Government: Fraud and Empire (1969)


Roger Bissell

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Government: Fraud and Empire

by Roy A. Childs, Jr.

It never seems to have occured to those young "radicals" of the "New Left" that the solution to the problems they see lies in a consistent application of their own principles. Most of the New Left, after all, begin with an abhorence of the empire of this "great Republic," as conservatives so affectionately call it. They are anti-imperialist, and anti-empire, but too often they are pro-state. It is high time that these aspiring radicals see the truth of the matter: Government is empire, no more and no less. It has had its origin in territorial conquest, and its permanence in plunder and violence. So let us oppose empire, but let us oppose all of it, not just empires that we don't happen to like at the time being. To reject all political empires, without exception, is the necessary prerequisite to favoring and attaining individual soverignty and the voluntary society.

It is not enough to let loose a feeble cry for isolationism. One must yell for the sinking of the ship of state as such, with no appologies and no mourning after the deed is done. Criminals all - that is what our politicions and bureaucrats - uniformed or otherwise - are all about. Nothing noble, nothing sacred here, citizen. Conservatives may cry: "tradition, tradition!" but the cry is as feeble as it is false. Ancester worship has had its day. Now we make the future ourselves. Respect the past when it deserves it, no more and no less. Humble ourselves, to bow and scrape before ancient institutions, including the very foundation stones of the American state? And why should we? These institutions are perhaps sacred? Institutions like the Presidency, the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives, the Senate? But these are just men - and ignoble ones at that. Just one realistic peek at these scum who inhabit the houses of prostitution known by the above names - especially the President and the Congress - will show you that they are worthy of no such respect or awe. They are prostitutes - political harlots who sell their empty minds for power over others. Yes, they are sacred! To a madman. like Russell Kirk and his fellow barbarian-inmates at National Review! To people who have spent all their years of adult living with their heads tucked neatly inside the New York Times and other things equally worthy of wrapping garbage. Since time immemorial, mankind has been ruled over by a tiny band of criminal parasites. They have tried every intellectual trick conceivable to bolster and perpetuate their bloody regimes. It is high time that the ruses of their lies were seen through, high time that their myths were punctured, high time that they themslves were turned out to pasture - or something more permanent.

One of the favorite ideas of the New Left is their conception of a future where politicians all over the world call a war, and nobody shows up. Let's carry this a bit farther, and mark out every grave, now ever so silently awaiting the return of some young, conscripted victim of slaughter, with the name of a politician who helped send him to his death.

[This essay was originally published in Libertarian Connection #2, Feb. 10, 1969.]

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