Greg Miller – American Expat Chiang Mai
Many Americans look at the federal government as behaving like a criminal. The government seems to easily break laws, the foremost law of the United States being the US Constitution, which is often completely disregarded by the Executive Branch (and it’s many agencies) and the US Congress. For instance, can the President start a war with another nation? Not according to the supreme law of the United States, the same document the President swore to God and the World he would protect and defend. And every politician in Congress made the same solemn oath.
But “governments becoming criminal” is not just a recent development. It may seem that way as America currently bullies the world into submission, and conduct shakedowns of the American public without warrant or any just cause. We can look back to the era of the Second World War in Europe and see plenty of criminal activities from governments on all sides of that conflict. But it goes back much further than that — it goes back to the very establishment of Western governments a millennium ago. (But it is not just a “Western” thing, it is universal). Perhaps even earlier. It is the nature of the beast. Governments, unless stopped, morph into criminal enterprises.
In March 1939, Albert J. Nock wrote an intriguing article, “The Criminal State” for American Mercury, the bold literary magazine published my H.L. Mencken that is as pertinent today as it was then. “The fact is”, states Nock, “that the State’s criminality is nothing new and nothing to be wondered at…because the State is fundamentally an anti-social institution, fundamentally criminal.”
According to Nock, governments, “like all predatory or parasitic institutions, (has as) its first instinct that of self-preservation. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. For the sake of this it will, and regularly does, commit any crime which circumstances make expedient… It is ruining its own people in order to preserve itself, to enhance its own power … and extend its own authority.”
The weaker the State is, the less power it has to commit crime. Small weaker governments in nations like Denmark or Norway or Iceland and other similar “weaker” States with a small military and bureaucracies are less likely to be committing crimes against their own people or other nations. Yet when the peaceful Dutch State, for instance, was strong, its criminality was appalling; in Java it massacred 9000 people in one morning, which is considerably ahead of many of the criminal governments of today. The Nederlands would not do something similar to this today because it could not; the Dutch people do not give it that much power and would not stand for such conduct. What this all means is that if you do not want the government to act like a criminal, you must disarm it as you would a criminal. You must make it weak.
Back in this 1939 article, Nock wrote “The stronger the American State is allowed to grow, the higher its record of criminality will grow, according to its opportunities and temptations.” As we now have oppressive legislation in the US enforced by thugs in SWAT teams trampling on the former rights of American citizens and confiscating the meager earnings from the hard work that these citizens perform, Nock’s words of over 70 years ago have proven to be prophetic.
The great truth is that if you give the State power to do something FOR you, you give it an exact equivalent of power to do something TO you.
In the running up of potential political candidates for President earlier this year, only one candidate, Dr. Ron Paul, subscribed to this philosophy of keeping the government in check, without the power to act criminally to the American people and the world, to shrink the power of the government. But the US government is strong and controlling, and the elites that dictate to the government have control of most avenues of public persuasion. Dr. Paul was scoffed and ridiculed as a “fringe candidate” with zero chance of success. Those odds were given to him before he ever addressed the voting public on his positions.
Mass media gave him little or no air time. National debates were televised and the monitors seldom would even ask Dr. Paul a question. There was a strong criminal conspiracy (crimes committed by several groups in unison) to not allow Dr. Paul much of a forum to reach the people with his message. From the old out-of-touch ABC/CBS/NBC oligopoly, to the “new” cable news media like MSNBC, Fox, CNN to the hot and wild “conservative” talk radio shows, none would allow Dr. Paul’s message to be heard (with a very few notable exceptions). Polls were reported leaving Dr. Paul’s name completely off the reporting, even when he came in first or second place. In those few areas where he did have access to the public, like on the internet, Dr. Paul consistently scored substantially higher than all other candidates and even the criminal incumbent. This is a prime example where we as Americans failed to stop the criminal actions of our leaders. We failed in our duty as responsible citizens. We should have —- and we had the power to do so —- demand that we hear the voice of this candidate, and not allow others to decide for us. (And Yes, there were many that stood up, but not enough of us to make the necessary difference).
This tragic story of Dr. Paul’s candidacy is an example of the criminality of our government in action, controlling the actions of elitist corporations to help acquire more power. Dr. Paul was a hero in devoting such a big part of life to the effort of showing us how we have allowed the US government to evolve. But that’s just the beginning. Now we have to get off the couch and start demanding changes, and taking the power away from these criminals.
Stand and fight, or find a sanctuary, or maybe both.
A reproduction of the full March 1939 American Mercury Magazine article by Albert Nock, “The State of the Union: the criminality of the State”, is available at this Link.
And for the complete full edition of Albert Nock’s “Our Enemy, The State”, published in 1935, plus links to other works by Nock, visit this Link.
Greg Miller – American Expat Chiang Mai
Personally, I endorsed Ron Paul because he was the only candidate who would have removed both the IRS and the Federal Reserve. It is unfortunate that there is no party in the United States for his views. He is not appealing either to the continual war-state Republicans nor to the tax and spend Democrats, but he does have mass appeal among the in-between people, especially those who would prefer smaller government.
I am not sure that I buy the conspiracy view that Paul was basically shut out by the media. When a large portion of your own party thinks that you are kook, I really don’t think you have a chance to win a primary, even if you would have probably won the general election. I was a little surprised and not a little dismayed that neither the American Thinker (especially the blog editor, Rick Moran) nor Rush Limbaugh took Ron Paul seriously. This means that even among true “conservatives” (i.e., not the establishment Republicans) Ron Paul is viewed as a nutcase.
This makes it much easier to cut my ties with America, because the more libertarian and thus saner approach to government, has a great deal of difficulty finding expression in the current party system.
Very true, indeed Greg. I was thinking about this very same issue the other day. I almost made a comment about the US Black Ships that went to Japan with the ultamateum “Trade with us and give us preferential treatment, or we’ll blow you up.” In the US, this has been going on for a looooong time, and in most other countries as well when they can. This is why I seriously doubt that they will change.
/** This is why leaving the US changed my life. You don’t hear much about this with the propoganda blaring. When you look at the good-ole-USA from the outside -> in, you really start to see the way that you were brought up to be HONEST and giving with people, but the government is an opportunistic criminal. Real life isn’t like the Beaver Cleaver family **/
So to me, relinquishing US citizenship is just an insurance policy against the crazy rules they come up with (and to protect my family). I already pay my “fair share” here, so taxes aren’t and never were an issue or me. Just my 2 cents, take it for what it is, but I think anyone who intends to live permanently outside of the US and wants to keep US Citizenship has to be crazy. Things just keep getting worse.
Great article. Ron Paul was the only candidate that I actually liked. I hope that he, his son or someone similar tries next time again.
I have never been to the Nordic countries or to the Netherlands, and I don’t know much about their governments, but I suspect that they are not weak. The tax revenue in these countries is among the highest in the world, close to 50% of GDP:
Netherlands 39.8%
Iceland 40.4%
Finland 43.6%
Norway 43.6%
Sweden 47.9%
Denmark 49.0%
Most of western Europe is similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP (data compiled from the Heritage Foundation)
Mr. Shadow: I did use the term “weak” as the opposite of the ability for the government to maintain control and take actions that would be considered inappropriate (or illegal). The US spends roughly $711 Billion USD on their military, which is about 41% of all the military expenditures in the world. That makes the US pretty darn strong. The tax rate of nations does not particularly reflect a country’s strength or weakness in the way I was trying to describe it in my report. I believe little Belgium has the highest personal tax rates in the world, but they could hardly be described as a “strong” nation able to enforce their will against the wishes of their citizenry and other nations.
I believe that US voters do have an appetite for R Paul, but his message has been drowned out by those who conspire against him. I observed during one of the R debates that when he was passed over (by error or by purpose) in answering a question that every other candidate had the opportunity to answer, the audience stopped the proceedings and insisted that he be allowed to answer the question. They clearly liked the message he’d been giving up until then. Unfortunately I can’t remember where the debate took place.
@Mr. Miller, Great article ! Where did you learn this stuff, on NPR?
@bubblebustin:
“his message has been drowned out by those who conspire against him.”
Hmmm. Would NPR be one of those?
NOrway is not weak, if in the sense of the government having power. Parliament systems are not weak.
Sweden has voted directly on 2 items in the last 25 years—the Euro (no) and Nuclear Power (no).
Why The US Is So Attractive To Money Laundering Banks
After forcing stringent and costly AML laws on the rest of the world, now the US banks are the worlds money laundering center. By forcing these regulations on all offshore banks and allowing crony corruption in Washington the banks forced the rest of the world to obey laws that forced the flow of money to New York. Once the money has passed through a US bank, then it is considered clean to the rest of the world. Sanctified. Compliant. So all of the worlds dirty money goes through the US after it is created through illegal transactions. How hypocritical. How craven. How like FATCA. How American. But if we just change a few tax laws for expats, then everything will be hunky-dory.
To Confederate: definitely NOT NPR.
To Norway defender Mark Twain: You are missing the point of what is meant by weak or strong. While Norway has great strength in many ways, not the least of which is a good income, it does not have the strength to bully other nations into compliance to their rules under threat of a too powerful military. It does not have the strength to force Norwegians eat only certain foods, get medical treatment only in the way prescribed by the government, to subjugate them into illegal and invasive personal inspections as they travel about their own country and many other illegal an immoral actions that “strong” governments are able to do.
Greg, I liked the post and I understand it completely. I think this really boils down to human nature: the more you have, the more you want.
Nobody really talks much about Japanese atrocities during WWII– they are usually too busy complaining about someone making anologies with Nazi Germany — that they forget the MANY atrocities of the Japanese during the 1,2,3,4,5 or more conflicts with China and the rest of the world. (You can see a photo of an Australian officer that is about to be beheaded on Wikipedia. ) Shame on those people who want to make a noisy exit because of this…
So we can’t say that this is cultural, since East Asian cultures are very different from Western European cultures yet they exhibit similar behavior… so this isn’t cultural, it’s deeper;
Sorry people, I’m not *really* trying to dig up old dirt here, I promise, just trying to make a point.
I just hope that things HERE never get out of hand, nor in Canada, France, Great Britain, or Thailand, or Norway– anywhere where there are US PERSONS. We all already have enough on our plates to deal with. We don’t exactly need our host countries morphing into the US on us.