The Musings of Civitas: Part Two

Written by William T. Wallace, DINO Supporter & Liberty Enthusiast

This is the second in a multi-part series dedicated to exploring some of the theory behind the DINO Movement. It's erudite, and probably not "for everyone" but if you're curious what a lot of the background beliefs are in what DINO is trying to restore from our founding principles as a state and nation, and what a DINO world looks like when it's done, this is a great place to start.

Please note that this was written by a supporter, not by Gabriel Green. As Gabriel likes to say, "this cannot be a movement of one man," so when he received this piece through our dinowyo@gmail.com address he was downright giddy to have such a kindred spirit in liberty-oriented nerdiness.

If you'd like to write something yourself or otherwise contribute content to the DINO movement, please feel free to reach out to us directly as William did.

Check out Part One here.

Abolition of Bureaucratic Creep

Taxation being reclaimed

A common objection to abolishing federal enforcement agencies is the assumption that abolishing administration is equivalent to abandoning law. That assumption is precisely what the American constitutional tradition rejects. Montesquieu argued that liberty is preserved not by the absence of law, but by the proper distribution of power. When executive authority grows too distant from the people it governs, law loses its moral gravity and becomes mere command. Tocqueville later observed that centralized administration does not merely enforce rules, it quietly trains citizens to see governance as something done to them rather than by them. The American founders took these warnings seriously. Madison did not design a system where federal law required federal hands at every point of contact. Jefferson explicitly trusted local enforcement precisely because it preserved responsibility, visibility, and consent. The question is not whether federal law can survive without federal administrators, but whether it can survive with them indefinitely.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) offers a clear example of how federal law can exist without a permanent federal enforcement arm. Firearms regulation, alcohol distribution, and explosives control are already enforced daily through state criminal codes, local policing, and courts that possess full coercive authority. The ATF does not supply the power to enforce law. It supplies a centralized administrative layer that substitutes national rulemaking for local judgment. Montesquieu warned that when law is divorced from the particular conditions of a people, it ceases to be moderate and becomes ideological. Firearm ownership, public safety risks, and enforcement priorities vary dramatically by geography, culture, and population density. Federal statutes governing interstate trafficking or prohibited possession can remain intact while enforcement authority is delegated to states through cooperative compacts and conditional grants. Local agencies enforcing federal law are accountable to their communities and elected officials. Federal agents enforcing the same law are accountable upward to institutional priorities and internal metrics. Madison understood this distinction when he argued that power must be controlled by making its exercise visible to those who are governed by it.

The same logic applies to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Federal drug law does not require a national police force to exist. Courts, prosecutors, and state law enforcement already prosecute drug crimes under both state and federal statutes. The DEA represents a centralized attempt to manage moral behavior through uniform enforcement, something Tocqueville explicitly warned would erode civic trust. Drug abuse manifests differently in different communities. Rural addiction, urban trafficking, and suburban prescription misuse are not the same problem, yet federal administration treats them as such. Federal law can still prohibit trafficking across state lines and regulate controlled substances while enforcement authority is exercised locally. States already possess the investigative capacity and coercive power necessary. What they lack is discretion when federal agencies impose priorities from above. Returning enforcement authority to states does not weaken law. It restores proportionality, which Montesquieu identified as the soul of justice.

Immigration enforcement presents a more emotionally charged case, yet the constitutional logic remains consistent. Immigration law is federal by nature, but enforcement does not require a roving national police force detached from local civic life. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operates as an abstract authority that often bypasses local legal processes, producing fear and noncooperation that ultimately undermine enforcement itself. Tocqueville observed that laws enforced without the participation or trust of local institutions lose legitimacy even when they are formally valid. Federal immigration statutes can be enforced through state courts, local law enforcement cooperation, and civil proceedings without maintaining a separate federal enforcement bureaucracy. Madison anticipated this model when he described federal law operating through state institutions rather than displacing them. Enforcement conducted by local authorities who live among the people they govern preserves social order while maintaining accountability. Federal law remains supreme. Administration becomes human again. Consider the possibility of State Governors prescribing the standards of engagement within the federal law and local metro and municipal Mayors or Councils creating the detention and deportation infrastructure. Surely, this would result in less draconian methods and a more visible responsibility chain of command. Indeed, this would also provide a more appropriate response to questions of legitimacy and conduct. 

The National Security Agency (NSA) represents a different kind of danger, not because intelligence gathering is illegitimate, but because surveillance detached from civic oversight becomes self-justifying. Montesquieu warned that unchecked power is most dangerous when it becomes invisible. The lessons learned in the 20^th century through various secret police organizations and surveillance states like the East German Stasi actualize this concern. The NSA operates at a scale that eliminates meaningful consent or redress. Federal intelligence law can remain in force without a permanent mass surveillance apparatus by narrowing intelligence functions to defined threats, explicit warrants, and shared oversight mechanisms. States already participate in joint task forces and information sharing without surrendering their authority. And the FBI offers predated federal redundancy on this particular aspect of domestic cybersecurity. Madison insisted that ambition must be made to counteract ambition. An intelligence apparatus that cannot be challenged locally or legally no longer serves republican ends. It becomes an ever-present, ambient threat in the daily lives of us all.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) illustrates the institutional decay Yuval Levin describes, but it also illustrates why abolition does not imply disorder. DHS is an aggregation of functions created in response to fear, and has become a perpetuator of that very fear. Border control, disaster response, and counterterrorism require coordination, not managerial centralization. Jefferson warned repeatedly against administrative consolidation because it blurs responsibility and reduces accountability. Federal law governing border integrity and national defense can be preserved while dismantling a department whose scope creep is weaponized and re-aimed every election cycle. Functions can be reassigned to narrowly defined agencies with clear jurisdictional limits and sunset provisions. While the previous agencies could be entirely abolished, the DHS instead needs to be entirely gutted but allowed to continue in a fashion that focuses it’s purpose to financial and material support of existing local and state agencies.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) demonstrates where federal enforcement actually makes sense. Ports of entry are discrete, functional, and inherently national. Customs inspection and entry adjudication involve international coordination that states cannot perform independently. Montesquieu recognized that centralized authority is appropriate where uniformity is necessary and discretion is minimal. Keeping CBP exclusively at ports of entry aligns with constitutional scale. Interior enforcement, by contrast, involves civil life, courts, and communities. That belongs downstream, not at the border.

What ties all of this together is the American insight that federal law is strongest when it is enforced through local authorities that have the support of local populations rather than imposed by distant administration. Madison and Jefferson did not fear state enforcement of federal law. They expected it. Local enforcement empowered by federal law but not administered by federal bureaucracy remains accountable to voters, courts, and civic institutions within each state. The purpose of the apparatus then is properly ordered to maintaining the utmost liberty and not the infringement for the sake of convenience. When local enforcement fails, responsibility is visible and directly reportable. When it succeeds, legitimacy is preserved. Tocqueville warned that centralized administration would slowly dissolve the habits of self-government by relieving citizens of responsibility. This framework restores those habits and promotes healthy continuation of them.

Abolishing federal enforcement agencies does not abolish federal law. It reorders power so that law can be enforced without becoming alien. Montesquieu taught that liberty depends on structure. Tocqueville showed that liberty survives only where citizens remain participants rather than subjects. Madison and Jefferson designed a system that trusted local authority precisely because it binds power to consequence. This is not radical. It is the America we were trusted to preserve, and have sacrificed for the sake of less individual work.