the nature of leviathan

one of my favorite people, michael munger, has an excellent article up entitled, intriguingly, "the thing itself" at the library of economics and liberty. he is dead-on with his exposition on the idea that the problem with government is, well, the government itself:

We are always tempted to reform government agencies, to fiddle with organization charts, creating new units and scrapping old ones. We hear the sirens' song: We could do good, things could be better. We simply need good government, good people, and sensible rules. Sure, we have problems now, but things could be good. The rules should be strong, yet flexible. Gravity should be reduced, and friction outlawed completely. (I never liked it, and I think a majority of people agree with me.)

Okay, the last two may seem silly, but they are no less likely than flexible rules or governments motivated by your peculiar and equally flexible conception of the good. If, as von Mises claimed, bureaucracy is the sine qua non of the territorially extensive state, then decrying bureaucracy's rigidity is wrong-headed. We can't make government more efficient, or more like business, because it insulates officials from such pressures by design.

this reminds me of a conversation i had the other day after watching busted, a great video by steve silverman's flex your rights, created to help you exert your constitutional protections against unlawful search-and-seizure (a must-see).

i have always wondered why we get so angry at cops enforcing the law. in the video, the "victims" were obviously upset at the cops when they were arrested for possessing illegal substances - and i got angry as well. however, it's important to remember that it is not enforcement of the law that is a problem; it’s the law itself. cops should be enforce the law always, and consistently – because, as mike points out, allowing for discretion “is a ticket on the train to tyranny” and allows the “representative of the state to indulge racism, or sadism, or blankism.”

there are two alternatives: we could have "blunt and mindlessly enforced" laws, or rely on a “mix of tolerance, common sense and private morality to deal with the fact that the world isn't quite the way we'd like it to be.” i prefer the latter.

read the whole thing here...

Labels: political