HOME

States are not per se obstacles to personal freedom

Most people in the US and Western Europe, and even in other parts of the world, consider states as obstacle to personal freedom. (Please note: the term “state” is used in its international sense, referring to the persistent organizational structure of a country and its government; not in its US meaning of a federal state.)

Modern states of the European / North American model require from their citizens an ever increasing level of conformity (even sexually), and to an ever increasing degree police their citizens so that indeed, they conform with the governments mandates for moral and legal conduct. Many people experience much of this as an unwanted limitation of their freedom.

States in earlier times made sporadic attempts to implement such conformity, but lacked the technology. Thus, in previous times, one could formally nod at the state mandates for legal and moral conduct, but when the state was out of sight, one could nevertheless go about one’s own business, undisturbed by the state.

This may sometimes have required a move to the periphery of a state, where it always was easier to evade state control, but it could be managed.

But modern states already have an unprecedented array of technological tools to watch over their citizens, and this array is growing at an ever faster pace. It won’t be long and states will not only be able to maintain genetic profiles of their citizens, but mental profiles as well.

They will start with brain scans of potential immigrants: who is a potential religious fanatic, who has a criminal mind, who will not play by the sexual rules of a society?

Once there will be some highly publicized child rape-murder case, they will apply the method for mass tests in order to advance their investigation.

Like everybody else, I am against the intrusion of the state into my private spheres. And like everybody else, I sometimes dream that everything would be better if states today were weaker, as they have been in earlier centuries.

Anarchists and libertarians even fantasize about doing away with states altogether.

But make no mistake. States are needed, and they should be sufficiently strong. States are needed to provide safety. Because without states, or with weak state structures, the vacuum will not persist long. Mafia-types or armed fanatics will sooner or later rule over neighborhoods.

Yes, mafia-types are not on record for implementing anti-male sexual norms. Feminazis typically have no say in their hierarchies. And the same applies to neighborhood fanatics of the Taliban tradition. Though when Christian fundamentalists will have become as militant as Islamic fundamentalists, we could see a very unsexual kind of neighborhood rule.

Do we really want to advocate rule by local warlords? (Well, as a nihilist, I would answer: OK, if I am the warlord! But because I have no affinity to guns, this would be an unlikely position for me.)

I think it is going too far to oppose states per se, only because the current state model, which is more or less based on direct democracy, leads to a hopeless state entanglement in the private affairs of a country’s people.

The alternative is not abolishing states, and not even weakening states. The alternative is strong states that are based on a definite ideology that the state should grant its citizens an optimal degree of personal freedom.

Its very unlikely indeed that the current Western model of states based on democracy will ever move in that direction; for it seems inherent in that model to follow the opposite trend.

The average people of a country (those who elect a government) are too easy to manipulate by anti-sexual populists (see my articles under the header “democracy”), and they even lack the intellectual capacity to understand the correctness of a scientific interpretation of humankind and life. I feel sad that I am ruled by governments who have been elected by average people as most of them are grossly misguided.

Thus, the fault lies not with states per se, but just with the democratic foundations of current states.

If we want to live in a world in which states do not interfere with personal freedom while providing optimal safety, and if furthermore, we want to live in societies in which optimal sexual satisfaction and after that a gentle death are the recognized primary values for each person, then there is no alternative to somebody governing states who wants to implement precisely such policies.

How this “somebody” assumes power isn’t that important a question. I’d prefer a strong ideology-based party to be elected into office and then to turn the state into a single-party state. This is unlikely to happen soon. Therefore, as long as this “somebody” implements what I consider enlightened policies, I am really open to any other method this “somebody” gets installed or installs itself.

For I care about political substance, not formalities.

**********

http://www.asiatour.com/states-obstacle.htm
Jan Garanoz
Juhu Tara Road, Juhu,
Mumbai - 400049 India
Last updated: February 18, 2010