What should Government do?
Faced with all kinds of thorny situations, innumerable people oft argue the question What should Government do? Fortunately, there is an easy, universal answer to this question, that I will share with you forthwith. This answer applies to every official of every government, independently from the situation that started the argument. And unlike what some naive libertarians might reply, the answer isn’t quite “nothing”. What Government should do, in this very order of priority, is:
Disband.
Apologize.
Gouge their own eyes out and henceforth live as beggars—or otherwise atone.
King Oedipus famously showed the way, once he understood how, even without his knowledge and despite his best intentions, his crimes had caused the ruin of the City he sincerely thought he was protecting.
Yes, the last step in particular is quite burdensome. Frankly, no one expects many government officials (or any at all) to take full responsibility for their crimes and earn back the Gods’ respect through sufficient atonement. Thus, while they can never repair all the evil they wroke, a morally acceptable path for them, though somewhat less honorable, may be to live humbly the rest of their life, working an honest job this time, and donating most of their disposable income to charities that benefit their former victims. It’s just that each of these government officials will keep being deservedly despised and distrusted, if only a bit, even after they stop being active criminals, unless and until they make amends commensurate with their sins.
Now the first step is both the most important and most urgent one by far. It is also a legal imperative where the other two are merely moral imperatives: before any attempt at atonement, before any utterance of apologies, first and foremost, stop being criminals. Stop using unaccountable violence and the threat thereof to impose your will on unwilling, innocent other people.
Please note how no Government Official need wait for any of the others to enact his individual part of this solution. Attempts to coordinate with others are good and well, and possibly a duty to those who somehow have the power or influence to disband more than just their own “mandate”. But none of that in any way lessens the importance and urgency for each individual to take their own three steps, starting with the first one.
Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being suggested this solution for what the socialist rulers of Czechoslovakia should have done in 1968. He was completely right, and only failed to apply it more broadly to all political rulers of all countries at all times.