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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Can There Be Good Government? For the past four weeks I have blogged on a trial in which a teacher named Tonya Craft is charged with child molestation. It has become convincingly clear the charges are false. But government can crush innocent lives, as we saw in the rush to prosecute these kinds of cases 20 years ago, resulting in the conviction and imprisonment of many people. (Most of the convictions were overturned.) No entity is better than government at destroying life and property. As R. J. Rummel pointed out in his book Death by Government, a person in the past century was twice as likely to die at the hands of a domestic government as be killed by a foreign one. This is a frightening number, since it tells us that for all of the talk that we need to protect ourselves from enemies outside our national borders, perhaps the greater enemy is among us. I admit struggling with the whole concept of “good government.” Like most people, I am outraged when I see individuals being mistreated (at best) by government agents and tortured and killed (at worst) by the same. William N. Grigg, via articles and his blog, has exposed violent acts that police and others acting under cover of government protection carry out against people who did not warrant such treatment. We know what evil governments can do, yet something in us makes us believe that governments can be better. We want “good government” even while the government we see falls well beneath that standard. In fact, we should wonder if the term “good government” is an oxymoron. If it is government, can it be good? Unfortunately, even that question is fraught with ambiguity, as the definition of “good” differs among so many people. For example, all of the members of the political science department that I share office space with consider themselves “liberal Democrats,” and while I like all of them, their view of “good government” is a government that regulates every area of our lives. They see a “good government” as one that provides cradle-to-grave care and “protects” us from the “ravages of private enterprise.” To them the “market” is an entity that oppresses others. They believe the Wall Street meltdown came about because government was not vigilant enough in preventing “market failure.” Thus they want government to have powers that potentially can control nearly every action we perform. Yet at the same time, they openly deplore the reports of torture and brutality. They express admiration for my blogging on the trial, yet what I am doing is opposing the very State that they support. I don’t call this hypocrisy, for in their minds one kind of government is legitimate, while the other is not. The problem, of course, is that government uses the same powers to do both sets of deeds. My friends admire the fact that government seizes money from some people and then gives it to others in the name of welfare, but are outraged when government takes someone’s home so Costco can build a new store. My friends believed it was fine for the U.S. military to bomb Serbia and kill civilians, but it is not good when government kills civilians in Iraq. In other words, political consideration of each government act determines their reaction to it. Six years ago Randall Holcombe wrote a controversial paper titled, “Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable,” in which he acknowledged that government clearly could not be “good” in any libertarian sense, but that it will always be there. Our job, he said, is to be eternally vigilant and try, even if we are unsuccessful, to keep it limited. I have no idea if his thesis is correct, but I do concede that we live in a “second-best” world and government always will be with us. However, existence does not make something good, nor can vigilance keep it contained. I live with the realization that government is not good, but at least I can speak my piece and let other people know.
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#1. To: F.A. Hayek Fan (#0)
(Edited)
When it was decided that the prosecutorial power would be limited to political officials such as a D.A. the people lost the ability to hold those in official capacity responsible for misdeeds. The average D.A. needs political support and has to operate his office with that in mind. Once upon a time a party (citizen) victimized criminally by the govt. through an agent or agency had the right to prosecute the offender. Couple this loss of prosecutorial power with loss to the jury system of knowledge that they have authority to nullify bad laws as a juror, and then add unqualified immunity claimed by defendant officials, there is little power remaining for the people to implement in order to maintain accountability of public officials. Most of these changes occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century, before we were born. As time passes public officials have become less fearful of the public and know if they tow the party line or promote the overall agenda, their crimes will go unprosecuted. Good government requires enforcement capacity in the hands of the people. Grand Juries are supposed to fulfill this need but the people are too stupid to make the necessary demands upon the system because they are ignorant of their rights.
That is an aspect of American history that I am unaware of but find very interesting. Do you of any links that discuss this? Couple this loss of prosecutorial power with loss to the jury system of knowledge that they have authority to nullify bad laws as a juror, It is amazing to me that the judicial branch has been able to get away with saying that there is no "no such thing as valid jury nullification" (U.S. v. Krzyske) and can even remove a juror if it is found out that they believe in jury nullification [U.S. v. Thomas No. 95-1337 (2nd Cir. 5-20-97)]. It is a travesty of justice.
www.constitution.org/uslaw /privpros.htm www.constitution.org/uslaw /pripro01.htm
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