While I was writing my last post, I realized that I am definitely at odds with some social conservatives. It is not because I have any objection to their goals, at least in most cases. It is because of my view of the state as a tool.

I plan to write much more on this later, but for now let me just say that the state is not a necessary evil, as some libertarian types suggest, it is rather a tool, and a necessary one. But, like any tool, it is good for some tasks, mediocre for others, and absolutely unsuited for the rest. When we try to use a tool for the wrong purpose, at best we end up wasting time and achieving our goals much more slowly an inefficiently. More often we end up making a mess of things and find ourselves worse off than we were. And the same is true of the state, when we try to use the state for a purpose for which it is ill-suited, we end up doing more harm than good.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do not subscribe to that silly "the government can't enforce morality" concept. What is the government but the enforcement of morality? How else can one explain that murder is prohibited? It is immoral. Even if we say "The government protects rights", we are smuggling in the assumption that it is immoral to violate rights. Government is nothing but the embodiment of a moral code.

My problem is not with using government to enforce morality, but the use of government to enforce personal morality. The state is an ideal tool for enforcing group morality, to tell people how to behave toward one another. On the other hand, when telling someone how to behave regarding themselves, the state is far from ideal. It is easy to say "don't kill someone", it is hard to say "don't drink".

The reason is obvious, the state is a tool for keeping one from harming another. It is not so good at keeping one from harming himself. That is the purpose of religion or philosophy or psychology. The state is best when there is a complainant, when there is a criminal and a victim, a plaintiff and defendant. When the person doing the harm is the same person as the victim, it becomes very difficult for the state. The state is good at punishing those who harm others, or in civil court making the wrong doer make whole the injured, but when the victim and the criminal are the same person, it becomes absurd. Does it make sense to send a man to prison because he has harmed himself? Isn't jail more harmful than the supposed injury he did? Does it make any sense to do even more harm to correct self-injury*?

All of which convinces me that I have to say I just cannot agree with certain social conservative positions. I believe the state is here to protect us from one another, but once you enter the realm of protecting us from ourselves, I think we should turn to priests and rabbis not cops and judges.

The reason I say all of this is the comment to which my last post was a reply. I may be mischaracterizing the writer, but the way I read it, he was more concerned that someone may recognize a gay marriage than that the state was involved somewhere it shouldn't be. Now, whether or not one accepts homosexuality, I think it is not the purpose of the state to prevent one from sinning unless it harms another, nor is it the purpose of the state to recognize or denounce immoral acts. Whether one is gay or not, whether a gay man wishes his lover to inherit, should be a matter of indifference to the state. Unless it harms another, the state should have nothing to say.

So, much as it will upset some of those who come across my blog, I have to say that I just cannot agree with some social conservative positions. I understand their motives, and I do not look down on them, but I think they are as mistaken as the liberals in their view of the state. The state is neither welfare case worker nor scolding nun. And if the state does not exist to disburse checks to the poor, it also does not exist to crack the knuckles of the immoral.

POSTSCRIPT

Since some will object to my assumptions, and the fact that I failed to state them clearly, let me make a very brief statement here, while promising a more full explanation in the near future.

I believe the first principle of civil society is the recognition that we are not unique or special. We need to demolish any belief in our own extraordinary nature. Each of us is a fallible, faulty, defective being, who may be in possession of some small bit of the truth, but no more.

The next required recognition is that all of our fellow citizens are the same as we are. The state is not made up of morons or angels. We are neither better nor worse, the rest of humanity is much like we are, just as faulty.

The third fact we must recognize is that we must agree that whatever rule binds us binds everyone else as well, and vice versa. No rule can exist for us or for them, they must exist for all.

Since we are faulty, and so is everyone else, we would not want to give them any more power than absolutely necessary. And, since we would not grant these faulty beings power, they will doubtless not grant that power to us. Thus we end up with a minimal society, created to protect us from one another, but no more. To grant the state any more power than absolutely necessary is to hand power over to faulty beings, and, as we recognize that each of us is just as faulty as the rest, we have to admit that being elected to office, or rising in the ranks of the civil service, grants no special knowledge or virtue. Those who hold governmental power are every bit as faulty as the rest of us.

From there, many other conclusions flow. For example, our own  imperfection should convince us that we would not want to restrict free speech, as to hand over control of what is discussed to a faulty being like ourselves is unthinkable. As the regulator would doubtless possess only a minute fraction of the truth, to allow them to control thought would invariably produce more error than success.

But to go into the entire thought process behind my views of government was not my purpose here. That will come later, when I have time. For now I will simply state that I cannot accept a state which exists to protect us from ourselves. I do not trust that my fellow man's view of what is right and wrong will be sufficiently reliable to grant him that much power. And as I won't grant it to him, I cannot expect him to grant it to me.

I wrote something along these lines some time ago, as well as addressing related themes while extolling the virtue of humility, and  I will write more soon, but for now I hope that is enough.

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* I know there are many who disagree with my belief that drug legalization is the best approach, but even those who strongly support the war on drugs have to admit that the logic of arresting drug users is a bit bizarre (at least using the most common rationale). The rationale for most is that using drugs harms oneself, so the state must step in to protect the drug user from himself. However, to do so, the state sends him to prison with real criminals who will possibly harm, rape, or kill him. It also creates a criminal record, which will keep him from pursuing certain jobs. All in order to prevent him from harming himself. The logic seems akin to shooting a person threatening suicide to prevent them from carrying through on the threat. There are other rationales I have heard, but as this "protect him from himself" argument is the most common, it makes the state's behavior seem quite peculiar.