Or, the nature and authority of the State
I'm English by ancestry, and that means I am a propenent of the authority of the State by nature, breeding, and inclination. England is not the country most Americans imagine it to be. It is by nature Authoritarian, secretive, and indifferent to the privileges granted, over the ages, by the Crown to the subjects of the Crown's dispensation.
Let one small example stand for all the differences between the life of an American citizen and the life of a subject of English Authority. In England, the ordinary man in the street has no right to silence when questioned by the Police. Certainly, anyone questioned by the Police in England may conceal information from them. But if he's discovered to have done so, that concealment is itself a crime, for which he will serve an extended period in jail - whether or not he is acquitted of the crime in relation to which he was originally questioned. In England, the authority of the State, like God, is not mocked - and you conceal from it anything in which it is interested at your peril. This is as true today as it was in the days of Elizabeth the First, England's greatest Monarch. The only difference being that you are no longer liable to be hung, eviscerated, and chopped into four pieces for your crime.
Personally, I'm not so sure that's a worthy innovation.
What is the State? The State, put at it's simplest, is that mechanism of public life which possesses a legitimate monopoly on all forms of violence - nothing more. The greatest philosopher of the State and its nature was Hegel - though the keenest observer of its actual functioning was and remains Machiavelli. Had Bush, and his lieutenant in hidebound corruption and idiocy, Rove, read and understood these two thinkers, America would not now be confronted by the incomparable disaster which is Iraq. Why? Because the State has only one function, which is to rule - or, put more politely, to govern. To study the State in its various forms throughout history is to study the art of rulership, which is a pragmatic, orderly form of subjugation. The State has no morality, it has no purpose other than the perpetuation and extension of its own existence, and it has no conscience. Neither has it any rival.
Even in America, the various States and Commonwealths are supreme within their own jurisdiction. Within the confines of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for example, the state apparatus of that Commonwealth brooks no rival save the Federal State which, within its own jurisdiction, trumps the decisions of that Commonwealth. What this discrimination, between Federal State and Commonwealth, brings to the fore is the question of the legitimate extent of the powers which are attributed to the government of a locality, and to the government of the whole body politic of which the locality is a part. Which is a seperate question from that of the nature of the State as a whole.
It is inconceivable that the Commonwealth of Virginia would ever challenge the Federal State for jurisdiction over the whole of the United States of America. Why? Because, in the last resort, the Federal State would bring to bear upon the Commonwealth of Virginia the entire resources of its legitimate monopoly upon all forms of violence, a monopoly which is infinitely greater than any resource commanded by the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is not inconceivable however that an issue might arise which would require that the Commonwealth of Virginia be compelled to surrender some or all of its rights as an semi-independent political entity to the Federal State - the issue of racial segregation in education being one past example.
Why is it right that the Fedral State should trump so-called 'states-rights' in any issue? Because the Federal State is that mechanism of public life in which Sovereign and legitimate authority is vested, the authority to exercise that monopoly on all forms of violence which I mentioned earlier. There are two characteristics of the State which are never mentioned in the inane babble which passes for American political discourse. One is Sovereignty. The other is Legitimacy. The American Federal State is Sovereign within the confines of the USA because a) it was created so by the Constitution; and 
because it has no rival. No matter what words are printed on a piece of paper, and no matter how venerable that piece of paper is, the true source of Sovereignty lies in the ability to command overwhelming violence. The Federal State has no rival for the simple reason that it can, and will, crush anyone fool enough to challenge it.
Its legitimacy, which is a question entirely seperate from the nature of Sovereignty, derives from the constant reaffirmation by the people subject to that capacity for overwhelming violence, that the body of Institutions and Offices which constitute the State, in some sense and to some degree reflects the will of the people. America is not a democracy (for small blessings give praises) though it has a democratic form of government. It is a Republic. A Republic is, simply, a political entity not governed by a hereditary caste based upon blood and familial inheritance. A Republic is any form of political entity which is not Monarchical in nature.
Government and its organization is not the State. The State is that system of Institutions and Offices which persists through changes of government. Democrats may hold Office after the next election, or Republicans. It is irrelevant to any question of the nature of the State which political party holds office. Whether a Democrat or a Republican is President, the Office of State known as the Presidency remains. Independently of whether a Republican or Democrat is Speaker of the House, the Office of Speaker remains. It is the system of Offices and Institutions which constitute the structure of political reality that endures beyond any change in government which forms and composes the State - and it is this characteristic of 'remaining' beyond changes in government that Hegel focused upon.
If the State remains while governments change what is the function, nature and purpose of the State? All governments have their petty ambitions and their parochial concerns. That's why we have political 'pork'. Politicians, who govern, have their constituents to satisfy, and those constituents are only ever satisfied when their immediate concerns are met. You don't like pork? Quit whining for it, then. Pork is your fault, the fault of your own provincial, parochial, self-interested greed. No one else's.
In order to first create and then rule over an Empire the English, taking a leaf from the book of the Chinese, created a Civil Service, a caste of political technicians and diplomats that had no affiliation to or loyalty to any governing political party. No such equivalent exists in America today. The drones that occupy Washington are loyal either to 'the Administration' or to its opponenents, and there is not a single one of them that is capable of conceiving of, let alone being loyal to, the interests of America over and above their pathetic concerns for the interests of their preferred political party.
America is more than Republican interests. It is more than Democratic interests. It is more than Independent, or Libertarian, or any other 'interest'. America is a Nation and a State. America wil still be here long after Bush, or Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama, or any other of the lunatic parasites presently competing for the Presidency are dead and rotten in their graves. America will be here when they are dust, and long forgotten. Who then cares for the interests of America? No one.
Americans, so far as I can see, are utterly obsessed with their rights. Who among them is concerned for their obligations? No one. And since it's beyond question that Americans are political infants without comprehension of what political obligation is, I will define that concept for you.
Poltical rights carry with them, in exactly the same way that one face of a coin carries with it its opposite face, political obligations. If you accept the protections of law, for example, and benefit from the activities of those who enforce the law, then you are obligated to obey the law. It is not a question of whether you approve of a particular law, or of law in general. If you live under law, if you accept the benefits which a society governed by law provides, then quid pro quo you are under an obligation to obey the law. Political obligation is nothing more than the opposite face of political right. If you have rights you have obligations. I labor the point in this way because, here in America, everyone has rights - but no one is willing to accept that they have obligations to anyone but themselves and their immediate circle.
What is the principal obligation of the citizen of a Republic? Is it to take from that Republic anything he can and give nothing in return? No, because then he is not a citizen but a parasite - whatever the Constitution may say. A citizen is one who fulfills his obligations to the Republic that made him a citizen in the first place. The principal obligation of the citizen of a Republic is to defend the fundamental characteristics of that Republic in every way he can, and to collaborate with the lawfully constituted Authorities that are actively engaged in promoting and enhancing and developing the life of that Republic.
And the State is that instrument of public life which is most intimately and actively concerned with that promotion, enhancement, and development. The State is that organization of human life which is entirely independent of and free from the parochial and personal concerns of the citizen of the Republic, or of any group of citizens. It is that instrument of human existence which considers, promotes, develops the general welfare of all without kowtowing to the private interest of any political party, or any organized group of private interests - whether they be rich or poor, powerful or weak, good, bad, or indifferent.
The tragedy of America as she presently stands is that the American State has been entirely captured by these private interests. America, in her present condition, is neither a democracy or a Republic. She is an Oligarchy, in which a patrician caste of the super wealthy rule in their own interest. If that were not so it would not cost millions to run for the Presidency. The reason it does cost millions is not because it is a fundamental necessity that it should be so, but in order to exclude the voice of the common people of America and to restrict access to political power to a revolving caste of parasitic idiots whose only interest in being in power is to remain in power.
In the interest of the American Republic it would not only be proper but right if every member of that caste were exterminated from within the body politic, that body which they have corrupted and traduced and betrayed and made a laughing-stock around the world through their unspeakable inbred stupidity. It is only the State, which stands over and above the body politic, which is sufficiently independent and indifferent to all parochial and particular interests, which is fundamentally concerned with America (rather than with the citizens of America) which is able to make the determination of who should be exterminated and who should not. Every other determination of who should be put against a wall and shot would be nothing more than the enthronement of personal prejudice, and would result in nothing more than the basest and most onerous tyrrany.
The State has no interest in who you have sex with, or at what age sex takes place. The State has no interest in your religion, or lack of religion. The State has no interest in the color of your skin, your worth as a man, or in any other purely personal and private question. The State has no interest but in whether you are a citizen or not; and whether you obey the law or not. And in cases were the life of the body politic as a whole is threatened in some way, then the State should kill you because, in such cases, criminals have declared themselves to be enemies, not merely or solely of particular persons, but of us all.
And that State which cannot defend itself from the enemies of its citizens will not long remain a State.