More young Americans believe in UFOs than believe they'll receive Social Security. Only 25% of Americans trust the federal government. 30 years ago it was 75%. No wonder -- the federal government now runs trillion-dollar deficits, dedicates 15% of its budget to pay interest on the national debt, and spends two-thirds of what remains on entitlements programs. One entitlement to Archer Daniels Midland Co., the nation's leading ethanol producer, costs taxpayers $30 for every $1 of ADM profits.

Behavioral ecology helps explain these findings. Governments become parasitic; they get their hooks into and drain productive individuals and groups.

The authors of the U.S. Constitution well understood the problems of political parasitism. They knew that the default position is for government to become a parasitic agent that feeds off involuntary hosts without providing commensurate benefits. Constant vigilance is required to forestall this outcome.

Our government is a social arrangement legitimized by the consent of the governed. The constitution sets the rules for making laws and regulations. Citizens sacrifice certain rights to guarantee predictable, social order.

In principle, nearly all sane people find these sacrifices preferable to anarchy. It makes little difference whether we drive on the right or left side of the road, as long as we all drive on the same side. Having government select and enforce one side benefits society immensely at little cost. In many ways, great and subtle, government is a social lubricant.

But there is a profound tension inherent to political management. The key social lubricant, government, is also the ultimate source of coercion. Government can make life easier by establishing courts and minting currency, but can it stop there?

When government becomes the Welfare and Nanny State its major functions are to redistribute wealth and opportunities. Government bureaucracies generate no wealth on their own. Unlike private, independent actors who must rely on mutually beneficial, voluntary agreements, federal bureaucracies depend on taxation and forced transfers. Their lifeblood is siphoned from successful individuals and organizations. There are huge temptations for government to expand its activities and become an economic parasite.

Michael Rothschild, in his book Bionomics, describes economic parasites as organisms that "use secrecy, deception, brute force, and legal authority as their 'hooks'." No doubt active government agencies use all of the above tactics, some more than others. The U.S. Forest Service, quietly loses a billion dollars a year managing lands it got for free. It relies on an oblivious public who loves Smokey but is largely ignorant of how Forest Service operations deplete our forests, divide our communities, and depreciate our economies.

Federal subsidies to ethanol producers, championed by Bob Dole ("Senator Ethanol", according to his own press release), are predicated on the deception that they save energy and improve air quality. They epitomize corporate welfare and gross economic inefficiencies. The Fish and Wildlife Service, in forcing landowners to provide habitat for endangered species, is one of many agencies who implement brute force as its hook. These parasitic agencies drain their host (taxpayers, landowners) usually without their consent.

Society needs defenses against parasites, just as our bodies do. When economic parasitism comes from criminals, government is expected (and funded by taxes) to intervene. What happens when government IS the economic parasite? The Founders' question, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (who will monitor the monitors themselves) has no satisfactory answer.

Behavioral ecology can offer great insight here. Humans, their pets, fruits, and other organisms have been plagued by parasites throughout history. Society has devised many treatments to mitigate harm, especially when cures are not available.

Traditional treatments often include some form of quarantine. Parasites need a host. By isolating parasites from potential new hosts, the parasite will eventually die. Quarantining fruits, pets, and the infirmed is an example of this. Similarly, the Bubonic Plague was tackled by implementing waste management practices which separated rat habitat from human habitat.

Successes against biological parasites can be translated to political economy. Imprisoning criminals effectively quarantines them. Likewise, by quarantining an activist, parasitic government, its many bureaucratic tentacles will wither.

This is what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind: a limited government, based on a system of checks and balances and a Bill of Rights which protects individuals and states from incursions of a parasitic Big Government. The limited, quarantined government could still do its essentials (like protect from invasions and select which side of the road to drive on), but couldn't engage in the parasitic behavior that is epidemic today.

Free speech and press are essential to stopping parasitism by secrecy and deception. "Just compensation" and the Fifth Amendment prohibition on forcing citizens to house soldiers during wartime are examples of efforts to prevent parasitism of a police state. And the Tenth Amendment's oft-neglected mandate that " powers not delegated to the United States... are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people" was meant to curtail parasitism of a totalitarian government.

The Constitution was designed to be our first line of defense against economic parasitism. Yet today we see generalized disenchantment with both major parties. This is a predictable consequence of parasitic government. And the costs of lost efficiency are small when compared to those of lost civic virtue among national politicians. We will not see faith restored in federal government while it's used as an engine of plunder.