After all I’ve written about the Covenant of Noah, the requirement for a civil government, you’d have to know I’m not anti-government. Actually, I’m anti-state. That is, I find the Modern State, born and defined by the Treaty of Westphalia, is utterly abhorrent to God. Westphalia was an arrow aimed at the heart of God’s Word, and is one of Satan’s greatest triumphs in human history. So the term “anarchy” typically means anti-state, not anti-government.
Even among those who embrace Aristsotelian epistemology, you can find plenty of good logic to back up this position. Take a look at this older article from 2002, by Joseph Sobran: The Reluctant Anarchist. He tells how he slowly came to that position by conviction, not by choice.
So the people are bound to obey the government even when the rulers betray their oath to uphold the Constitution. The door to escape is barred. Lincoln in effect claimed that it is not our rights but the state that is “unalienable.” And he made it stick by force of arms. No transgression of the Constitution can impair the Union’s inherited legitimacy. Once established on specific and limited terms, the US Government is forever, even if it refuses to abide by those terms.
As Hoppe argues, this is the flaw in thinking the state can be controlled by a constitution. Once granted, state power naturally becomes absolute. Obedience is a one-way street. Notionally, “We the People” create a government and specify the powers it is allowed to exercise over us; our rulers swear before God that they will respect the limits we impose on them; but when they trample down those limits, our duty to obey them remains….
For most people, “anarchy” is a disturbing word, suggesting chaos, violence, antinomianism – things they hope the state can control or prevent. The term “state,” despite its bloody history, doesn’t disturb them. Yet it’s the state that is truly chaotic, because it means the rule of the strong and cunning. They imagine that anarchy would naturally terminate in the rule of thugs. But mere thugs can’t assert a plausible right to rule. Only the state, with its propaganda apparatus, can do that. This is what “legitimacy” means. Anarchists obviously need a more seductive label.
“But what would you replace the state with?” The question reveals an inability to imagine human society without the state. Yet it would seem that an institution that can take 200,000,000 lives within a century hardly needs to be “replaced.”
He shows it’s only logical to realize the bludgeons used to keep Christians in their place — “render unto Caesar” and “the powers that be are ordained by God” — can’t mean what most people assume they mean. The people who spoke these words defied their governments and died in the process. If we assume the Son of God suffered the same intellectual inconsistency of most fallen humans, then we have nothing to discuss, and the world is a very dark, dark place indeed. Don’t forget He openly claimed to be the Son of God, so you can’t cherry pick and say He was pretty smart, just mistaken on that one point. Claiming to be God Incarnate is either madness or pure hucksterism, unless it’s true.
Sobran came to the same position as I on government — in that the modern state is illegitimate by definition — even without the benefit of biblical epistemology.
