Stuff the State Department and Its Passports

[Updates below.]

Instapundit:

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK -- and working well. I sent my passport off for renewal on Thursday, and got it back today. Nice work!

UPDATE: More praise for the State Department here. And reader Steve Schonebaum reports a similar experience: "Speaking of passports, mine came within 2 weeks of submitting the forms. Impressive. (I didn't just get a renewal - mine had expired.)"

It's always nice when people get this stuff right.

Professor Reynolds may be enthused that our taxes are doing something useful, but I'm not. Why do I have to chip in for a service:

• that is rightly the responsibility of the person(s) using that service to pay through their own means;
  
• that constitutes a significant restriction on my freedoms of travel and association;
  
• and that I consider should be provided through the market in the first place?

It isn't "nice" when the rest of the country is forced to pay for those people to get it right. It also isn't "nice" when our freedoms are restricted when we have done nothing wrong.

The Department of State says:

A passport is an internationally recognized travel document that verifies the identity and nationality of the bearer. A valid U.S. passport is required to enter and leave most foreign countries. Only the U.S. Department of State has the authority to grant, issue or verify United States passports.

I view this as a property issue. The government of any country, both through its actions and statements, asserts it owns all property within that country. Whether it's labeled "private" or "personal" or "public" or "military" doesn't matter. Since it enforces its laws upon all land, levies taxes upon various goods and services people possess and provide, and tells us who can and can't even set foot in the nation, it is implicitly claiming primary property rights within its borders. It's a massive claim of collective property ownership.

I consider that belief wrong and immoral. Individuals and contracted parties should rightly own their land and have full say in who enters and exits it.

UPDATE 1/20/2005 12:25pm
Glenn Reynolds is NOT a Libertarian

UPDATED 3/10/2005 8:06am
I've closed the comments because for some reason comment spammers have targeted this entry multiple times over the last few days. If you want to leave a comment, you may e-mail me and I'll add it to the body of this post.

Posted by Drizzten at August 26, 2004 08:30 AM