Sunday, June 19, 2011

Here's the problem. George Weigel, the novus ordo Catholics, "acquisitive" Protestants, godless secular humanists, liberals, conservatives, neoconservatives, statists of all stripes and, yes, too many trad Catholics conflate society with the State. But society preceded the State and exists apart from the State. Indeed, society exists despite the best efforts of the State to thwart its spontaneously ordering ways.

Here's how natural-order anarchist and trad Catholic Lew Rockwell defines the State:

“What is the state? It is the group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly prohibited from doing, namely, aggressing against person and property.”

This says it all. The State steals and extorts ("taxes"). It claims eminent domain. It enslaves ("conscripts"). It commits mass murder (wages "war"). It lies and kidnaps ("incarcerates"). Small wonder St. Augustine likened this protection racket to a band of robbers.

The Social Kingship of Christ is one thing. Christians are rightly called to proclaim it. But why on earth should they give a rat's behind whether the brood of vipers infesting the banks of Potomac proclaims it?

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