Words by Woods

I read an interesting item in the Global Legal Monitor; I find that looking at foreign politics illuminates American domestic issues.

In Turkey, according to an estimate by the Umut Foundation, only a quarter of firearms are legal.  Yet, firearm ownership in Turkey is more common than other countries; ranked 14 of 178 countries in a survey.

Surprisingly, in what seems like the correct direction, the Turkish Parliament was responding with an easing of government regulation of firearm ownership.  Unsurprisingly, this effort at rolling back failed government regulation was opposed:

The Umut Foundation, an anti-gun nongovernment organization in Turkey, and some other civil society organizations, were successful in mobilizing public opinion against the proposed changes to current legislation.

This is not intended to be a post about the Second Amendment; instead, I want to focus on two concepts from that sentence (“nongovernment organization” and “civil society organization”) in the context of these particular groups advocating greater government direction of individuals’ lives.

NGOs, nongovernment organizations, advocating expansive government regulation are not nongovernmental.  This reminds me of the absurdity of NGOs being dependent upon public funding to implement government policies claiming to be nongovernmental.

Similarly, civil society organizations are supposed to be free associations independent and separate from government, instead of a participant in the Iron Triangle supporting intrusive government.  The undermining of civil society by government is a critical concern of American foreign policy related to authoritarian regimes; meanwhile, our government appropriates our public funds to such civil society organization, thus corrupting their independence.

In America, we have many so called NGOs and civil society organizations dependent upon public funding and special tax treatment while simultaneously advocating for the expansion of government powers in contradiction to individual rights.  ACORN is probably the most well publicized recent example of this.

My point is that we need a new term as these groups are not NGOs nor are they aspects of the civil society.  I recommend that we call them SAOs, or Statism Advocacy Organizations.

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