Sovereign Man, Servant State.

States are a construct of man, they can not exist except in the presence of men and the rule of law, they are a creation of men, ensured by men.

But every day the rights of men are confounded by the constructs of their states. Political scientists talk about the “Sovereign State”, which is to say the Westphalian model, under which States were given the status formerly held by nobility, that of a sovereign. When the Westphalian state reached its apogee in the late 19th century, as the illegitimate child of that original unlawful hierarchy, the only thing that had changed was who/what wore the robe of regent. States have become our hereditary nobility so today individuals find the boot on their throat does not belong to an Emperor, King or Queen, but to the state, their sovereign state…

The Westphalian concept takes the individual and places him subservient to the state, for the state has sovereignty and men merely have rights, as granted, when granted, (it seems) by the state. That political aberration makes the sculpture its own creator and forgets the artist entirely.

But that perversion is impossible, states are not conscious, nations do not create! The state is the employee of the people or at least that was the intent. That was the noble thought implicit in the US constitution, but what people in democracies all over the world have done by default, design or dread is sanction their own replacement. We’ve created the sovereign state and made servants of men.

How did this happen?

Incrementally.

Government to be controlled must be limited, it must have a single solitary function to protect the individual rights, life, liberty and property. But the instant government is permitted to stray, to expand that duty one iota to any other social assurance or general welfare, no matter how noble the intent or how pure the cause, the free man starts laying the foundation of his own prison.

Who let this happen?

All of us.

If you have ever said, in response to some personal outrage, that “there ought to be a law” , you are responsible. If you’ve ever looked to the big hand of government instead of looking to your own flesh and will, you are the cause. If you have ever followed the surge of the mob, the call of the collective and derided “the other” you are to blame. But more, if you’ve ever stood silent and watched it all… you are the problem still.

We need to remake the system. I don’t want to live as a servant in a sovereign state. I want us all to be sovereign in a state that serves, and that is the ideal that should have been.