It occurred to me the other day how nice it would be, to live in that perfect world of holy imagination: where God reigns; and every man, woman and child would know intuitively, without a doubt and without errancy the perfect will of the Father.  And if we should know what’s right, to think and to do, in that place we would surely want His will to become our own and so freely choose it; and then pray to obtain the power and insight—as we would inevitably His favor gain—to perform the same and make it real, to make all things good concrete in the material world.  What a glorious place it would be!

Perhaps a fly buzzing interrupted this daydream, or any number of discomfiting realities.  It surely is not the world we live in. 

Everyone still wants to live there, however, at least in a place where hard things are decided and perfect will is good enough, and the downside of choices deferred to government is not too low or expensive.  In the old days there was a theory of rights, as natural or God-given.  Government was a necessary evil, necessary nonetheless to secure such rights in the material world—a world the way it is, not hoped for—against all the sundry threats and counterclaims foreign and domestic.  This was until FDR changed the universe, after which as he put it in 1932, “rulers were accorded power, and the people consented to that power on consideration that they be accorded certain rights.”  Rights now emerge from a bargain with government and not as a gift from God.  Leaders keep the bargain current moreover, adding new rights and subtracting old ones, keeping the Constitution relevant and living in tune with the times. 

Instead of having to keep a jealous eye on government, the more power we give it the more rights and benefits accrue back to “the people”: Social Security, Medicare, prescription drug benefits, unemployment—and all the promises a presidential candidate is willing to make, such as universal health coverage, the cure of all disease, the end of poverty, and college education for everybody.  O ye of little faith!  Obama says there’s “Change We Can Believe In,” if only you’ll strike your deal with his unlimited government.  Not to be outdone, there’s no problem Hillary can’t solve based on her experience and hard fighting for you—if only you’ll strike your deal with her unlimited government. 

And what of the Republican conceit, the stupid idea that a perfect world consists of Washington run like (or for) private business; or better yet, run by war heroes?  Not even necessarily a victorious general, but a prisoner of war from a war that ended in defeat—and willing to commit the nation to five more generations of the same, and to commit us to a peculiar brand of honor at the expense of national self-interest.  Again strike your deal with unlimited, energetic and manly executive government!  Nowhere is there serious consideration in this campaign of what the Founders envisioned as limited or constitutional government.  Moreover, as constitutional scholar Dr. Charles Kesler wrote in January, “the Republican dereliction is most troubling, [because] it represents the falling away from the standards of Ronald Reagan’s conservatism….” We’ve come to expect no less from socialists (a.k.a. progressives) in the Democrat party, but none of the would-be emperors wear any clothes.  The state is now the full ethical expression of the American people. 

Before progressive political assumptions of the modern state displaced the Founders’ vision after the New Deal, there was an ascendant view in these United States that government should mainly protect our natural rights to life and liberty, property and contract, etc.  Another constitutional scholar, Roger Pilon adds—“leaving us otherwise free to plan and live our lives and responsible for solving our own problems, alone or with others.”  Which begs the question, does it matter, if I bemoan the fact that cars and trucks displaced the horse and buggy! 

For the answer, I turn to men who understood the standards of Ronald Reagan’s conservatism, and who indeed helped raise those standards.  The late Henry Hazlitt argued that it matters, because of the “cumulative debilitating effects of growing restrictions on human liberty.”  He points out that “government has nothing to give to anybody that it doesn’t first take from somebody else.  In other words, all its relief and subsidy schemes are merely ways of robbing Peter to support Paul.  Thus, it can be pointed out that the modern Welfare State is merely a complicated arrangement by which nobody pays for the education of his own children, but everybody pays for the education of everybody else’s children; by which nobody pays his own medical bills, but everybody pays everybody else’s medical bills; by which nobody provides for his own old-age security, but everybody pays for everybody else’s old-age security….” 

Likewise the great economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises, in his book Socialism written over 35 years ago, reminds us why we should care—if indeed we do still care, about old-fashioned ideas like liberty.  He said “no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction,” and he implored us to thrust “vigorously into the intellectual battle.”  Of course, he assumed there might still be one in 2008. 

Comments (5)

Comment	smaller | bigger
Name
Write the displayed characters
Subscribe via email (Registered users only) I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.
	Add Comment