Sunday Philosophy: Hillary’s Prescription for Government

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Pakistan this week. Drudge picked up on this choice quote:

“The percentage of taxes on GDP (in Pakistan) is among the lowest in the world… We (the United States) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan,” she said.

“You do have 180 million people. Your population is projected to be about 300 million. And I don’t know what you’re going to do with that kind of challenge, unless you start planning right now,” she said.

“If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together” then “there are issues that not just the United States but others have with your government and with your military security establishment”.

Let’s start with that last part. In order to effectively "work together" with Pakistan, Hillary believes that they need an empowered central government and an effective "military security establishment." I can understand her point there. The state department would like to negotiate with one party rather than a bunch of tribal leaders and various corps of Islamic nutballs who integrate seamlessly into Pakistani life. But the interesting part is how she thinks a loose confederation of tribes and religious factions are supposed country is supposed to get to that point.

Her answer is by raising taxes. America taxes "everything that moves and doesn’t move." Pakistan doesn’t. Therefore, Pakistan is a mess, while America is strong. It’s about taxes, and taxes are about government control. It’s not about the character of the people, or their shared culture, or their ties to the land, or their recognition of natural law. It’s about taxation and government control.

I mean, surely she intended a nuanced interpretation of her statement, in which we’re supposed to take into consideration that the result of taxation will be the development of a vast bureaucracy to provide government-run education, press, banking, manufacturing, health care, retirement and jobs as a result of the collection of those taxes. But that’s not what she said, and what she said has meaning. It’s great when, once in a while, a liberal lets a little light shine in on the truth that lies within their cores.

In this case, liberals believe that government makes nations, whereas more enlightened people believe that a nation establishes a government for itself. It’s an important distinction. A nation is made up of people with a common language, common culture, and a historic claim to the land on which it exists. Pakistan is not a nation in the same way that America is a nation. There are over 60 different languages spoken by its population. It’s official language is English, but its national language is Urdu which less than 10% if its population speak. It’s 96% Islamic, but there’s the usual hateful split between Shia and Sunni among the population, which pretty much guarantees perpetual cultural violence and conflict. And up until 1947, there had never been a historical "Pakistani" state. It was created by the ever-disastrous British border-drawers who just flat-out made stuff up because they didn’t know what else to do with all the land that their empire couldn’t control.

But all that is secondary in importance. What REALLY matters, in the Clintonian, progressive world-view, is the ability of the the central government to impose top-down, bureaucratic, central planning and control. In other words, they want to apply to Pakistan the same liberal fascist form of government that they’re building here.

Taxation to a conservative is a necessary evil to be avoided when possible, used only to ensure the liberty of its citizens. To a progressive, taxation is an essential tool of authoritarianism used for the advancement of government power.