"They hate the government — [the IRS is] just the most convenient incarnation of what they hate. There’s something very curious, though, about the hatred. The government is the people, leaving aside various complications, but we split it off and pretend it’s not us; we pretend it’s some threatening Other bent on taking our freedoms, taking our money and redistributing it, legislating our morality in drugs, driving, abortion, the environment — Big Brother, the Establishment — … With the curious thing being that we hate it for appearing to usurp the very civic functions we’ve ceded to it."

—

Ibid., p. 134-135. (via scz)

Interesting on the surface, but I think inaccurate upon reflection. Saying, “the government is the people” and “the very civic functions we’ve ceded to it” implies that by participating in a democracy you implicitly agree with the outcome of that democracy. “We” may have ceded the power to enforce drug laws, wage war, imprison obscene numbers of young men, torture foreigners, tell people who they may marry, etc., but that in no way lessens my venomous anger at that very government. 

The proper indictment of Republicans or Tea Partiers or White Separatists or whatever is not that this is a democracy so their objections are invalid. It’s that their beliefs are repugnant or illogical or harmful or whatever, therefore they are invalid. You can accept democracy and still hate the manifestation of it.

Tags: government