Rothbard and Hoppe have expounded on the Weberian definition of government as the territorial monopolist of law and security and shown how the very nature of what the government is leads to exactly the outcomes we have seen from governments through all history: plunder, murder, rape, torture, basically a Bosch painting just with real humans instead of skeletons and bird-headed demons eating people and shitting them back out.
Anyway, I think that we can extend this analysis of the essence of the State one step further and find its roots in human nature as the accepted moral double-standard. For whatever reason, people accept that there is and ought to be a double-standard between some individuals and others for certain categories of behavior. Without this exception to the general revulsion that humans have to double-standards, the State could not possibly exist. An entity which says, “You may not take from others by force but it is OK for us to take from others by force” could not possibly exist.
In my multi-dimensional travels through the World-Wide Web, I happened to stumble upon this little gem contrasting Saudi-Arabian censored images with the originals. It turns out that this is very common, read here. Now, the censorship in itself is a big yawn, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think human culture is losing a great deal of its canon if Mariah Carey’s sumptuous breasts get covered up or Katy Perry’s midriff gets scribbled out. But think about this quote from the second article: “What supreme sacrifices these noble men make for the sake of their fellow Saudi man!” In other words, to “sanitize” society, the Saudi government pays one group of men to sit around doing nothing but perusing such images. I think I would get a little perverted after awhile if that was my job, even if the pictures were not pornographic to begin with! Can you imagine the power-trip? And surely, those pages that get ripped out must be valuable contraband. And all this power comes from nothing more than bare shoulders and midriffs!
Of course, this is all to appease the masses that demand it. They want this double-standard, they want there to be specially designated men at the CPVPV (what an Orwellian name!) who do nothing but look at these “unholy” pictures and censor them. Of course, we have the same thing here, do we not? How many major cities have vice squads? What of the DEA? Or let’s get really politically incorrect… what about the child porn folks at the FBI and in the vice squads of police departments around the country? These people are such angels that they never resell this contraband on the side?? And note that, unlike drugs or prostitutes, photographs and videos don’t get used up so you can make copies without permanently removing them from evidence. And I’m supposed to believe that only angels work in these departments. The men who work there don’t power-trip on their special privileges just like the members of the CPVPV do. Yeah, right.
But, somehow, this is as it ought to be! Somehow, we’re all made better by the tax-paid nannies who keep the drugs, prostitutes and child porn off our streets and out of our homes. I’m not saying that decent society will not want to eradicate these things but the problem I have is with how we go about it. If you want to live in a world free of drugs, prostitutes and all the other vices of the world, then put your money where your mouth is and move to a gated community or become Amish or go somewhere where that’s what people are willing to band together and pay for. Do not impose your tolerance for a moral double-standard onto me and force me to pay for your government voyeurs, peeping Toms and kiddie-porn peddlers masquerading as police officers.
Clayton -