THE FALLACY OF INSUFFICIENT OPTIONS. Tapped discovers Political Aims (guess Princeton hasn't found the permalinks yet), a weblog that commends an E. J. Dionne column "because it does a better job of exploring the role of the state in maintaining social order and making space for rights than many of the sometimes obtuse theory readings I've been slogging through this year. And's it a nice "take that" to all of the ridiculous anti-government folks who happily benefit from government investments in infrastructure and security each and every day." I'll grant that journalists have better incentives to write clearly than do academicians, particularly when it comes to writing for the university presses that provide graduate social science anthologies. Here's Dionne: "The lesson the looters teach is basic, and it is usually ignored: The alternative to tyranny is not the abolition of government. Absent a government committed to the protection of rights, there are no rights. Without government, individuals have no way to vindicate their rights to property, to basic personal liberty, to life itself." Exactly. "To fecure thefe Rights, Governments are created among Men, Deriving their Juft Powers from the Confent of the Governed." (Isn't there something about enumerating and limiting those powers? Yup, but not in Dionne's world.)

"What these groups never talk about, because it would wreck their story line, is the extent to which our personal and collective prosperity as a property-owning, enterprising people depends on strong and effective government. No government, no property. No government, no security from looting, theft or violence. No government, no national defense. No government, no social stability. No government, no securities law. No government, no food inspections, no consumer and environmental protection, no safeguards for workplace rights, no social insurance." No disagreement with inventory items 1, 2, and 3. (I have yet to find a strong libertarian, let alone a Randian, who denies 1 and 2; many will argue that efforts to provide 3 foster conflict.) Item 4 is dubious. To the extent that government becomes the arbiter of the content of schools, the nature of contractual relations among people, or the provider of resources for particular content or particular contracts, its activities become destabilizing, not stabilizing. (Think carefully about abortion, school choice, religious observation or not in schools, zoning codes, affirmative action, open housing, speed limits, or the drinking age, and ask whether or not less governmental supervision, federal, state, or local, would provide more stability.) On item 5, isn't "securities law" an amalgamation of basic fraud provisions with restrictions on ownership or using local knowledge? Item 6 is also an amalgamation of the simple with the messy, the effective with the ineffective, the productivity-enhancing with the productivity destroying. For another take on proposed government actions that are socially destabilizing, see Rep. Jackson's laundry list at Fraters Libertas. (But then, if you're limited to so many column inches, you might have to put a little straw in your tin man to meet the deadline, right, Mr. Dionne?)