THE MENTALITY OF THE MOB

Recollect the “Rodney King” riots in LA. Enraged by a jury verdict they deemed unjust, thousands of people streamed into the streets in search of ... an appliance store to loot. Robbing these local merchants was fine, some rationalized, because the owners were “rich”, they could afford it.

Normally, government takes a dim view of this sort of behavior. Looting one’s neighbor – whatever one’s individual economic situation – usually results in governmental disapproval. It doesn’t matter how one might want someone else’s property; one is not entitled to steal the neighbor’s stuff.

Comes now Governor McGreevey, confronting a mob at the appliance store entrance. Instead of calling the cops, he’s passing out bricks, crowbars, and gasoline, taking out radio ads proclaiming, if effect, “burn, baby, burn”.

Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men?

The Framers knew. They drafted a Constitution to minimize the abilities of popular majorities to impinge upon liberty and property. They knew that unrestrained democracy often results in violation of basic rights, both of liberty and property. They made it difficult for popular passions to produce bad policy, limiting governmental power to certain, defined subjects, checking excesses.

And McGreevey knows, too.

Of course, whereas the Framers attempted to constrain popular passions, McGreevey shamelessly incites them.

It’s rank, unadulterated demagoguery. Sadly, it may work.

Let’s return to first principles. Government exists to protect us from harm. It utterly lacks the power to rob Peter to pay Paul simply because there are more Pauls.

Some commentators note that Robin Hood enjoys a certain popular appeal. But so do Bonnie and Clyde. Government serves us better when it abjures criminals as its role models for economic policy.

(And remember that if one views the Disney version of Robin Hood, the reason the people of Nottingham suffered such poverty and adversity was HIGH TAXES. Robin spent his time taking back money from the government, not from private folks. “Praise the Lord and pass the tax rebate,” quoth Friar Tuck. Amen, brother. )

By any reasonable economic measure, the McGreevey proposal constitutes just plain miserable policy. On the margin, it will discourage investment, discourage “the rich” from staying or moving here, drive business away. Since McGreevey’s a bright fellow, he can’t be stupid enough to believe what he’s saying. Clearly, he concluded that if getting reelected means passing out someone else’s TVs, that’s a price he’s willing to make “the rich” pay.

Of course, principle and politics are often strangers. It’s just unusual to see it put this blatantly.

But on a more basic level, it’s profoundly destructive of the very social compact upon which government is based. At essence, it avers that ALL of our property is subject to the whim and caprice of our neighbors, that if a simple majority votes itself the minority’s money, that such constitutes an acceptable governmental action.

A sage, writing at the time of the Framing, noted:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

(One might also have recourse to Biblical precedent, to wit, “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”.)

At present, we seem to be in the “selfishness” stage, to which McGreevey shamelessly panders. Now, it’s only the top 1% in the cross-hairs, but having set the precedent, what’s the limit? If 99% of the population can justifiably steal the property of 1%, why is it wrong for 51% to steal from 49%? Is the only limit on theft when one ticks off enough folks to get booted out of office, ala Florio?

We may all envy our neighbor with the big house and the Lexus. But it’s one thing to muse about the delights of wealth; it’s quite another to hire a governmental henchman to expropriate it for our benefit. Theft cannot be justified simply because the thief is Jim McGreevey as opposed to Tony Soprano.

That taxes are too high cannot be denied. But our taxes are not too high because our neighbors’ are too low. Obscene spending – which McGreevey is increasing at a rate of more than 10% this year alone – causes the problem, and that problem cannot be solved by beggaring our neighbors.

A virtuous people – the kind who deserve to live in a democracy – understands the limits of governmental authority, and rejects attempts to purchase votes with other people’s money. It remains to be seen whether the people of New Jersey qualify.