For example, Grover Cleveland was more pro liberty (more anti statist) than Andrew Jackson – not less pro liberty.

However, the general point is correct – govenrment has tended to grow and the modern American government has long past the lines of the Constution (it has become a cancer – destroying civil society).

But it is common for all forms of government to grow – not just democractic governments. It is much harder to roll back government than it is to expand it. Roman Emperors who really did want to cut spending a reduce taxation, and some did, found it vastly harder to do than to increase spending and taxes – it was the same regulations. For each new bit of spending and each new regulation creates a group of people who benefit from it – whereas the costs are spread among the general Res Publica (classic Public Choice stuff).

The elite went statist long ago – long before the people did.

Indeed at every stage new forms of statism (the New Deal, the Great Society….) were thought up by an elite and then put into practice on a people who had NOT asked for any of these schemes.

If anything elections and so on held up the process a bit – as the politicians delayed things and only pushed them into effect when they thought they could get away with them.

The elite in the universities and so on always wnated to go faster – and further.

If you want to look for the reason for the decline of liberty in America – look to the same reason as in Imperial China.

The Mandarian Class – the ideas of the official intellectuals.

As Bill Buckely may have said – I would rather trust my life and goods to a group of people selected at random (say from the telephone book) than to the academics from Harvard or most other universities.

Indeed I would rather entrust my life and goods to the judgement of these 500 (or whatever) people selected at random from the telephone book than I would to the people they ELECT.

That is because elections are about image (does this or that person “come over well”) and about (if things are thought to have gone badly) “getting the other lot out”.

They are rarely about policy.

Most people who vote for candidate X are astonished at the things they do if elected (should they ever find out – for the media does not tend to give a very detailed or truthful account of what is done by governments).

Of course the truth is mymaria probably does not really give a damn about Oliver but rather want George to be coerced in order to fund, not Oliver, but rather ‘the agents’ and all the predatory apparatus of state that exists ostensibly to benefit Oliver. I wonder if she is a ‘public sector’ employee herself?

Thank goodness George was not forced to give up a small portion of his salary to provide health care, quality public education, social services, and a litany of other wasteful programs that he will never use because his family would never have been able to afford the lavish funeral and gold-plated casket he wished to be buried in.

Simply not true. For example even country police forces were not complusory in England till 1856 (and they were unarmed).

Hard though it may be for “George” to understand – but most poor people (and I AM POOR AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN) do not want to rob and murder rich people. Nor go in for BS statistics about how 1% of the world own 90% of the resources (or whatever).

Nor has this ever been so – a rich man might get robbed in a London backstreet, but so might a poor man. And, in both cases most people would be on the side of the victim (poor or rich) not the robber.

This is the point the film is making.

The vast majority of government spending is not on defence (or anything like that) it is on the Welfare State – it is taking money from George (the one in the film) and giving it to Oliver (minus the vast amount of money the state machine keeps for its own employees).

Yet most poor people would not use violence ourselves against George – even if he was tied up and helpless, and we knew there would be no punishment for robbing and murdering him. And it would have to be murder as well (after all – let George live and he may take revenge, perhaps by putting petrol in via the letter box and then setting light to it….).

So there is a contradiction.

We allow the state to do things we would be disgusted to do ourselves – things we would never do ourselves.

The only solution to this contradiction is to not let the state do these things either. Or, at least, not to take the money from activities that are clearly evil.

For example, not apply for its benefits – including it so called “tax credits” (which are nothing of the kind).

So I do not.

That is the point of the film – it goes straight to a person’s own conduct.

An evil person, such as George-the-comment-writer would indeed rob and murder (and I bet this “George” is not even poor) so he has no problem with the state doing it.

But most ordinary people have just never had the question put to them.

“Would you use violence to take money off someone?”

“No”

“Then why do you let the state do it – in your name”.

Real “Olivers” need to consider this.

It may seem obvious to this audience that state power is ultimately backed up by guns, but it is far from obvious to most people.

I second that, and I don’t think it necessarily has anything to do with Natalie being in the UK. I’m sure a great many Americans would need some Socratic prompting to reach that conclusion, too. Most Canadians I know do. It could only improve the video to make that argument in smaller steps, especially given that it’s so crucial to the overall point.

What a state needs is a stable legal system, that is enforced evenly, predictably and swiftly. It almost doesn’t matter what the law is (within limits) as long as they don’t keep changing the damn thing all the time.

I remember a number of years ago, the Senate Majority leader, Tom Daschle was re-elected. He said something to the effect of “this is the one hundredth and seventh congress, and we have a lot of work to do for the American people.” I remember my visceral reaction to that statement. “One hundred and times times you’ve been doing this, and your not done yet?”

“the reference to “agents with guns”. To a British audience unfamiliar with libertarianism, that will seem unrealistic and breaks the line of argument the video wants to promote.”

I’m not certain, but I believe that British police unusual, worldwide, in that they tend not to carry guns. But it’s a fair point.