Government Is Not âUsâ
by Sheldon Richman, June 2, 2004
âAmerica is not whatâs wrong with the world. I read all this stuff â people hate us, people donât like us. The fact of the matter is, people line up to come into this country every year because itâs better here than other places, and because they respect the fact that we respect human beings.â
So says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
It could be that those who line up are making a distinction that Rumsfeld seems unable to make, namely, the distinction between the American people and the U.S. government. Thereâs a world of difference between them. Poll after poll in the Middle East indicates that the public there understands that difference. While Arabs generally express good feelings toward Americans and their society (or did until the Abu Ghraib revelations), they express disdain for U.S. government policy toward their region. This shows a discrimination that our so-called leaders need to learn.
When Rumsfeld talks about âus,â he blurs a crucial distinction, most likely intentionally. But a momentâs thought is all it takes to see that we, the American people, are not the government and vice versa. One example should suffice: when you rushed to finish your income tax return at the last minute on April 15, were you in fear of yourself and your fellow Americans or the IRS?
It wonât do to argue that, since we elect the president and members of Congress, we are the government. The truth is that once they are in office and until they are voted out, they are our masters. Donât be fooled by the self-serving term âpublic servant.â Does anyone really believe they serve us? Sure, they do enough to curry favor with voters and get reelected. But the rest of the time they pass and enforce decrees telling us what we can and canât do with our lives and our property. I wouldnât call that service.
Rumsfeld is right: lots of people want to come to this country, including people from the Middle East. But Iâm fairly sure it has nothing to do with the U.S. governmentâs sorry record in that part of the world. Although the Bush administration rhapsodizes about democracy in Iraq, the fact is, the U.S. government has for years sponsored authoritarian, even totalitarian, regimes, including Saddam Husseinâs, throughout the Middle East. Some of its clients maintain prisons that are little more than houses of torture. The one democracy it has supported, Israel, has not exactly displayed the democratic spirit to the Palestinians driven from their property or living under occupation.
No, people want to come here because, despite decades of government regulation, there is still something left of the private life in the United States. One can generally live where he wants, pursue the career of his choice (if he gets the right license), raise a family, and enjoy leisure. But the private life is not as secure as it once was. There was a time when one could eat and smoke without being hectored by government officials or uplifters with access to government power. There was a time when one did not worry that his house would be condemned and given to a real-estate developer because the planned shopping mall will raise more tax revenues for the local government. If you go back far enough (the early 20th century) you could even use opiates or cocaine without fear of arrest and imprisonment. And letâs not forget the threats to privacy in the name of the âwar on terror.â
As for Rumsfeldâs boast that âwe respect human beings,â again, it depends on who âweâ are. The governmentâs record isnât so good. Ruby Ridge and Waco are just the most extreme examples of how little the government respects us.
We sing the praises of freedom in the good old United States, but freedom doesnât mean what it once meant. It used to mean personal autonomy, and self-ownership, but now it means little more than the vote. Donât get me wrong: picking officeholders by voting is better than picking them by shooting. But if freedom is identified solely with casting one out of a hundred million votes for president, the Founding Fathers must be weeping.
Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine. Send him email.
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