Some people think the best way to stop a big bad dictator from violating human rights is to create a bigger badder dictator who can force the big bad dictator to behave. Then if the big bad dictator violates our human rights, we can go to the bigger badder dictator and ask the bigger badder dictator to protect us, and the bigger badder dictator will punish the big bad dictator and force the big bad dictator to stop violating our human rights.
What do we do if the bigger badder dictator violates our human rights?
The bigger badder dictator theory of limited government is wrong because the bigger badder dictator theory of limited government assumes that the bigger badder dictator will never violate human rights.
If there is some reason why the bigger badder dictator will never violate human rights, then surely the big bad dictator will also never violate human rights for the same reason. If we assume that government officials will never violate human rights, then there is no reason for any limits on government.
The bigger badder dictator theory of limited government reduces the limits on higher government officials in order to increase the limits on lower government officials. The bigger badder dictator theory of limited government concentrates power in a few top government officials, so that those few powerful top government officials can force the lower government officials to stop being wasteful, corrupt, and abusive.
We have limits on government to prevent government officials from abusing their power. Abuse of power by top government officials is worse than abuse of power by lower government officials. Why exempt high government officials from limits on government power? Why would concentrating power in a few people reduce government waste, corruption, or abuse?
It is not logical to attempt to limit the power of government by increasing the power of government.
Some people think that the United Nations should provide justice to people whose national governments have failed to provide justice. This is the bigger badder dictator theory of limited government. They want to limit the power of big bad national governments by making the United Nations bigger and badder than national governments.
Many leaders of many nations have said that it was difficult for them to fix government problems because they did not have enough power. This is the bigger badder dictator theory of limited government. They want to limit the power of the big bad bureaucracy by making the president bigger and badder than the bureaucracy.
The american constitution gives the supreme court the power to stop the president, congress, and state governments from abusing their power. This is the bigger badder dictator theory of limited government. The american constitution limits the power of big bad president, congress, and state governments by making the supreme court bigger and badder than the president, congress, and state governments.
It is a mistake to attempt to stop a government official from abusing power by giving a second government official power over the first government official. If the second government official has power over the first government official, then the second government official has more power than the first government official, and the second government official has more opportunity to abuse power than the first government official. The ultimate result will be more, not less, abuse of power by government officials. You wouldn't try to stop a thief by outlawing locks, to reduce theft by increasing opportunities for theft, would you?
If we give a government agency power to stop abuse of power by all other parts of the government, the government agency cannot stop abuse of power by all other parts of the government unless the government agency has total control of every other part of the government. In other words, the government agency will have absolute power. There will be no way to stop the government agency from abusing power.
The best way to limit the power of government is to divide power among many government officials, and by allowing people to escape from unwanted government programs through competitive federalism.