Liberty's call: messy and the stuff of life

Our Consolation must be this, my dear, that Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever.

--John Adams

Regarding the siege of Boston; Letter to Abigail Adams - Philadelphia [July 7th, 1775]

I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing by every device the public debt on the principle of its being a public blessing.

--Thomas Jefferson

Letter to Elbridge Gerry (statesman and diplomat) [1799]

Democracy is messy business because humans are messy. We hear continued lamentations over how antiquated our Constitution is (although it was good enough to rise up the most powerful and prosperous nation in history) and how dysfunctional our Congress is, yet somehow we continue to govern ourselves in freedom and respect for the law. We have seen compromise win out time and again over the past ten years, in this time of supposed hyper-partisanship and "extremists" of each Party acting as terrorists (Biden's words, not mine). The debt ceiling / deficit reduction compromise is the latest case in point. It is by no means perfect, but no compromise is. No one likes it, because every side had to give up something they desperately believe in. And it is only the first step in a very painful and protracted journey to get our financial house in order. But none of this changes the fact that our Constitution and, even if somewhat belatedly, Congress works as designed (or amended - see Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment).

If the federal government's spending spree of the past ten years (and, truth be told, of the past fifty) proves anything about our Constitution, it's not how antiquated it is. The lesson to be drawn, to those with eyes to see past their own petty paradigms and presumptions, is just how right the Founding Fathers were and how relevant their counsel still is. The Constitution in Article 1, Section 8 lays out the parameters of federal power, and the specifics were limited in their application to the whole (through the general welfare clause) so that Congressmen could not play favoritism. It is our excursions beyond the bounds of the Constitution that have gotten us into financial trouble:

• Social Security
• Medicare / Medicaid / Universal health care
• The Department of Education / No Child Left Behind
• The Department of Energy

These behemoth social welfare programs have squeezed our spending for the business the federal government should be about according to the Constitution:

• Defense
• Regulation of interstate commerce
• International affairs
• Scientific exploration
• The Post Office (and, by extension of the principle, building out and supporting the interstate infrastructure)

We have strayed from the Constitution's bounds, but it still provides the governing superstructure for us to successfully resolve our differences in a peaceful way. The fact that our political process has become more slow and more prone to gridlock is indicative only of the many different areas of governance that Congress has stuck its nose in over the years that cannot be managed on such a large level. Regulation, the police power, health care, education - these are matters for the states because these are the things people are most passionate about. These are the things that impact their lives most day-to-day and the need for decision-makers to be close to the people is real. Also, these are areas where people with different worldviews (metanarratives) most violently disagree, so providing options among states is important. If people don't like what one state is doing, they can fairly easily move to other states. It is easier to gain consensus and move into action at the state level. The machinery is more nimble and smaller scale.

The scale of the federal government is needed on matters of collective, continental interest.

To adapt the famous Chesterton quote from its original Christian context: the Constitution has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

 

 

On paradoxes: the mixing up of conservatives and liberals. Or Why the U.S. Can't deal with it's current debt crisis

Current uses of the words "conservative" and "liberal" have nothing to do with their traditional meaning. Well, that is not exactly true. They have, perhaps, too much to do with their traditional meaning given the fact that they seem to mean the same on the surface, but the animating spirit is completely different. Two hundred years ago, liberals believed in moving beyond personal government, in the form of the monarchy, to impersonal government, typically defined as what was then known as republican government. Conservatives sought to use the power of government to maintain the status quo and prop up existing power structures. There was not, however, any disagreement over the nature of man - that he needs restraint - or the proper role of that good government can play.

Over the course of the past one hundred years or so, these definitions were turned on their heads within the American context. Liberals became those who believed in the fundamental goodness of man for whom government could be used to advance the plight of man, and conservatives were those who, in the best spirit of the old Liberals, believed in the original sin of man who needed boundaries and hedges to keep an ordered society, those in government being no different (hence, separation of powers and checks and balances). The conservative commitment to republican values was, at heart, a commitment to the constitutional values that had made the experience of government a successful one, even if inefficient and unwieldy.

Over the past fifteen years, however, a phenomenal and dangerous blurring has occurred. The conservative paradigm has been petrified to the point that government itself is seen as the root of all problems. Rather than a properly-formed government being seen as a barrier against the more destructive inclinations of men, government of any kind is now seen as the barrier to all the good inclinations of men. It's some strange hibrid of the American-liberal vision in the goodness of men and the danger inherent in the original conservative perspective that the government that governs best is the one that rises the boat of the guilded interests. The rallying cry of the day is "No new taxes!"

On the other hand, the liberal paradigm has petrified to believe that government is the source of all goodness and the only savior of humanity. Because people are not to be trusted to conduct their affairs in honorable and virtuous ways, government regulates every possible area of life. Religion is banished from the public square, conviction is seen as the sign of a fanatic, so we are left with the only moral compass available to a society whose only remaining binding institution is the government: a thing must be deemed constitutional before it can be deemed moral. And since the ever-growing government has crowded out all room for virtue and compassion, welfare and social justice must be the business of federal agencies who, ironically, deliver the exact opposite of social security and medicare. It's some strange hibrid of the American-conservative vision in the evil of men and the danger inherent in the original liberal position that the government that governs best is impersonal. The plaintive cry of the day is "If we just spent more..."

These petrifications are racing toward each other over the current debate over whether to raise the federal debt limit and threaten to spectacularly collide with one another. The resulting wreck would have far-reaching consequences for us all, as the federal government's inability to pay its bills will lead to a default on the debt, the ruining of Treasury bills as a safe-haven for investments, and the meltdown of the financial sectors all around the world. This is serious business, and it is long past time for Congressional leaders and the President to come off their respective high-horses and do what is right for the country. A mixture of spending cuts, some tax increases, and more spending cuts will be necessary to fix the country's short-term debt problems. In the longer term, our fixation with debt will only be addressed through readdressing the boundaries of the federal government and reigning its activities back within its constitutionally-prescribed mandates.

The world indeed has been turned on its head.

"doing the right thing for the wrong cause"

I read these words this morning, and if I didn't know that they were written in 1919, I'd have thought them written for America today.

 

We can no more subject the world to the English compromise than to the English climate; and both are things of incalculable cloud and twilight. We have grown used to a habit of calling things by the wrong names and supporting them by the wrong arguments; and even doing the right thing for the wrong cause. We have party governments which consist of people who pretend to agree when they really disagree. We have party debates which consist of people who pretend to disagree when they really agree. We have whole parties named after things they no longer support, or things they would never dream of proposing. We have a mass of meaningless parliamentary ceremonials that are no longer even symbolic; the rule by which a parliamentarian possesses a constituency but not a surname; or the rule by which he becomes a minister in order to cease to be a member. All this would seem the most superstitious and idolatrous mummery to the simple worshippers in the shrines of Jerusalem. You may think what they say fantastic, or what they mean fanatical, but they do not say one thing and mean another. The Greek may or may not have a right to say he is Orthodox, but he means that he is Orthodox; in a very different sense from that in which a man supporting a new Home Rule Bill means that he is Unionist. A Moslem would stop the sale of strong drink because he is a Moslem. But he is not quite so muddleheaded as to profess to stop it because he is a Liberal, and a particular supporter of the party of liberty.

--G.K Chesterton, The New Jerusalem, Chapter VII

Originally posted on Wordpress 5/24/2011

Money Matters

A dear friend pointed out the Yahoo! news story highlighting the growing gap between the rich and the poor in America that was the central artifact in a drawn-out family debate. I read this story and am left wondering what exactly is the point. What do those who wring their hands over this sort of thing propose we do about the thing? The unspoken assumption is that the pot of money is only so big and the rich are stealing from everyone else.

This is simply not true. Wealth creation is just that - the creation of wealth. America is the first society in all of human history when anyone here can set their mind to something and be free to set about making that thing happen. It is drive and risk-taking and initiative that builds new stuff and ways of doing and this new stuff and ways are what create the jobs that keep the middle and lower classes employed, productive, and yes, paid. If this drive and risk-taking and initiative are not rewarded, then what incentive will there be for these folks to continue to do what is needed to create and produce? And if the best and the brightest do not create and produce, then the middle and lower classes truly will sink to the levels of poverty seen in less fortunate parts of the world.

The rich get richer, but the other half of the story is not that the poor are getting poorer. The astute reader will have noticed this. The other half of the story is that the media does not tell is that everyone can do what the rich do and get richer as well. Dave Ramsey says that if you want to become rich, do rich people stuff. Work hard, stay out of debt, live within your means, and save. These are not hard concepts. Anyone can do them, even those people wringing their hands over the non-existent limit on wealth.

 

Remember those little things called constitutional amendments?

On the venerable Balkinization blog, Guest blogger David Beatty asks if the U.S. Constitution is beloved or betrayed? While the American constitutional system still sets the standard for separation of powers, submission to the rule of law, and federalism, those outside the U.S. share a concern over what Beatty styles judicial politics and personality. Beatty writes:

It is more in the theory and practice of constitutional law that outsiders have come to the conclusion that American constitutionalism is not a practice to be emulated. One feature of the American model of constitutional democracy that many outsiders find particularly regrettable is how personal and partisan it has become, especially among the judges who sit on the Supreme Court.

While Beatty goes on to argue that this is regrettable and holds up South Africa as the model of the judicial function of rightly interpreting law and the facts of each case - what he styles a balancing approach - in reality this encourages the exact problem that Beatty accuses the U.S. Supreme Court of. The protections of law that the South African Supreme Court have carved out are the products of the judicial activism that has been so detrimental in the U.S., a la Roe v. Wade. The U.S. Supreme Court, as we all know, rarely finds common ground on how to interpret the Constitution. But at least they try. I'd rather have this than the real judicial politics and personalities driving in Beatty's South Africa Supreme Court counter-example. They are the ones drawing pre-ordained conclusions, unanchored from the shores of their own constitutional text.

It is beyond me why it is so hard to understand that we can add any protections we want to our Constitution. It's called an amendment.