Powerful Government Equals Powerful Problems

Townhall.com ^ | April 19, 2012 | Jackie Gingrich Cushman

[Kaslin]

History is not simply dates, events and results. Instead, it's people's lives, their hopes and dreams, their situation and their outcomes based on their and other people's actions. While history is learned by looking backward, knowing the outcome, life is lived marching forward, unsure of what might happen.

To understand history, it helps to understand the circumstances of the time. How did people live, who was in charge, who had rights, power and money? What is commonplace in one time and place would be unthinkable in another.

For example, most Americans understand that by law, they have individual rights. In fact, our Declaration of Independence states: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

But what many might have forgotten is that our Declaration of Independence was written in a time when it was generally accepted that the monarch, or the king, held the rights. The king had the power to loan rights to people (give nobility titles, etc.) and the power to take rights away.

We not only declared our independence from the king of England, but we stated that we believed in a very different framework. We did not believe that kings and monarchs controlled people's rights. Instead, we believed that God gives individual people rights, that the people then loan them to the government. Therefore the government derives its "just power" from the consent of the governed.

This is a very different framework and understanding of power than what was prevalent in the 1770s.

Why is this of interest today? Because the American people still have the same revolutionary spirit now that they had in 1775. According to a Rasmussen poll released Wednesday (a survey of 1,000 likely voters April 16-17, 95 percent confidence level, 3 percent margin of error), 92 percent of voters "agree that it is important for there to be strict limits on government so that it cannot take away individual rights and freedom." We fought for our freedom, and we want to retain our freedom.

The American Revolutionary war started on April 19, 1775, with the battle of Lexington and Concord. Patrick Henry first uttered the words, "Give me Liberty or give me death," in March of 1775, in Richmond, Va., at St. John's Church.

While other colonies had met to protest the English taxes, all of the other colonies were working toward a peaceful resolution with the British. Henry clearly articulated to the other Virginia delegates that if the colonists wanted liberty, they would have to be willing to risk death. He framed the decision simply: liberty or death.

Today, it is all too easy to become complacent and to believe that individuals do not have enough power to push back big government, big institutions and big media. But just imagine what it must have been like to rebel against the British monarchy. It had the largest, most modern navy in the world and one of the largest armies. The colonies had no standing army (Henry's plea was for Virginia to call for a standing militia) and only a loose association with one another. Yet, our Founding Fathers were brave enough to stand up, against all odds, and declare themselves free of British rule.

It was their courage that led eight years later to the British surrender at Yorktown and our freedom. Today, as was true then, the American people are more powerful than big government and more powerful than big media. Our belief in the freedom of ideas, and the rights of individuals, which come from God and are loaned to government, is both an opportunity, to live free, and a responsibility to be eternally vigilant and remind government and institutions who holds the rights in our country.

"Sixty-five percent of likely U.S. voters agree," according to the Rasmussen poll, "with the statement that a government powerful enough to do everything you want is also powerful enough to take away everything you have."

This year, it is once again up to the American people to remind big government, big media and big institutions who is in charge: We the People.

[unkus]

“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you, you may know that your society is doomed.” Ayn Rand

[aruanan]

It was their courage that led eight years later to the British surrender at Yorktown and our freedom. Today, as was true then, the American people are more powerful than big government and more powerful than big media. Our belief in the freedom of ideas, and the rights of individuals, which come from God and are loaned to government, is both an opportunity, to live free, and a responsibility to be eternally vigilant and remind government and institutions who holds the rights in our country.

Given the complexity of life, the narrow range of understanding possessed by any particular group is guaranteed to fall short at some point. Given the concentration of power exercised under a centralized system, the failures are guaranteed to have widespread and crippling effects. By contrast, the multiplicity of successes and failures over a wide range of scale that appear so chaotic in a state of liberty have the benefit of limiting the damage and of spreading throughout society successes which can be emulated and modified to fit local conditions.

Among some, the attitude seems to be “We know so much now, but people don’t care or won’t listen or aren’t changing fast enough. What can we do to change things now?" The yearning appears to be for some universal remedy. This may be “nice”, but is hardly practicable, let alone even conceivable. It would require an understanding of life and society beyond the capability of any individual or group. Universalist approaches in the realm of economics and government have proved uniformly disastrous.

The level of British government interference in the everyday life of the colonies is like nothing at all compared to what we suffer on all levels today, and yet the founders were willing to fight and die to end it.

[iacovatx]

Yours is a brilliant post. It illuminates the problem of centralized decision making in complex societies and the inevitable unexpected consequences. See any list of characteristics of dynamic complex systems and you will find unexpected consequences prominent in the list. See any textbook concerning organizational theory and design to get a sense of what the consequences of centralized decision making can be when the organization (nation) is complex and the problems are unpredictable and rapidly evolving.

[aruanan]

Thanks. Some of that got a comment of “somewhat cynical” from a prof in grad school.

[aruanan]

Thanks. Some of that got a comment of "somewhat cynical" from a prof in grad school.

But it was my distillation of what I had read for about 14 years prior to that class, especially The Abolition of Man, The Road to Serfdom, The Law, and Economics in One Lesson.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Kaslin. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Pharmboy]

The prof was jealous since you showed yourself to be (obviously) much more intelligent than s/he. Only a committed statist could tag what you so eloquently wrote as "cynical."

And BTW, what did you get for a grade in that course? ;)

[aruanan]

The prof was jealous since you showed yourself to be (obviously) much more intelligent than s/he. Only a committed statist could tag what you so eloquently wrote as "cynical." And BTW, what did you get for a grade in that course? ;)

I got an A. It was a half credit course. The teacher told us that because of the work that we put into it, they were going to expand it to a full credit the following year. I said to her and the other teachers that since they were going to expand it due to the work we put in, they should just get it expanded to a full credit right then and there so we could enjoy the fruits of our hard work. They expanded it to a full credit for us. Ha ha. I went on to TA two of that prof's undergrad courses.