Our Benevolent and Innocuous Government - NOT!
Here’s the real problem, a real frog-in-the-kettle dilemma; most people embrace a belief that the government is good (benevolent) or at worst, innocuous. How far from the truth they are.
- Benevolent: benevolence - an inclination to do kind or charitable acts
- Innocuous: Harmless; producing no ill effect; innocent; Inoffensive; unprovocative; not exceptional.
Are these the terms we should use when describing the federal government? Certainly our Founding Fathers would not have thought of a centralized government in those terms, but how things change in a short 200+ years. We’ve now almost completely lost any apprehension or healthy fear of the federal government and boy are we suffering from it. In fact, most of us look to Washington DC for direction or help in time of need. Call me Pollyannaish, call me gloom and doom, but I cannot ignore the facts that are in front of me. Perhaps others want to bury their heads in the sand and hope everything gets better, but not me. I don’t like getting cold-cocked or sucker punched! No, we’ve got a mess on our hands and it’s tenuous at best to think we can turn it around. And believe me, the worst is yet to come; we’re just in the very early stages of this. Why?
Well, to begin with, we’ve grown complacent and comfortable with the idea of federal government involvement in every facet of our lives. How often in the past 2 months have you heard the phrase “it will take a while for Obama to turn the economy around?”? Just this morning I heard Professor Larry Sabato state that very thing as he talked about tamping down expectations for the Obama administration. Did you catch the problem with that phrase; whether you’re a conservative, liberal or “moderate”?
Since when is it the responsibility of Obama or for that matter any politician to “turn the economy around”? Do you see how far we’ve fallen? Even as conservatives, we use the same terminology as the liberals and all our terminology points in the wrong direction…Washington DC. Washington is, has been, and always will be the problem and until that changes, we’ll just stay frogs in the kettle.
So, step one for everyone reading this blog…stop thinking of the federal government as “benevolent” or even “innocuous” no matter whom is in charge. Let me repeat; NO MATTER WHOM IS IN CHARGE.
A new paradigm is needed by all of us who call ourselves conservative. The federal government is neither benevolent nor innocuous, it’s predatory and harmful. Because its gravitational trajectory is always towards expansion, interference, and control, it is a direct assault and affront to all things free. Sadly, since the 1930’s, the government has encroached so much and so often that we’re hardly even aware of it anymore and we have become the generation of big government. Instead of a healthy fear of Washington DC and a Constitutional corralling of its powers, we’ve grown to fear it.
- Business owners - ever fear a tax audit, or an EEOC or OSHA audit?
- Home owners - Ever get a letter from the IRS, or want to add an addition to your home or build a pool near a wetland, feel uncomfortable telling the federal government how many guns you own?
- Employees - Are you afraid of talking about your religion at work, passed over for a promotion because of your race or gender?
- Dads and moms - Worried about the Department of Education interfering with your desire to home school, or odd looks from your pediatrician about guns in your home?
Now, before I’m accused of being an anarchist, let me put your minds at ease, I’m not. If fact, I see a real need for government in our lives. Simply hoping for the good will of our fellow man is both naive and dangerous. That said, I’m much more inclined to support our Founders concept of government rather than what we have right now. So, if I could wave my magic wand and change everything, I’d viciously slash the size of the federal government, perhaps by 75% and transfer the power and responsibilities to a very robust state government. I would only allow the federal government the power to operate within the enumerated powers given to it by the United States Constitution and take everything else away. This is in keeping with James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, in the Federalist Papers #45:
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.”
Thus, in my world, the federal government has the following responsibilities:
- 1. Develop and manage treaties.
- 2. Provide for the security of the states.
- 3. Put down armed insurrections.
- 4. Provide for interstate commerce.
- 5. Create a national currency.
- 6. That’s about it.
Everything else falls under Madison’s numerous and indefinite. Now, understandably, this doesn’t sound too appealing to anyone running for national office, but isn’t that the point. Didn’t the Founders want the source of power over people to be close to them, in the towns, communities, cities and states, not halfway across the country? Didn’t the Founders understand that the one-size fits all approach to national legislation would just eventually lead to factions? In their common sense approach to governance, the Founders realized that having power reside to close to you, perhaps in you neighborhood, would give you the ability to influence in ways you cannot today. Ever try to speak to your Representative or Senator? Never mind the President or Supreme Court Justice, not gonna happen. You’re just an “underling” to them; a tool to remain in power.
Little secret, when you get a letter signed by your Member of Congress, guess what, he/she didn’t write it, I did as a legislative assistant. In fact, he/she probably never even saw your letter unless you were a big contributor to their campaign or were a big player in their congressional district or state. Another little secret, most have no idea how to vote when legislation comes to the floor and end up asking their staff how to vote. And forget about voting in their committee, most of the time they give their proxy to the Chairman or the Ranking Member which means they’re not even there to vote. It’s laughable what the average American thinks really happens up there by these “statesmen”. Most spend their day with lobbyists or special interest leaders. Some meet with their constituents occasionally throughout the day, most are rarely in their offices. Someday, I’ll write an entire post about how legislation really happens in DC, but suffice it to say, that wasn’t the Founders intent.
In the end, we’ve made rock stars out of these politicians on Capitol Hill and we give them, through our lack of civic knowledge, all the tools they need to rule the citizenry. How sad; what was once a great idea, self governance, has turned back into another monarchy, just this time there’s a bunch of little “kings.”
Hi, Frog,
I penned this elsewhere, quoting Walter Williams within, and thought I’d share it here.
Is it time to part comany?
This short article was written just prior to the 2000 Presidential Election. I am sure even the author is surprised by how prophetic his words have become. I pose the question because I increasingly do not recognize the politics that emulate from Washington and, in my case, Boston. What has happened? As an example that we all could relate to recall that just a couple of years ago the furor over the waste and mismanagement of Boston’s Big Dig was that all over the news. The total cost of that project was about 15 billion dollars. At least there is something tangible to show for the expenditure of all that money. I can now drive at breakneck speed at all hours of the day from my house to Logan Airport. The fact that the Central Artery no longer looms as a rusting hulk of urban decay through the middle of Downtown Boston is refreshing. Call it waste if you like but can anyone show me anything tangible that has come from the expenditure of the bailout funds? Today, 15 billion dollars of wasteful government spending would be considered good news, as in our government finding something small to waste our tax money on.
There are many facets to the crisis that we are experiencing in our country - and they are not financial, but are being manifested as a financial crisis. I personally think more than just a bit of it is due to the results of this election. The fact that Obama is the first African-American president is a justifiably proud moment for those who have felt the heavy burden of racism, however, at some point we are going to have to come to grips with the fact that this man is the President of the United States and that the fact that he has different color skin than his 43 predecessors is going to be irrelevant. Mr. Obama is a man of ideas and beliefs. To that end, Mr. Obama made innumerable statements during the campaign that, in the view of capitalists, were very alarming. For example, he plainly states his intent to redistribute income. He made statements about the coal industry that intimate his desire to eliminate it as an industry, as another example. Much has been written and said about Mr. Obama that is not true and is not fair to him. However, he has made myriad statements of policy personally and repeatedly of which the markets have clearly taken notice. Let me state that my concerns gravitate towards Mr. Obama because he is now the standard bearer of his party and the leader of our nation. He is not alone as a target of my criticism and concerns, indeed, he seems to be to be part of an ever increasing majority of opinion within government. I think that there is tremendous fear in the markets of a federal government that is profoundly anti-capitalist and demonstrably divorced from the original intent of our nation’s founders as to the role of the federal government in its citizen’s lives.
The amounts of money being bantered about on Capitol Hill of late are the stuff of science fiction. The enormity of the sums is incomprehensible. The ability of our nation’s taxpayers and our nation’s economy to meet such obligations is slim to none (and slim just left town - sorry, couldn’t resist). It seems that as each and every “crisis” comes to light, a solution is offered that somehow puts additional burdens upon the taxpayer, contributes to the ever increasing consolidation of power of the government over the lives of its citizens and the ever increasing erosion of the enumerated rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution.
We are living in a real life Atlas Shrugged. Don’t believe me? I am sure you can find a copy on your library shelf, down at Borders or Barnes and Noble, etc. Pick it up and (re)read it. The similarities are eerie and frightening. The book was written a half century ago by an author that grew up under the thumb of communist oppression.
Quote:
It’s Time To Part Company
One political question we have to answer is whether George W. Bush or Albert Gore shall be president and just which party will control the House of Representatives and the Senate. But I’d suggest that there’s a far more important long run question we must answer: If one group of people prefers government control and management of people’s lives and another prefers liberty and a desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight, antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways?
Like a marriage that has gone bad, I believe there are enough irreconcilable differences between those who want to control and those want to be left alone that divorce is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who are responsible for and support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.
Let’s look at just some of the magnitude of the violations.
Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution enumerates the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained it in The Federalist Papers: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. . . . The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”
Nowhere amongst the enumerated powers of congress is there authority to tax and spend for: Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for Congress’s mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. A list of congressional violations of the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end.
Americans who wish to live free have two options: We can resist, fight and risk bloodshed to force America’s tyrants to respect our liberties and human rights, or we can seek a peaceful resolution of our irreconcilable differences by separating. That can be done by peopling several states, say Texas and Louisiana, control their legislatures and then issue a unilateral declaration of independence just as the Founders did in 1776. You say, “Williams, nobody has to go that far, just get involved in the political process and vote for the right person.” That’s nonsense. Liberty shouldn’t require a vote. It’s a God-given or natural right.
Some independence or secessionists movements, such as our 1776 war with England and our 1861 War Between the States, have been violent, but they need not be. In 1905, Norway seceded from Sweden, Panama seceded from Columbia (1903), and West Virginia from Virginia (1863). Nonetheless, violent secession can lead to great friendships. England is probably our greatest ally and we have fought three major wars together. There is no reason why Texiana (Texas and Louisiana) couldn’t peaceably secede, be an ally, and have strong economic ties with United States.
The bottom line question for all of us is should we part company or continue trying to forcibly impose our wills on one another?
Walter E. Williams
September 8, 2000
The passage of time and the enormity of events since 2000 have only served to magnify and amplify the premise of the author regardless of one’s political affiliation or ideological orientation.
You have to seriously consider the state of affairs in government when a piece of legislation like this, which would pass by acclimation in the founder’s day (assuming that they would engage in a nonsensical act of redundancy having just hammered out a Constitution), not only does not pass into law today, but is repeated ignored and not voted upon.
How can this conflagration be extinguished? How on Earth are we to entrust the very theives robbing us of our liberties and our fortunes to act as constabulary in solving the crisis? How can we appeal to an electorate that is so woefully ignorant of their birthright as Americans as to vote in favor of their immediate gratification at the expense of their liberty?
The plain answer is that it cannot be extinguished by means formally utilized to further the health of our Constitutional Republic.
The tipping point has been passed. The score is now 52 to 48 in favor of the looters and moochers - and that is, by fiscal definition, untenable.