On Citizens and Subjects

by TJ Wihera | 2:33 pm, May 29, 2009 | Comments Off

A Thursday story in the Washington Post notes that Virgina is banning people from smiling in their driver’s license photo.

Unfortunately, the story makes a serious error when it notes that “The [DMV] would like to develop a facial recognition system that could compare customers‘ photographs over time to prevent fraud and identity theft.” [Emphasis added.] Anyone who has ever been to the DMV and knows the meaning of “customer service” realizes this one fact: We are not customers of the DMV.

A couple years back, during the passport disaster caused by the Mexico travel rule changes, I was one of the unfortunate people who had his passport delayed quite significantly. Each time I called the State Department to encourage them to remove their craniums from their posteriors, I was put through to “customer” service. The experience of being on hold for two hours only to be told that I would have to call back at some other time made it clear that we are not customers of the State Department.

To generalize the rule, we are not customers of our government.

Customers can decide to take their business elsewhere if they’re dissatisfied with any aspect of the service or product they’ve received. If the new guy behind the counter at Q-Doba calls me a “cracker” and gives me a filthy burrito, I’ll go to Chipotle. Or Illegal Pete’s. Or any of a thousand different substitutes. No one will begrudge my decision or force me to eat the disgusting burrito.

Consider an interaction with government, on the other hand. If a Supreme Court Justice calls me a “cracker” and gives me a bad ruling, I do not have the option to go to another Supreme Court. And if I don’t abide by the court’s ruling, they’ll throw my ass in jail  for breaking the law.

Far from being customers, those who are legally compelled to accept the decisions of an entity are either citizens of a representative government or subjects of a tyrant.

Citizens grant their government limited powers so that it may protect their rights in ways that they themselves cannot. The government belongs to them, and the government’s decisions are subject to their review and oversight. This oversight can take many forms. Timely elections and ballot provisions, for instance, provide a means for citizens to oversee a government.

In the American system, these elements are present, but the most important oversight and review is provided by the series of checks and balances created by the Constitution. The Founding Fathers knew that counter-balancing self-interested parties within the government and strictly limiting the actions of each would be the most effective way to limit the government’s power. (See Federalist 51 for James Madison’s explanation.)

While a grant of power inevitably requires a surrender of liberty, the citizens of a representative government are still free to make choices in every area in which they have not surrendered their rights to the government. They accept the lack of choice in certain arenas (arbiters for legal conflicts, for instance) because they recognize the utility of doing so and believe that they have created a system in which they will be able to successfully oversee their government’s involvement in those arenas.

Unfortunately, we have been overly optimistic in our evaluations of our leaders for some time now. As a consequence, our ability to make decisions in various arenas has been curtailed for years. Don’t believe me? Try deciding that you don’t want to pay into Social Security because you’ve found a better retirement fund. Try getting a toilet that vanquishes the results of chili relleno night in a single flush. Try manufacturing and selling a big, sexy truck that gets three or four miles to the gallon.

As each decision we make becomes the arena of the government, we slowly cease to be citizens in a representative government and we become the subjects of a tyrant. (It should be noted that a tyrant can be one person or a body of people. I use the singular of the term for solely linguistic purposes.)

Subjects do not make choices. They receive instructions. They exist to produce and finance a comfortable life for the decision-makers. Disagreement is not accepted, and oversight of such a system is meaningless. Subjects belong to the government that rules them.

Today, as we watch the confirmation proceedings of a judge who has expressed a willingness to ignore the limits and responsibilities the American system places on her, people wonder if politicians should oppose her on grounds that it might cost them electorally. Those same people ought to remember that the limits she ignores were put in place to ensure that we would always be citizens of this government, rather than its subjects.

By not opposing one who would turn its citizens into subjects, players in our government aren’t just running scared from electoral consequences – they’re taking a step toward a system that has none.

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