“Realism requires we recognize that the ruling classes and the US government have no durable community and no internal integrity. The state is a pirate gang writ large. It is unified by criminal circumstance, functions by fear and tribute, and is surrounded by enemies who would see it stripped, drawn and quartered at first opportunity. It’s almost enough to make one pity the state and mourn the ruling classes!” — Karen Kwiatkowski
Writers who heap abuse on the government need to take a hint from Kwiatkowski’s remarks and cast a humanitarian glance at this governing body that nobody living asked for. Being one of those writers I’ve decided to look for praiseworthy qualities in the state rather than savage it as the devil incarnate.
This is one of those exercises I did in college. First, your English instructor asks you to write an essay advancing some idea you deeply believe in. After turning it in, he then hits you with a surprise assignment to write a detailed rebuttal of it. Flip-flopping like this is said to promote objectivity and avoid prejudice. Thus, here is my old college try at disparaging my state-bashing position that’s captured nicely in Kwiatkowski’s phrase about pirates.
States are run by educated people with great ambitions, who take risks and work hard competing with others in a no-holds-barred contest for control of the levers of power, meaning power over others, who often find themselves being trashed by the people they claim to represent. And I do mean trashed. What else would you call the euphemism “Let’s go, Brandon” — referring to the president, of all people — or to the enterprising critic of Hillary Clinton selling “Hillary for Prison” T-shirts and who describes the near-president as “a lying, manipulative, narcissistic woman who deserves nothing except to be put in jail for life”? Clearly, such comments are regurgitated emotion rather than objective thought.
It takes a person of great inner strength to withstand such slurs day in and day out, even if grounded in evidence. Most of us can’t imagine what it’s like being a member of an elite organization like the state where you’re surrounded by other beguilers with an eye on your back and a dagger in their hands. And the media? Rumor has it they’re under the state’s thumb, but in truth they’re looking for blood — “if it bleeds it leads” — and they’re always hungry for leading stories, as long as it doesn’t step on the wrong toes. Truth is not required; anything from a reliable scandalmonger will do. Could you sleep at night while being slammed with obscene barbs? Somehow our steadfast representatives do.
Imagine having to explain to journalist Peter Doocy in terms deplorables could understand why the government is funding a hustler like Volodymyr Zelenskyy against nuclear-powered Russia, while struggling to give the impression that the U.S. ship of state is steady as she goes, and that risking Nuclear Armageddon is rational foreign policy. The public, including Doocy, doesn’t understand all the behind-the-scenes arrangements that figure in any political decision. Yet making them common knowledge would weaken public confidence. Leaders lead, and no one wants to be led by unabashed rogues.
Since the state is designed not to produce wealth but to sequester it and then give some part of it away for support, it is challenged to explain why it lives in luxury while others struggle and fear for their future.
Here is where the state really shines. The state, to function as a guardian of our safety and rights, must absolutely control our forever free economy, and it achieves this in many ways. Pay attention. Its most important function is to define and enforce what people use for money. After a long war against difficult-to-produce gold and silver, it called the paper receipts for these metals money, then during an emergency did away with the metal behind the receipts. So now receipts are no longer receipts for anything except more receipts. And — here’s its crowning achievement — since the state through its subordinate the central bank manufactures the receipts, the door is wide open for the state to do everything possible for our safety and rights.
Give this some thought. The state was long ago handcuffed by hard money but found a way to break free of the restraints so it could expand for our benefit. It had to convince a lot of people that the freedom to print was necessary for their well-being, which included starting wars against countries suspected of threatening us. Why deny the state a few luxuries when it bears the terrible burden of our lives and well-being?
As for the idea that the state has gone from a protector to a threat, I ask: Says who? Their numbers are small, and they stand in defiance of what most people want. If a majority thought the state today was public enemy number one, why would they bother voting? Elections are a state exercise and never reduce its size. In fact, that’s why the state has adopted Modern Monetary Theory — print money to fund what’s good for us, and destroy with taxation that which isn’t. And the state can print to infinity.
With easily produced money the state needs to have a budget only to assuage public concern. Notice the anxiety it foments when its debt is about to hit the ceiling, which it does routinely. You and I have budgets because we don’t have a printing press. But the state has freed itself from that constraint, with the blessing of its economists.
Conclusion
When you’re forced to disdain truth and honesty as an unwritten condition of your employment, your inner child that knows better finds itself fighting with the mature adult that craves the rewards. Certain questions are never asked, and that’s not easy to do without drugs or distractions. If a state functionary is caught in something sordid, who can honestly blame him?
Clearly, the state is for people with an overwhelming propensity to arrange the lives of others, which renders most of us unqualified. But since the state is almost universally regarded as necessary, we should be thankful for its existence. Certainly, 159.6 million voters can’t be wrong.
