Are government workers "thugs"?

On his blog this morning, Warren Bluhm regrets that he’d recently referred to those in government as “thugs” because he was “describing mostly sincere people who honestly think our collective security is more important than each individual’s right to be secure in their own person and property.” Warren adds: “[W]hen my frustration spills into anger, I need to take a deep breath, not rush to publication. The word thug distracted too many readers from the point that I was trying to make. It lowered me in many readers’ eyes and elevated those with whom I have a deep and serious disagreement.”

While I understand Warren’s worry about losing a reader or two by using tough language — and agree with him that taking a deep breath before launching into argument is a fine tactic — I’d point out that calling government functionaries “thugs” follows a Grand Libertarian Tradition. More than a century ago, the great Lysander Spooner wrote that a tax collector (i.e., government worker) is not only no better than the common “highwayman,” he is actually less noble. Unlike the tax collector, the robber doesn’t have the chutzpah to claim he’s seizing our money for our own good.

We libertarians say “taxation is theft” and “war is murder,” radical as those phrases sound to most people, because we hold government (and its employees) to the same standard of morality as we do our next-door neighbors. If it’s not OK for Margie next door to tax us, pass laws regulating our private lives, or kill us, then it can’t be OK for government to do so. Government “thugs” can make claims on our lives only by elevating themselves above the standards of personal morality. It’s our duty as libertarians to constantly “demystify the State” (thanks, Wendy McElroy) by calling attention to this fact, even if it requires us to compare government pencil pushers, “sincere” or not, with thugs on occasion.
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