The state as family? No way!

Some people define “family” as an arrangement containing at least one party with at least one dependent. Under this loose (I would say, rather promiscuous) rendition, the nation-state, the community, may be regarded as a kind of “family,” particularly if we are dealing with rampant socialism, which has everyone irresponsibly trying to live at the expense of everyone else through the sordid welfare state. Yet, if this is the case, we would have an involuntary family situation, since individuals would essentially be forced into the state “family,” since it is generally not easy to become a citizen of another country.

As we know, actual families can be voluntary or involuntary arrangements, all depending on a person’s willingness to become a party to a particular family. Adoptions, for example, may be completely voluntary when both parties, guardian and minor, freely consent to the arrangement. Some arrangements, however, may be considered involuntary, as in the case of forced or arranged marriages. An infant born into a particular family also has no choice in the matter.

But, ultimately, if family arrangements are to be meaningful or valuable, they must at some point be completely voluntary and un-coerced. For anything that is not voluntary is probably a form of slavery or tyranny.

Individuals are free. They have free will. And they must be allowed the widest possible latitude to exercise their liberty consistent with their rational self-interests and their inalienable, natural, constitutional rights. These inviolable natural rights of course include sacred private property rights, which ultimately manifests itself, or finds its highest means of expression, in the sacred right to individual self-ownership, upon which all other rights are based and derived.

Like families, nations also evolve over time. Nations arguably share a past. As Americans, we may, for example, revel in a proud patriotic or historic tradition–Valley Forge! Bunker Hill! TR and San Juan Hill! Charge!–and celebrate it with fireworks and glorious firearms on the 4th of July. To a certain extent, we may even expect a shared future, to wit: continuing low inflation, lower interest rates, robust GDP growth, a booming economy, and a still roaring bull market (Go NASDAQ!).

But this does not mean that we are all brothers in an American family–and that we must therefore be each other’s keeper, welfare state and all. For even in one’s actual family, one is under no obligation to financially support one’s real brothers.

An obligation, lest we forget, is none other than a voluntarily enacted contractual commitment explicitly or implicitly–implicitly, only through the logical legal principles of “detrimental reliance” and “consideration”– made by a free agent to another party. In other words, only one’s freely given consent (promise) can obligate one to any party, one’s family included. Ergo, the welfare state cannot be justified by the bogus communitarian family argument.

The state is not a family. We shouldn’t ask for government handouts. We should only wish to be left alone to pursue our own rationally selfish family and non-family interests. Why are some people

(Senator Joseph Lieberman especially) so bloody obsessed with regulating the private affairs of others? Let them mind their own business. As the 1776 revolutionary slogan goes, “Don’t tread on me.” Ultimately, if true freedom is to be respected, individuals must come before families.