I read a very good op/ed from the Richmond Times Dispatch website yesterday.  It was written by Mr. Barton Hinkle.  The piece explores the idea about where our obligations to the government come from.  It was very thought provoking, and extremely well written, especially given the depth of the topics the author touches.

But as I read through the piece, I realized that Mr. Hinkle was missing an important truth that, once considered, should alter his entire hypothesis.

Mr. Hinkle begins by telling us a story:

Joseph Romito does not have to pay taxes to Bexley. Does this mean you do not have to obey the dictates of Obamacare?

Last week a Chesterfield circuit court ruled Romito has no obligation to pay dues to the homeowners’ association in the tony Bexley neighborhood. Romito bought his property two decades ago, when membership in the association was voluntary. Last year the Bexley Association made membership and dues mandatory. To force Romito to pay dues now, ruled Judge Herbert C. Gill, would be “simply unjust.”

Now, as a Libertarian, I am thrilled about the outcome of Mr. Romito’s trial.  Three cheers for private property rights and judges who uphold them!  Mr. Romito owns his property, it is his to do with as he pleases.  If this is not the case, Mr. Romito doesn’t really own his property, now does he?

But from this account of a victory for liberty and individual freedom, Mr. Hinkle segues into a much more meaty topic.

The binding quality of promises seems to be one of those moral notions upon which we can all agree, so much so that the concept of a non-binding promise seems oxymoronic. (Of course legitimate reasons exist for breaking promises sometimes, and everyone can think of hypothetical situations to illustrate them, but those exceptions do not invalidate the general rule.)

A community association covenant is a promise to obey the rules, and the promise imposes an obligation. The trouble comes when we start asking about the obligations we have to other communities — such as cities, states, and especially nations. Why does a person living in country X have a duty to obey its government?

Now that, good sir, is a damned fine question.  That Mr. Hinkle had the guts to try to open a discourse about such a thing in an op/ed written for mass consumption is laudable.  In my experience, that sort of topic is difficult for many people to wrap their minds around.  To most, life is as it has always been, and always will be.  There is no need for many people to question the world around them so intently.

To begin, Mr. Hinkle writes a bit about the evolution of politics and political science.  He mentions contract theory appearing as the response to the Divine Right of Kings, then he hits the reader with another really provocative question even though he doesn’t write it down.   “What is it?”:

Yet when it comes to larger communities such as nations, there is no contract. Almost no one (except perhaps naturalized citizens) ever signs on a dotted line. So if we are to say people have an obligation to obey their governments, then we need another reason as to why. Coming up with a convincing one, however, proves to be tricky.

It is in this paragraph that Mr. Hinkle makes an assumption, and an error, that is fatal to his piece.  The reason we have an obligation to obey our government is evident and easy to explain, not hidden and difficult to ascertain.  But I shall get to that point later.  Mr. Hinkle’s piece is still worth reading, and you should look past the assumption error here.

He spends a paragraph discussing whether the “justness” of a government is the primary concern for the people living under its rule when they decide to obey their government.  He raises some very interesting questions about owing allegiances to governments other than your own if they happen to be more just than the government that rules the land where you live.  It’s a very interesting insight, and could be expanded into a discussion of the loyalties of Dark Ages serfs, and whether the King or the Pope was the individual who claimed their ultimate loyalties, but I’ll spare you my thoughts on that topic.

The next theory he considers is tacit consent, or the idea that, because you live in the US and haven’t moved to another country, you have tacitly consented to living under the jurisdiction of the government of the land.  This is the argument that being considered when you hear the phrase “Vote with your feet”.

He mentions justice and “natural duty”.  He uses a parable to respond to the calls for “social justice”, and it’s a bit weird…

Imagine you wake up one morning “back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours . . . .To unplug you would be to kill him . . . Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it?”

The answer is “no”.  If you do not act to save yourself, the parasite robs you of your life.  Your right to life is equal to his right to life because that is an individual right, and he has no more of a right to rob you of your life than you do to take his from him, an act which you did not do when his kidneys failed. 

This is illustrated perfectly by nature, to break out my own parable. 

Consider that you never see the cute little bunny throw itself at the feet of the wolf and lie still, neck bared, as the wolf takes the bite…  The wolf needs to eat the rabbit to survive, doesn’t he?  What a selfish little critter that rabbit is…

Mr. Hinkle brings the piece to a close with another stellar question, and it dovetails quite nicely into my response right about here:

It is very easy to ask questions, said a wise fellow, and not to be satisfied by the answers. Still. Through the individual mandate embedded in health care reform, the economic stimulus, the zeal to regulate everything from restaurant menus to household lightbulbs, and much more besides, the friends of the current administration suggest — tacitly, one might say — that government has the power to do nearly anything it wants . . . anything at all. It would be nice if those who are so eager to order everyone else about would take the trouble to explain what, exactly, gives them the right to do so.

Mr. Hinkle, I would respond that the answer to your question is capable of being expressed in two phrases:

“Survival Instinct” and “Law of the Jungle”.

The real reason we obey our government, even though we never explicitly pledge allegiance, is because we still operate under the same rules as the rest of nature.  We are still a part of the natural system, subject to each and every law to which every other animal on Earth is subject.  Might makes right.  And the government, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing but the legal sanctioning of force, the might which makes “right”.

The government tells you what to do, and if you choose not to do the things it orders you to do, it removes first your liberty, and then it can legally take your life.  Try not paying your taxes, then defending your right to your property when the Revenuers show up to collect for the government.  They’ll shoot you dead, on the spot.  The incident at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas is a perfect illustration of this point.  The government used tanks to destroy the house.

Like Dennis Leary says, “We’ve got the bombs, ok?!?  Nuclear f****** weapons.”

The power of might to make right is the reason the majority rules in a democracy.  Civil wars are the physical proof of this concept.  If you lined up 51% of the population in a line, and lined the other 49% up in a line facing them, then told everyone to shoot the person across from them, majority wins.

We obey our governments because the government gives you no other option BUT to obey.  It is not a choice we are given to make.  The government is the antithesis of choice, it removes all choice and dictates.  If you choose to disobey, if you try to remove yourself from that system, or buck it too roughly in any way, the government will kill you.

The government is a gun.

Do you want to know how powerful the government is?  Any sane person fears the government more than their God.  God hasn’t dropped a lightning bolt on any conveniently placed sinners to make his point lately, hasn’t torn open the Earth to swallow any atheists in at least 4,000 years.  But governments have killed hundreds of millions of people over the course of my grandfather’s 80+ years of life.  The government can make your life a living hell right this very instant.  The government is “touching lives” every day, and for most of those people, that means something bad is happening to them.

Thus, the reason human beings obey their government is out of fear for their lives.  Their survival instinct is at work.  It’s not hard to explain, not difficult to see.  We obey because our natural instincts and basic hard-wiring commands us to obey.  To disobey is to die.

(h/t: Warjorse)

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