|
The lack of a clear sense of what government should or shouldn’t do was less toxic in a world where it was understood that there was much that government couldn’t do. Throughout the 20th century, however, this limited government consensus was ripped to shreds by a pack of wild political dogs.
|
|
| The next time you have a taste for horror, ask a liberal the following question: “What are the principles that determine when the federal government should or should not act?” Then get yourself a coffee, revisit your progressive friend in an hour or so, and see if he has an answer yet.
The silence that will meet your inquisition isn’t limited to armchair politicos. Even most professional politicians don’t filter their views through close readings of James Madison, Alexis de Tocqueville or Milton Friedman. Washington is a constant parade of illiterate and ad hoc governing philosophies that can be jettisoned when they don’t meet the needs of campaign donors. And if a politician doesn’t come to office with a theory of government, he won’t develop one on the job. You can either do the rubber chicken circuit or you can read Edmund Burke. Generally, you can’t do both.
Historically, this trend has remained relatively benign because of America’s implicitly conservative commitment to dividing power between the federal government, the states and individuals. Only about a century ago, America was still a place where a president (Grover Cleveland) would veto a bill providing relief to drought-stricken Texas farmers because he believed it exceeded the constitutional mandate for federal power. The lack of a clear sense of what government should or shouldn’t do was less toxic in a world where it was understood that there was much that government couldn’t do. Throughout the 20th century, however, this limited government consensus was ripped to shreds by a pack of wild political dogs.
Activist presidents like the Roosevelts, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon expanded the powers of the presidency with little effective resistance from Congress. The legislative branch was all too happy to abandon its constitutional duties, lest its responsibility for the nation’s welfare prove troublesome come Election Day. And during the same period, the federal judiciary systematically gutted many of the provisions that had limited the role of the federal government since the era of the founding fathers.
All of which brings us to 2010, when the menacing tendencies of both liberalism and the federal government to know no bounds have intersected. The upshot is a government that can’t say no – and that increasingly threatens to drown civil society.
Today, the free economy is being crushed under the weight of the state. From impertinent banks to outmoded auto companies and ravenous homebuyers, the government’s largesse over the past year has ensured that America’s most profitable industry is wholesale failure. Drive your personal or professional finances into the ground and you should be receiving a check from Uncle Sam in 5-8 business days. Keep your nose clean and your only guarantee is that you’ll be the one underwriting that check. Rewarding profligacy instead of thrift is a trip through a moral minefield in and of itself, but the federal government’s scattershot application of this principle has markets so thoroughly spooked that it’s also damming off prospects for economic recovery.
The leviathan has now targeted domestic policy. President Obama has already overseen Washington’s annexation of the health care and higher education financing systems. That means trading in the admittedly dysfunctional HMO system for a government-run model that will eventually explode costs, ration care and drive America’s best and brightest out of the medical field (though, to be fair, it will only do this if it operates like every other government-run health care system in the world). And it means that more young Americans will receive bachelor’s degrees thanks to money being pried from the private sector that is somehow still supposed to employ them upon graduation. If Obama gets his way on a similar conquest of the energy sector, it will mean affordable and reliable sources of energy taxed into penury, while unproven sources touted by well-heeled lobbyists feed at the public trough.
We are soon approaching the day when the state will determine who lives and dies in the market, who lives and dies on the operating table, and who lives and dies in the womb. If you think the nanny state is bad, wait until you get a load of this coming secular theocracy.
|
