On the Effort to Push Back the State

I have a new article published today on Strike the Root, called Let’s Join Forces for Liberty, which discusses the impossibility of Ron Paul’s so-called Revolution:

As a former partyarch and political scientist I have been following the Ron Paul Revolution campaign closely – as closely as is possible on the Internet without actually participating. Even though I do not at all support party activism or political involvement, the extent of Paul’s grassroots support brings hope to the nation and the world. If so many support cutting back on government to a minimalist “core” doing only what the constitution explicitly allows, then there should be a chance for pushing the state back.

The problem is of course that pushing the state back isn’t realistic, at least not in the long term. The state will always find ways to increase its own power and thus to find new ways to oppress the slaves it calls “citizens” or “residents.” The latter are not, contrary to popular myth, the privileged majority included in the big family of the state. Rather, they are the ones forced to pay for their own oppression, which makes them true losers.

This means pushing back the state to its 1780s size doesn’t really help. Slaves will still be slaves and rulers will still be rulers, even though slaves don’t have to work as hard and rulers will be temporarily crippled or held at leash. A constitution offers no control, no matter how much we would like it to. The U.S. Constitution is a great example of this – the document calls for a minimalist government with clearly-formulated limited powers and a responsibility to honor people’s god-given rights. But it hasn’t stopped the government from expanding into a welfarist police state: imperialist America.

A constitution, after all, is but a piece of paper written by men.

Read all of it here.