was an attempt to establish a political-state mechanism to provide government. However the means set forth in Constitution contradicts the end sought. What results is the following paradox: To protect your life, liberty, and property the political state must attack your property, erode your liberty, and endanger your life.
The only solution to this very real paradox is innovative free-enterprise, free-market based government which offers products and services which can be volutarily purchased to protect life, liberty, and property as each individual sees fit.
Pingback by The impossibly idealistic ‘liberal’ view of government « Clear Thinking on 13 February 2011:
[...] The Freeman Online, William Anderson tells of a university political science department made up of “liberal Democrats.” The [...]