Private government

In the first, fundamental sense of the term, private government describes the power of each individual to control the conduct of his or her life, whether right or wrong, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, courageously, cowardly, or cooperatively with others. In America, toleration of differences and separation of church and state were a precondition for national union, and it resulted in a widely understood right of individuation legally protected by the First Amendment. The state cannot compel a citizen to attend a church or be taxed to support a religious sect. Individual decisions concerning education, career, marriage, and finance are largely unregulated, despite a mountain of legislation and administrative rules imposed to limit individual choice. Liberty stubbornly persists as a matter of personal aspiration or folly, contrary to the best efforts of family, neighbors, and politicians to induce conformity.

That, however, is not the topic I wish to discuss. Private government has another meaning pertaining to constitutional law, not in the present, but the future. In tempestuous infancy and adolescence, the U.S. Constitution was a legalized tug of war with periodic explosions. Colonial frontier pioneers did not perceive an obligation to be stewards of the planet. The Federal Convention of 1787 did not debate LGBTQ or transgender privileges, and the Civil War was not fought to give birthright citizenship to foreign anchor babies.

American constitutional thumb wrestling was a brief struggle in the sweep of human history, even if we graft it to the dead root of English common law. Some historians point to ancient Rome as a source for concepts like contract, or Bible stories as the source of all law. Athenian aristocrats experimented with democracy and trial by jury. The Code of Hammurabi is taught in U.S. law schools as the ancient basis of equity and criminal law, improved incrementally by thousands of years of judicial and legislative thought.

Wait a minute. Spaceflight was derived from rock throwing?

Obviously not. The American Experiment was a clean break with all previous governments, and it was totally rewritten twice, by Civil War and by 20th Century Supreme Court decisions. If the Founding Fathers knew what we've done to their Constitution, they'd shout from their graves to damn us. Everything in law today is a radical break from its original intent, no better than juvenile delinquency, defying Madison and Franklin and Otis. You don't know who Otis was. Nor do you know why Franklin proposed that judges should be elected by lawyers, or why Madison opposed a Bill of Rights. Without Madison, Franklin, and Otis, there would be no Constitution to reinterpret and coin gay marriage rights.

Be that as it may, I'm not interested in political footstamping or current notions of political rights. What matters is the future, and I'd like to return to the idea of private government. Let's suppose that the public tussel of democracy is arbitrary and unpredictable. The United States is a bankrupt nonprofit corporation, a global welfare fountain that no one owns.

Private government is totally different. Instead of voting, free of charge, expecting the U.S. to hand you a pile of benefits, in a private government there are joint venturers (partners) who pony up "cash calls" to retain their right to elect a board of directors. There are no taxes, no regulation of commerce, no social benefits. The sole function of a private government is national defense, funded by insurance companies, banks, and wealthy individual citizens who can afford to buy a vote to determine the scale and scope of national defense. It's less nutty than it sounds. The American Revolution was funded entirely by private backers and fought by volunteer civilians.

I wrote a short story and recorded a lecture to explicate the idea.

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