Let’s simplify just a bit.

Modern liberals have trouble thinking logically about politics. That’s not necessarily to their shame; indeed, we all have that problem. But as a result of one particular failure in modern‐​liberal logic, libertarians make it hard for modern liberals to be true to themselves.

A world without libertarians, Will seems to suggest, would be one in which liberals would feel blessedly free to oppose the surveillance state. Given the left’s vastly greater institutional power, it might even be a world in which the surveillance state was definitively reformed.

My fellow libertarians, perhaps it’s our fault that this hasn’t happened yet. Because we weren’t nicer to liberals. (But not really, because he’s just kidding, of course!)

Kidding or not, this seems off to me. Sure, some modern liberals – like Sean Wilentz – have argued that libertarianism is a Very Bad Thing, and that the enemy of my enemy must be my friend, even if my newfound friend is the shadowy guy in the heart of the panopticon.

But I think that for many modern liberals the reality is much simpler. They like the surveillance state because modern liberalism sooner or later requires it.

If it wants to succeed, or if it even wants to be taken seriously in many of the claims that it makes, modern, paternalistic liberalism requires watching people. A lot. The state must watch so that we the people don’t violate any the tens of thousands of rules in the Federal Register. The state must watch so that we exercise and eat properly. The state must watch so that no one makes a racist joke or fails to serve a wedding cake to a same‐​sex couple. The state must watch so that we don’t seek alternate medical care or put any otherwise wrong substances in our bodies. The state must watch so that we all comply minutely with every one of the state’s vast array of commands.

Terrorism is an excuse for the surveillance state, but it’s only one of many such excuses. What we’re ultimately headed for might well be called the paternalism of things. Consider this article from the front page of today’s Washington Post: