“The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism; there is no better way to stifle that criticism than to attack any isolated voice, any raiser of new doubts, as a profane violator of the wisdom of his ancestors.” – Anatomy of the State
In May 2023, the results of the John Durham investigation revealed the significant abuse of power by the FBI and other intelligence agencies in concocting a false investigation against both candidate and President Trump amid claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Deceptive allegations that were started by the Clinton campaign in 2016, were then spread by the left-wing media and even leaked by the intelligence community. Even former President Obama not only was briefed about the fraudulent actions but supported them. Durham’s conclusion suggested there was no evidence to justify the three-year investigation initiated by Democrats. This disinformation hoax was then followed by a second FBI interference in the 2020 election when 51 former intelligence operatives signed a letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian propaganda. A known lie used to assist Joe Biden in winning the election, and one more breach of credibility against the federal government.
In January 1776, the man dubbed “the Father of the American Revolution”, Thomas Paine, wrote the popular pamphlet, “Common Sense”, selling more than 500,000 copies. To advance the cause of the Revolution during the first year of the battle, Paine attacked the British monarchy as unnatural and out-of-touch with reality. Instead, he argued, it is the natural right of citizens to elect their own representatives. Even so, Paine knew the mistakes that people would make when equating society and the government. While society supplies our wants and needs, the government's sole purpose is to protect life, liberty, and property from the vices of man. The gulf between the two was obvious. As Paine so famously proclaimed: “Society in every state is a blessing but government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worse state, an intolerable one.”
Nearly 200 years later, in 1974, political theorist Murray Rothbard gave his own critique about the state of America in his essay, “Anatomy of the State”. Rothbard begins by revealing the true nature of government as an institution of coercion, once calling the state, “the organization of robbery systematized writ large”. Yet, to maintain its power, it must convince the people that it is the only game in town, by luring as many as possible into its web of influence. As a founder of the libertarian anarchist movement dubbed anarcho-capitalism, Rothbard also had a hand in the founding of both the Cato Institute and the Mises Institute, which advances individual freedom over government intervention.
As Rothbard so rightly implied, most Americans cannot fathom a society without a government of some form. As much as they distrust individual politicians and parties, the government is widely accepted as a given. Yet, while the government was designed as a servant of the people, it abandoned those principles long ago. Its monopoly on force is evident by its coercive practices, while its checks and balances have given way to mutual collaboration. The executive branch now regularly exceeds its power through unrestricted executive orders, while Congress cedes its own authority to the Administrative State. Even the judiciary has abandoned its charter, by legitimizing the expansion of government excess.
Rothbard noted that to survive and thrive, the State must continuously defend its legitimacy. Through a base of dependency, a group of captive citizens is perpetually supported by government largesse. This includes not only welfare but subsidies for a growing number of industries and causes. To maintain their power and prestige, people must believe government is good and necessary, and cannot be replaced with any other alternative. Then by creating fear of a crisis around every corner, people demand an expansion of the safety net. When they aren’t using fear, they are advancing patriotism by conditioning us to support the home team, even as the government is more concerned with its own survival than that of its citizens. No longer representing the people; the government, instead, increasingly represents the powerful.
Rothbard goes on to detail the hierarchy of social power over state power. While the former is the result of production and voluntary exchange available in the marketplace, with man transforming resources for the good of all, the latter is the coercive use of force and violence by the state, all paid for with money extracted from industry. The State competes with, rather than protects, the private sector by siphoning capital from productive sources, to give itself more power. Since production precedes plunder, the creation of wealth must naturally have come before the state, which has nothing except what it has taken from the people. As we have seen all too well, the more the state grows, the more society and its productive benefits wane.
One can only imagine the disbelief that Paine and the Founder would feel if they saw the state of the State today. The free and independent America that they envisioned has been coopted by over-taxation, the military-industrial complex, and political corruption. Paine said that government was a necessary evil because of the vices of men. But who controls the government, other than men with vices? Yet, under the state, restraints faced by the private sector are removed and then propped up by a monopoly on coercion, theft, and even institutionalized murder.
Interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections did not come from Russia, as both the Mueller and Durham reports now confirm. Interference instead came from the US intelligence communities to affect both outcomes. The great American experiment has failed as we merely replaced one devil (monarchy) with another (the state). Worse, we have then failed to curb its insatiable appetite.
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