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January 27, 2005
Why a Limited Federal Government?
lease note: As strident as my writing sometimes seems, and as passionate as I am about my opinions, I'm not so attached to them that I'm not open to countering arguments and evidence. Short essays are not the best for arguing positions adequately. But they can be sharp and fun.
Government by nature is about coercion. What distinguishes governments of any stripe from business or any other entity is that government is empowered to use force: Forcing people to follow law, forcing people to pay it money, forcing people to use its services, forcing people to support others. Government exists with the constant implicit threat that you will be jailed or killed if you do not submit to its coercion.
Many people in government are good people. They take their job seriously, and they actually accomplish good things. Still, much of the good that government is supposed to accomplish actually accomplishes the opposite. But to stay in the midst of political power, politicians and bureaucrats strive to avoid taking responsibility for their failures. As their ideals fade, they become "practical," and "realistic."
Here's my favorite picture of a politician:
That is why you constantly see politicians change once they are in office for an extended period of time. You see, many professional politicians and bureaucrats have had to compromise their principles to get something done, or they have indulged in some abuse of power and have come to believe that that is just how things are supposed to be. Therefore, when a newcomer politician or bureaucrat arrives with "stars in their eyes" and lofty principles, the professionals actively try to co-opt the newcomer. Teach them a lesson about politics.
How many times have you seen a principled member of Congress eventually forced to smile and mouth a position that you know they don't believe in, just to get the support of their political party?
All governments to some extent are tyrannies and embody the constant probability of abuse.
That is why America was founded upon principles of a limited government. The Founders clearly understood that by creating a Federal government, they were creating an entity that was potentially as tyrannical as the one they were throwing off. Thus they created The U.S. Constitution, which was designed to limit the powers of the Federal government that they were creating.
The U.S. Constitution does not grant rights. This fact is now mostly lost in the public consciousness, which believes that the Constitution is a government document that grants rights to people.
No. Every word of it is about defining the explicit powers of the Federal government. Everything not explicitly defined is not granted to it. Therefore, the Federal government has no business engaging in most of the activities it currently engages in. It is supposedly limited to what is explicitly granted in the Constitution.
The Constitution functioned as it was supposed to up until the early part of the 20th century, when the current Federal government was finally and effectively unhinged from the Constitution's limiting capacity. The Federal government has since taken on a range of coercive powers to force people to work for it and its social and political goals. We now live under an increasingly socialist government, where more than half of our labor goes to support the government through explicit and implicit taxation (the income tax being one of the most pernicious).
The Constitution, in its original 18th century capacity, allowed U.S. citizens a life mostly free from government coercion. By the middle of the 20th century, that changed to where U.S. citizens increasingly were subject to government controls and intrusions, in the name of freedom and security.
We are oftened warned of the dangers of socialism; that is, government coercively and selectively taking money (and therefore labor, in most cases) from some to selectively support others. Nothing in the Constitution was designed to allow for this, for the simple reason that a government that can selectively take and give is a tyranny. It becomes ridden with sycophants and manipulators and grand strategies for trying to get something through favors rather than personal merit.
Both businesses and special interests are only able to get something out of the government to the extent that government has the power to selectively give through favor what it selectively takes. Right now, both political parties engage in socialism and government by favor, although the Democratic party by far carries the banner of government socialism.
Unfortunately, many Americans have bought into emotional socialistic thinking that persuades them that it is the government's job to shape the social landscape. Increasing tyranny and slavery is the result. Forcing people to support others in their leisure is slavery, whether the leisure class is aristrocrats, slave owners, or the needy.
(Progressives looked to the Graduated Income Tax as the answer to the imbalance of income between the upper and lower classes. Little did they realize that this tax would insidiously open the door to all kinds of special interests who desire to influence and manipulate government. The U.S. Constitution allowed only those taxes that could be equally applied. Remember: The power to tax is the power to destroy. Raise your hand if you are afraid of the IRS?)
There are fundamental principles of liberty: Do all you agree to do and do not encroach on other people or their property.
All the rationalizations for supporting an increasingly socialist government are simply social consciousness blindness. In the mid-1960s, about 25% of black children were born into poverty. 40 years after The Great Society attempts through increase taxation and profligate spending that has increased almost every year, after billions spent, now almost 70% ofblack children are born into poverty. (Source: Thomas Sowell, The Economics and Politics of Race and Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?)
Hello. Is anyone paying attention?
Government socialism enslaves, even while it deludes itself into believing that it is freeing. The answer worldwide is always less government. Government action has enslaved and murdered more in the 20th century than religion did for the last 2000 years. (And the religions that did this functioned as governments because of their coercive exercise of power.)
(Some want to point to European models of socialism that worked. They don't, or at least, people don't take into account that these countries have, for the most part, been relieved of the burden of financially supporting their own militaries and defense by the huge support coming from the United States for NATO.)
As an individual, I resist all attempts for any government expansion. I believe the Federal government is Consitutionally powered to do only one-tenth of what it does.
Perhaps that explains more clearly why, even though I voted for him, I am only on board with about 30% of what President Bush stands for.
*** The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill
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Posted by witnit at January 27, 2005 6:37 AM
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