In the face of new developments such as the NSA spying program and persistent problems such as the mass incarceration for drug possession or the drone program, many influential voices have said that the United States is a police state. The assessment comes from libertarian quarters  and from honest left-wingers who, to their credit, are not willing to give a pass to Obama on civil liberties.

Let us concede, for the sake of argument, that these practices render the United States government guilty of violating the rights of its citizens (and others). Let us stipulate, that is, that these facts are as troublesome as critics contend.

Still this would not make the United States a police state. In fact, the charge is a ludicrous abuse of language. If the United States is a police state, what should we say about North Korea? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Venezuela? Cuba? Nigeria? The English language would have no word for those. I do not claim any special knowledge, but I have lived in a police state. It is one where the slightest slip of the tongue will get you arrested; where you friends and co-workers disappear without a trace; where there is no free press; where the government uses the media as a gigantic propaganda machine and persecutes dissenters with phony charges brought before a compliant judiciary. And the list could go on and on. Compared with real past and present states, the United States is a haven for freedom.  (The respected Freedom House gives the United States top scores on civil liberties.)

To say this is not to say that the United States does not violate rights. All states do. Nor is it even to say that the United States is a legitimate state. I tend to think that no state is morally legitimate, for the reasons that Michael Huemer gives.  But that doesn’t mean that all states are morally equal.  Some states are better than others.  The better states are those that relatively allow persons to pursue their personal projects. The worse states are those that relatively do not. And the police states are the worst of the worst. To place the United States in that category is irresponsible rhetoric. I know that those who say this have the commendable purpose of exposing rights violations in the United States. But calling the United States a police state simply turns readers off, because they instinctively know that this is a gross exaggeration. On a freedom measure, no reasonable person can deny that the United States is among the better states.

Calling the United States a police state has other undesirable practical consequences. First, it gives ammunition to the real police states. It allows the Castros and Kim Jongs of this world to say with a straight face that the United States is no better than them after all. Second, it moves libertarianism further away from the mainstream. One avowed strategy by those of us who started this blog is to move libertarianism closer to the mainstream, to free it from the perception (fueled by leftists and conservatives alike) that we defend esoteric views that no average person could endorse. But all the good work we might have done showing, for example, that we care about the poor, is ruined when we add that the United States is a police state –this is indeed an esoteric view that no average person can endorse.

So, while we should all oppose U.S. practices that violate rights, we should keep a sense of perspective and pause to consider the value of what we have, far as it may be from the libertarian regulative ideal.