{"id":1966,"date":"2012-03-25T20:07:23","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T00:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1966"},"modified":"2012-03-25T20:07:23","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T00:07:23","slug":"unnecessary-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1966","title":{"rendered":"Unnecessary Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norm Pattis posts today<\/a> a fascinating account of the early history of New Haven, Connecticut, and observes that that early history suggests that Albert Jay Nock got it right when he wrote in Our Enemy, the State<\/em><\/a>: “The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation.”<\/p>\n

I have one minor quibble with Norm’s post, however: He opines that the State is, among other things, a thing of “tragic necessity.” But Nock distinguished between what he called “government” and what he called the “State.” The distinguishing feature of the State is its origin, which is in conquest and confiscation, and its purpose, which is to perpetuate and enshrine that conquest and confiscation as the status quo. The purpose of “government,” on the other hand, is, as Thomas Jefferson said it was, “to secure these rights.” As Nock observed, the Native Americans who were displaced by, among others, the colonists of New Haven, had “government.” Unfortunately, the history of the United States of America, including the history of New Haven, clearly demonstrates that its character and purpose, from its very origins up until the present day, is that of a State, and not of a government, notwithstanding the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

Government<\/em> is a “tragic necessity.” It is tragic that it is necessary, in this fallen world, in which criminality abounds, to organize with others to secure our rights. The State, on the other hand, is not necessary, and is itself criminal in its origin and in its intention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norm Pattis posts today a fascinating account of the early history of New Haven, Connecticut, and observes that that early history suggests that Albert Jay Nock got it right when he wrote in Our Enemy, the State: “The positive testimony of history is that the State invariably had its origin in conquest and confiscation.” I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1967,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions\/1967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}