Why Minarchism Cannot Cut It (Jim Davies)

Jim Davies says that while Gary North's political demands are commendable, they don't go nearly far enough:

Recently Dr. Gary North, the well-known Libertarian predictor of catastrophes large and small, wrote a thought-provoking article entitled "Non-Negotiable Political Demands" in which he listed seventeen. It's worth reading the original, because it's as vigorous an expression of the Classical Liberal position as I can recall reading, and at first sight we can say "Amen!" to each of them. As the author points out, they have much in common with what Ron Paul has been saying during his campaign--and they furnish an excellent example of hacking at the branches of evil instead of striking at its root.

The seventeen are those he would present to Congress, in well-justified confidence that Congress would give not one of them so much as the time of day. North goes on to reason that because of that intransigence, national governments will quite soon collapse under the weight of paying the cost of what they refuse to repeal, and then county and city governments will take over, in a kind of informal and undeclared devolution of power. He seemed to take pleasure in the thought that the era of the nation-state is ending.

I cannot share it. The news that government intruders may all be as close to me as Merrimack , NH instead of Washington , DC gives me no warm, cozy feeling whatever. Governments are governments no matter what their sizes and locations, and are wholly unacceptable in their very nature, because every last one of them arrogantly presumes to run one or more aspects of my life which rightly belong to me alone.

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