The Florida Fiasco and the Legitimacy Crisis of the Imperial State

It was nice to have known America. It might have been better not to have.

~ Mark Twain, a great American anti-Imperialist

Mao Tse Tung got it half right! Some power does, indeed, come out of the barrel of a gun. But real power – in the long run – must be legitimatized into authority; some reason for citizens in a commonwealth to cooperate without having the barrel of a gun constantly shoved down their throats. Although, that is certainly one way to silence someone's vocal chords.

The ancient Chinese mandarins understood the importance of Legitimacy to the whole idea of the State. Thus, when the Ch'in Emperor, Shih Huang-ti, died in 210 BC after only 11 years in control of the new Empire, the story is told how his body was tied into a chariot and paraded around as if he were still alive. When the body began to stink – as does Empire itself – his loyal minions placed a cartload of fish behind his chariot and blamed the horrible smell on those decaying bodies. If the Great Man isn't dead, how could there be any problems in the Empire? Long Live Caesar!

A recent conference at Auburn University, October 6-7, 2000, sponsored by the Mises Institute, focused around Martin van Creveld's interesting volume, The Rise and Decline of the State (1999). The Legitimacy question hovered around the edges of the discussions, and I was as guilty as anyone, perhaps more so, for not bringing it into greater clarity.

I certainly agree with Creveld that there are some cracks appearing today in the facade of the State. But, I disagreed fundamentally with his view that the idea of the State in the West, the effort to create a corporate identity that separated the ruler and the rest of us, was any different from other state systems or empires of the past, into which he had rather rigidly categorized historical evolution. It is simply that in each civilization, as one might expect, the precise nature of this effort at separation took a uniquely different form.

In the West, for example, as late as the 17th century, writers such as Robert Filmer were still using the idea of the mandate of heaven to suggest that subjects must obey those rulers whom God had placed over them. The next century, Enlightenment intellectuals such as Voltaire and Jefferson were captivated by many Chinese ideas brought back to Europe by the Jesuits. One of these, dating back to Mencius, some two millennia earlier, was that the Mandate of Heaven was not absolute. A ruler, through bad behavior and a lack of virtue, could lose it! Thus, a justification for revolution.

As I wrote about this for the conference, the day before I left for Auburn, I went to the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables for a breakfast meeting scheduled several days earlier. The place was literally crawling with police and Secret Service men. President Bill Clinton had flown in the day before for a Democratic Party fund raiser. Many will recall that day the Heavens opened, dumping almost 15 inches of rain over Dade County. In the face of that, Clinton's plane was unable to take-off, and he decided to stay over for a round of golf at the hotel, one of his favorites.

How far we have come in the evolution of the American Empire is suggested by the fact that no one, certainly not the Republicans, had the temerity to suggest what any good Confucian mandarin would have instinctively understood. There might be a causal relationship between the rains and the long-term behaviors of this President, who arrived at that place in time just as they commenced! He had lost "the Mandate of Heaven!"

No, our welfare mentality mind suggested just the opposite; that having experienced the devastation brought on by the rains, the President would more quickly declare the place a disaster area, qualifying for government aid, which, of course, he did. So, we have come 180 degrees since the founding century of the Republic. Such disasters are not to be equated with misrule, but rather are seen as an opportunity for government to dispense largesse.

I mention these differing cultural worldviews because we live in a society where such multiculturalism and diversity are themselves literally praised to the heavens. On the other hand, clearly no one takes these other worldviews very seriously these days. What we have is multiculturalism without any real content; just enough to perhaps acculturate new immigrants into voting participation in the Empire.

At this point, the reader is probably asking what "Florida Fiasco?" or was Marina simply alluding to Bill Clinton's golf game. Yes, we will get to Florida, but in doing so, two points are worth observing.

The first point is that Empire, even though there are significant flash points, both in domestic and foreign policies, comes as on cat's paws, creeping slowly and silently, but inexorably forward. The second is that cracks in the Legitimacy of the Empire often begin as seemingly small incidents, hardly worthy of toppling such an edifice. What it really demonstrates, of course, is that Empires tend to have feet of clay.

In writing and speaking about Empire for the greater part of my professional life, I have frequently been asked two basic questions. What, exactly, is Empire? and, When did the American Empire begin?

I have found it difficult to improve upon John Adams' definition given in 1775, that a Republic is characterized by a rule of law, that of an Empire by despotism. This does not mean that there are no laws in the latter, but rather so many, and so confused and often contradictory, that the rulers choose those which they feel the need to emphasize at any given point in time. Above all, Empire is centralization of power, both at home and in continued interventions abroad, all of which are needed to maintain "stability."

For my part, I am one of those who believe that Empire did not begin in 1861, or 1898, or 1918, or 1941, or 1965, to list a number of wars that greatly extended the scope of our Empire, but rather that it was inherent in the kind of republic we chose to develop in and after 1776.

The economist Jonathan Hughes suggested that the fundamental flaw of the American Revolution was its failure to base property rights on allodial claims, rather than vesting ownership in fee simple with the State, in which the latter simply replaced the king. Thus, the long-range game was given away at the outset, because individuals didn't really own property, they rented it, more or less exclusively but with some ultimate limitations, from the State, through taxes.

Thus, the early basis for today's neo-feudalism, referred to by the euphemism, "Growth Management." Jefferson, who thought he had eliminated feudalism from America, must be rolling over in his grave. Here again, Florida is a leader. At my University we have a Chair in Growth Management. In a State that prides itself on "Government in the Sunshine," the Chair has been funded anonymously. Apparently, neither the Board of Regents nor the faculty union is bothered by the possibility that the Chair might be funded by a source or sources with a vested interest in the politics of Growth Management. If there is no basis for suspicions of that sort, why should the source remain anonymous? The more one functions in a university environment, the more evident it becomes that ethics are taught, rather than practiced there.

It is important to understand that like all revolutions, the American Revolution was a broad coalition of groups across a wide spectrum, united ultimately only in the decision to separate from Great Britain.

Nabobs such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, hardly allodialists, dreamed of speculation in vast western lands as the seat of the British Empire moved westward. Their spiritual inheritors, Winston Churchill, partly an American, and later Margaret Thatcher, spoke always of the "English-speaking peoples," in their own efforts to revive this long-lost unity.

Early efforts at Empire can be seen in the leaders’ unwillingness to talk peace in 1778, unless it included Canada and Florida, and in 1781, LaFayette's attempt on Washington's orders, to mount another assault on Canada at a time when it was clear that people wanted no part of a protestant confederation. This was turned back only because the militia from the Green Mountains in Vermont, refused to fight for anything less than "double pay, double rations, and plunder," demonstrating thereby, a profound understanding of the imperial impulse of their centralized, military leadership.

Ah, well, with the Civil War and all of the interventions of the 20th century, Empire has come a long way, Baby! Nowhere was this more clearly illustrated than in a Marine Corps enlistment poster of the Vietnam era, which proclaimed that "the Pax Romana was one of the world's great periods of peace and stability." Tell that to the Christian martyrs, or the Jews who died at Masada.

The unstated conclusion, of course, was that the Pax Americana could be an equally great period. Not all American boys have bought that malarkey, and we should not be surprised that many around the planet, so long the focuses of our interventionist efforts, have begun to fight back, often with weapons originally given to them by our "peace keepers."

This Spring I'll be teaching 3 courses through the Internet; "Freedom and the Evolution of Civilizations;" an "Introduction to American Studies," which focus on three episodes in American history, the Revolution, the Civil War and the enormous increase in government in the 20th century; and "The History of Florida." Many years ago, a student who had had several courses with me told another student that I basically taught the same course, whatever the title, to which I replied, "yes, they are all about Empire." All of which brings us to the "Fiasco in Florida."

Many years ago, the political scientist V.O. Key observed that "Florida is Different." Well, yes and no! Just this year we have had the Elian Gonzalez Episode, which demonstrated the "blowback" from Florida's role in the Cold War, and the extent to which federal forces could once again invade the State in Miami, the "Cankercaust," in which the bureaucratic minions from Tallahassee could attack people's property all over South Florida cutting down citrus trees right and left, and now, what Mark Twain called "the lawyer tribe' bringing every kind of Carpetbagger here in the name of restoring "law and order" to the ballot process. Florida, has become the microcosm of Empire, a Banana Republic, indeed!

In the 1960s when the courts demanded that the legislature, dominated by the rural "Pork Chop Gang," reapportion along the lines of one man, one vote, it was held, without much argument, that Florida had the worst representation of any of the American states. Along with that, the ballot access expert, Richard Winger, throughout the 1970s and into the 1990s, rated Florida was the state with the worst ballot access.

Fear of socialism in the 1920s led to Florida early on attempting to make it difficult for any but the dominant two parties to get on the ballot. In a recent piece on LewRockwell.com, I recommended Walter Karp's brilliant, Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America (1973, 1993) as the best study of what has happened. I repeat that here, with the additional observation that you will probably never find it used in a college course on American political parties. It cuts too close to reality for most academics!

In the 1960s, of course, the great fear of the two-party oligopoly in Florida was not socialism, but the populism of George Wallace. Winger rated Alabama as having the best ballot access in the nation, while its next-door neighbor, Florida, had the worst.

You cannot understand the present mess in Florida balloting procedures and mechanics without recognizing that part of restricting ballot access was to argue that too many parties might complicate things. The thing to do, of course, was to make ballot access, what with signing petitions and cards, such a time-consuming and expensive process, as to defeat most small party efforts.

This meant in practice, that it was almost impossible to create a "grass roots" party within the State. It also meant that any parties must come from outside, from a larger regional or national base, such as Wallace, later Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan or Ralph Nader in presidential elections.

Keeping an arcane voting organization, clearly a part of the traditional American "spoils system" politics, was always a part of the great game. Even as computers and other devices came into more general use, and in spite of the Alabama example, it was often suggested that anything more than the two-party participation might just overwhelm the system in Florida. Now, of course, we have a situation where even the two "oligops" can't seem to get it right at the ballot box.

So, with the revelations of the problems of counting and recounting ballots, and with "chads" all over the floor, now it will all be decided by the courts as well. Which proves that John C. Calhoun was right that in such an imperial system the ultimate tyranny would lie with the courts. When it is revealed that the Emperor has neither clothes nor virtue, throw a huge, black judicial robe over the whole mess! And pray brother, while preying on the populace.

Both parties gave the judicial game away when early in the election, they proclaimed that the real reason to vote for either the elephant or the jackass was that the new leader would be making a number of court appointments, especially on the Supreme Court. Might as well let the courts decide the election itself as well. With the almost total politicization of the courts, is there any reason to doubt the phrase. "government by judiciary," in everything from affirmative action to abortion?

As a few bags of tea were the opening wedge to challenging the Legitimacy of the British Empire, so the whole ballot fiasco is revealing the extent of the corruption and rottenness of the system, right down to the judiciary. What is really being revealed is a massive Crisis in Legitimacy. For decades now a growing part of the population has ceased to vote. To fill this void, we now have conscripted dead people, aliens and even felons. Some "will of the people!"

A few pundits in the media are suggesting that the rest of the nation through the Congress, toss the corrupt and inept State of Florida out of the sacred Union. Now, while that would not be a legal way to do it within the American system, that is an idea with which I can in some way relate.

For years, I have pointed out to my students that in the Transcontinental Treaty though which Florida was acquired and later, it was provided that Florida might be split into two states. What was envisioned in those days was an east and west Florida, all of which was silenced by the controversy over slavery, and the notion of adding another state to the South.

But, why not put that into effect today? Why should we in South Florida send our taxes north to L.A. (lower Alabama)/Tallahassee to build a centralized governmental center to rule over us almost 700 miles from the "Conch Republic" in Key West?

Let's have a plebiscite along the I-4 corridor to let folks decide whether they wish to be part of North Florida or South Florida. Once that is decided, the two states can ask the Congress to fulfill what was clearly the vision of our 19th century forefathers. The next question to ask, might be, "if we no longer have to send our taxes so far north to Tallahassee, why send them even farther north to Washington, D.C.?

Whatever happened to the American Revolution, anyway? With any luck, we may just rediscover it!

November 21, 2000

William Marina teaches History through the Internet at Florida Atlantic University, and is an Adjunct Scholar at the Mises Institute. He was recently selected as the Teacher of the Year for FAU's Broward campuses. Among other books, he is the co-author of the 3rd edition of A History of Florida (1999), and can be reached at http://www.wmarina.com/.