In The Leviathan Thomas Hobbes said that the one thing people demanded of their government was safety. In the face of anarchy or violence, they would put up with a dictatorial government as long as that government guaranteed their own safety.
John Locke, of course, argued that we needed to be protected from a tyrannical government as well as from bad actors, and the Founding Fathers were obviously Lockian.
On the other hand, many Americans are now convinced that our governments are not protecting us from wrong doers. The latest example is in New Mexico, where Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is calling for a crackdown on drug addicts and homeless encampments. At one store in Las Cruces there have been seven murders since 2020 and a shootout that injured a policeman.
Gov. Lujan Grisham has a long personal history of helping homeless people, including bringing them into her own house. Now she is supporting a program of involuntary commitment for homeless people. Her own daughter-in-law was attacked by a man with a long criminal record, who hit her daughter-in-law with a rock and “cracked her skull open in several places.” (The daughter-in-law did recover.)
The governor, of course, is facing some opposition from “progressives.” If you are wondering why Trump won, this might be a clue.
Info for this post is from Michael Corkery, “In New Mexico, a Liberal Governor Grapples With Rising Crime,” New York Times, (Dec. 27, 2024), p. A11.
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