OK, pretty much all of us agree that it is reasonable for the state to use force against citizens for clear agreed purposes.

But does that mean that it is OK for the state to say that all the state’s purposes, whatever they might be, are sufficiently important for force to be used against people who disagree, so that the state invariably gets its way by imposing its will?

Keith Williamson at NRO rightly sees this as a key moral issue:

The resort to violence is what makes the question of what kind of things it is legitimate for states to do an important moral concern.

It seems to me perfectly reasonable to shove a gun in somebody’s face to stop him murdering, raping, or robbing. It seems to me entirely unreasonable to shove a gun in somebody’s face to extort from him money to fund a project to get monkeys high on cocaine.

Those seem to me fairly reasonable distinctions. It is illegitimate for government to use force or the threat of force for projects that are not inherently public in character.

Warming to his theme he says this:

This is the sort of talk that gives the (always well informed, excruciatingly sober, generally sensible) folks at The Economist the howling fantods, inasmuch as they seem to operate under a kind of distributed version of the divine right of kings — always asking whether the rulers rule wisely, seldom asking whether they have the right to rule at all, and never asking whether and how much we actually need them. That’s why The Economist is the in-house newsletter of The Establishment.

This in fact is the key difference between democracy in the USA and democracy elsewhere.

Namely that Americans see democracy as having an identified and very specific source with accompanying moral authority:

America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Whereas eg in the UK we have a version of democracy which in effect is a hard-to-articulate deal between kings/lords who long ago amassed power by force of arms and the wider public. Our national loyalty expresses itself not as respect for ourselves as ‘sovereign’ but rather somewhat incoherently to The Queen as (I suppose) a symbol of ‘the nation’.

This is why politics in Europe generally are much more socialistic, in the sense of skewed towards the idea that for most purposes government derives its moral authority from itself – from merely existing (see the EU passim). Government over here did not spring from and express an  identifiable idea – rather it just evolved from centuries-old practice.

Listen to any media debate in Europe about some or other policy. It tends to focus on the need for ‘something to be done’ – almost invariably by ‘the government’. Rarely if ever is anyone heard to say that as a matter of principle the government should just keep its nose out – that ‘government’ a priori should be limited.

That sentiment by contrast is regularly heard on US radio/TV. People in the USA really do believe that they own the government, and that the government does not own them.

Which is why the Tea Party tendency in the USA is so important and welcome, but also hard to replicate elsewhere. It represents a mass expression of frustration that elected politicians on all sides (but above all Democrats) have been taking taxpayers for granted, bloating ‘government’ far beyond any reasonable or even controllable limit.

Not that translating Tea Party principles into action will be easy, or even possible, without a wider dramatic breakdown which compels everyone back towards first principles.

Why? Because whichever party is in power in the USA makes no difference. Government just grows and grows and grows:

As I noted in a recent National Review column on why Social Security reform has proved so difficult, shifting from a pay-as-you-go program to a funded system entails significant “transition costs,” which are borne by the very citizens who would decide to make the change.

Since today’s Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits are paid from today’s taxes, if we decide to pre-fund these programs then the current generation must pay twice: first for current beneficiaries, and second for their own benefits.

Put simply, to shift from an unfunded program to a funded program, someone must contribute extra funds. When the defining characteristic of domestic policy has been for voters to shift their own cost burdens to future generations, it is highly optimistic to expect current voters to accept a double burden. The expected result is to kick the can down the road, such that deficits grow and future taxpayers become even worse off.

Brilliant analysis by Andrew G Briggs.

Read it, then build a rocket and fly to Mars before the whole stupid business collapses under the weight of its own folly.