States or governments are never sovereign -- they are at best legitimate. The individual is sovereign and rights reside only in the individual. The legitimacy of government is derived from its protection of the many and broad sovereign rights of the individuals within its territory of operation. It is this individual rights protection service that justifies the existence of government. To say that a government or state is sovereign is the equivalent of saying that all rights reside in the government and the state hands out such privileges as it sees fit to individuals. Those privileges can be revoked at the whim of the sovereign state. The sovereign state demands that the people serve it, while the sovereign individual demands that the state serve each and every individual. There is a world of difference.
Joe Biden has explicitly embraced the sovereign state that grants such privileges as it chooses to individuals and denies the sovereignty of individuals and their pre-state assertion of rights which governments are formed to protect. This viewpoint highly dominates those of the Democratic Party and is also held by quite a few Republicans. It is the basis for the belief that it is a proper function of the government to do harm to some as long as it can claim it is doing good for more people than are harmed or that it is doing good for the "least among us." This viewpoint removes sovereignty from the individual and effectively removes all of his rights, while opening the floodgates on an endless list of government powers. The only real limit on government power is that it is only legitimate to the degree that it protects the exercise of each and every individual's rights.
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Here is a thumbnail of what Friedrich Hayek thought about the state. The individualist philosophy starts by recognizing that each person sees only a tiny slice of everyone’s needs, and that individual scales of value are different and often opposed. If each person’s value system is, or ought to be, supreme and free from what others dictate, however, people should be allowed within limits to follow their own values and preferences, not somebody else’s. This does not preclude joining individual needs to make common cause, typically for limited goals that work where individual ends coincide.
What passes for “social ends” is no more than many identical or compatible individual ends achievable only when everyone agrees to work at in return for others’ assistance (thereby helping satisfy those people’s needs or desires as well). This limits common action to projects that serve common ends. But rather than ultimate ends, they are usually means that different people want for different purposes. Common action is likeliest where the common end will serve a maximum of separate wants.
To reach common ends, individuals may assign an organization like the state (formed for the purpose) its own set of ends, attainable by the means individuals give them. But the state so formed is meant to remain one “person” among others. Because it is much more powerful than any individual, its ends must be confined to a separate and limited role.
Where individuals set the limits of state action, the likelihood of agreement on a state purpose decreases as the action needed to achieve the end narrows and “particularizes.” That is, almost all citizens will agree to permit some state functions and a substantial majority may agree on other functions, down to where, although everyone might want state action, there will be almost as many views on it as people involved. That is where wanting a government that “gets things done” arises as a threat.
"The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants" -- Thomas Jefferson
Same message as: "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed..."
The government created is defined in our Constitution which severely limits power of government in Article I, Section 8.
That government has been exceeding its constitutional authority for more than 100 years and is at the brink of requiring a reset (see paragraph 1). It's long overdue for people to do what politicians are sworn to do by oath, but who have failed the people repeatedly... defend our Constitution.
A thought on Hayek's view as synopsized above...
Individuals working together for a common purpose or end are not the equivalent of "government" as defined by our Constitution.
"Government" in the constitutional republic defined by our Constitution is not meant to "govern" the people... it is meant to govern the common purposes of the individual states that untied to form the Untied States. How will trade between states be governed? What about transport between states? Commerce between states? These questions are all answered by our Constitution that severely limits the power of federal government.
There is no federal power to "govern" the individual citizen. The Bill of Rights were adopted to certify that.
The supreme power rests with the individuals and descends from them to the state within which they reside. In a nutshell, the federal government exists to (1) protect the sovereignty of the United States (its international borders) and defend against foreign aggression (in any form); (2) see to orderly commerce with foreign nations and between states (provide for a national currency, mail system, road network, etc.); and (3) provide for the military defense of the United States from all aggression.
The Untied States government does not exist to govern the lives of people living within its borders, nor does it exist to take the fruits of one person to improve the life of another. Charity is an individual responsibility; government must never become a charity.
There is no consitutional foundation for a Department of Education, a Department of Housing and Urban Development, etc. Such abominations reflect a failure of politicians to abide by their oaths of office. They also represent a compliant Supreme Court who allows such unconstitutional abominations to flourish.
Most of the time when individuals work for a common purpose or end, they do so in the private sector on a completely voluntary basis. This opens up innumerable possibilities for mutually beneficial cooperation between individuals, while allowing them to maintain their individuality and even to further develop their individuality.
As Bob Webster points out, the federal government according to our Constitution actually has very little function in governing individuals. It will have some limited governing interactions with individuals respect to national defense, with those involved in international trade, with those seeking and maintaining patents, etc. The primary "governing" functions are left with the state and local governments.
However, once the federal government declared its job to be to provide full employment, retirement benefits, health benefits, housing, unemployment benefits, food aid, child rearing aid, the collection and dissemination of information, education aid and dictates, pollution controls, workplace safety, the control of flight, and myriad other functions, the federal government has become a micromanager of our lives. This violates its very limited Constitutional powers and has made a mockery of our many and broad rights, even that limited list provided for explicitly in the Bill of Rights and the additional constitutional amendments.
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