Is There Plan, Or Just a Bunch of Policies?

We would like to believe the Government plans for things -- but does it?  During this past Presidential campaign, the complaint of the Democratic candidates was President Trump didn’t have a plan for the pandemic.  Once elected, President Biden promised a plan that would have 100 million people vaccinated within his first 100 days in office.  As the weather becomes uncooperative, there are delays in getting the vaccines to the people.  I am reminded of two simple truths in military planning.  First, the plan never survives the first contact, the second we never finalize the plan we just run out of time to make changes.

As I look at all the policy changes being implemented it sure doesn’t look like the government has an overarching plan to make America better than it was.  Rather they seem to be implementing policies that made good sound bites, but in the end, will do little to make life better for the most vulnerable of us.  For example:

There is a great push to make $15.00 the national minimum wage. There is also the rallying cry for “a living wage,” whatever that is.  At the same time, the government policy is to allow unfettered access into America by those seeking its refuge.  These two policies would seem to limit the economic well-being of the poor while growing their dependence on the state for survival.  Of course, we can argue the morality of replacing humans with machines, but all the moral arguments in the world won’t stop the inevitable.  Machines improve productivity and when they are cheaper than the human, they become the choice of every business there is.  One has only to look at the auto industry to see this reality.  As union wages grew and robot technology developed how many union members were replaced by the robots who could do their job better and cheaper?  The same can be said for cashiers at supermarkets and fast-food places.  Can you go into a Walmart these days without seeing a self-checkout lane?  Of course, there are those who will resist such a place but they will not stop the move if it becomes the economical choice for the store. 

But replacement by machines is only one side of the problem.  As much as the socialists of the DNC think the government controls all things, that is simply not the case in a predominately market-driven economy.  The law of “supply and demand” would seem to be unavoidable.  As we bring more unskilled labor into the United States who will they displace as they attempt to find employment? It certainly won’t be the University Professors, will it?  They will displace the minimally skilled for sure, but should we assume only the minimally skilled? Wouldn't we assume those with a wide range of talents seeking to escape the failures of their own country would seek a better life here?  That is, after all, the American model. Those with marketable skills will also begin to displace the salaried employees making far above the minimum.  In fact, we already replace a lot of our potentially skilled workforce by importing cheaper skilled labor to work in our high-tech companies?[1]  Why shouldn’t we expect those categories of exemption to expand as the government meets the needs of its high-tech donors?  What a wonderful way to keep the profits of those companies high while reducing labor costs, and limiting the potential of our own citizens to find jobs that would help them escape the trap of poverty.

And then there is the myriad of policies to make the world green, save the environment for future generations, and enrich those who can profit most from the policies.  Like my Mom used to say, you’ve got to break some eggs if you want to make an omelet, and so it is with the policies of this administration.  One of the President's first acts was to stop the building of an oil pipeline.  There are, of course, good things and bad things with this decision.  One side will point out how the oil that would flow through the pipeline won’t stop, it will just be moved by other means (like the railroad system Warren Buffett owns). Those who favor this decision will point to the environmental risks of pipelines that leak, and the need to begin our transition away from carbon-based fuels.  Caught in the middle of these debates are the human beings who work in the oil fields of North Dakota, Montana, and Canada who will perhaps lose their jobs, and the average American who will pay a higher price for fuel to run their car or heat their home.  Again, the poorest among us will be the ultimate victims.  But as John Kerry pointed out the skilled labor building the pipeline can then find work in some kind of green factory assembling solar panels.  My question to John would be “isn’t it cheaper to hire the recent immigrants from South and Central America for these simple tasks?” 

Aside from the grandiose “Green New Deal” proposals of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez where we abandon trans-oceanic air travel for trains, is there really a plan that makes these environmental policies practical, affordable, and actually does eliminate man’s impact on the environment?  If joining the Paris Climate accord is any indication I’m guessing not.  As we see in most environmental protests, the activists tend to leave a lot of garbage behind, expecting someone else to clean up after them. We are pushing policies for the sake of enriching someone; the question is who?

Finally, we have new policies ranging from “diversity for all” to elimination of “hate speech.”  It will be interesting to see how science, morality, and the law are shaped by these favored policies of the new Democratic Reich.[2]

 

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[1] https://www.wegreened.com/niw/EB2

[2] Purposely chosen to acknowledge our societal debt to Charles Godwin, creator of “Godwin’s Law”  This in no way refers to Robert Reich, although I am sure he would love to be part of the new Reich.

The Mindless Accumulation of Wealth.

I was presented with an opinion today as it was a fact. This is not unusual in today’s world, as almost everything we see on television, in social media, and in what is portrayed as news is now opinion, most often presented as fact, but what caught my attention was an opinion on what the phrase “Money can’t buy you happiness.” The author believes the meaning is clearly that the “mindless accumulation of excess wealth leads to diminishing returns on happiness.”  A wonderfully egalitarian view that if you have too much money it won’t improve your happiness (however that is defined).  In fairness, it goes on to say it does not mean “poor people should learn to be content without basic necessities or financial security.” An equally wise and wonderful opinion on what the phase can’t mean. But are either opinion true? 

To answer this question, I think we first should define happiness, but is there such a thing?  Is there one “Universal” standard for happiness? Going back to our founding we see in the Declaration of Independence the claim that all men have an equal claim on the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Did they mean that all men had an equal claim on wealth? The men who wrote these words, and who endorsed them with their signatures had wealth and standing they put at risk with the declaration.  So, it seems unlikely they considered wealth as a key to the pursuit of happiness.  Rather, several scholars note a desire for the government to not control an individual’s life, without that individual having a voice in the decisions.  These three attributes, life, liberty, and the ability to attempt to be happy were, and are, considered natural rights or rights a government can’t (or shouldn’t) attempt to control.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow, a noted American Psychologist, wrote a thesis on what motivates people.  His theory stratified human needs into an escalating series beginning with the most basic of survival needs going up to self-actualization. While the hierarchy deals with human motivation, we can presume it also speaks to the pursuit of happiness, for if you are concerned with where your next meal is coming from, you cannot reasonably pursue your dream, can you?  The socialists among us would say that is absolutely true, yet we have case study after case study where those who ultimately achieved great success did precisely that. How many artists struggle to survive while painting, composing, writing, or in some way creating a masterpiece?  All without the government promising to maintain a standard of living or a minimum livable wage?

At the end of the day I, and others, come away with an understanding that happiness can only be defined by the individual.  What makes me happy is not what will make someone else happy.  The idea of happiness is an intrinsic condition to our species. Is the accumulation of wealth related to happiness? Perhaps for some, but I suspect the accumulation of wealth is a simple by-product of those driven to achieve something that others find ultimately desirable.

For example, is Bill Gates happy?  Let’s assume so.  Would he be happier if he had less wealth, or is he happy because of his wealth?  Or maybe, just maybe there some other reason? How did Gates become wealthy?  He pursued a strategy that made his software the most desired commodity in the dawning of the home computer age. In a time when the world transitioned from analog to digital, he was on the ground floor with a product that allowed that growth. Should the government demand Bill Gates forsake his wealth to pay for others who were not so driven or fortunate, or should Bill be allowed to use his wealth as he sees fit?  That is the question.

Did his pursuit of wealth lead to the loss of happiness for others, or did he bring thousands along with him?  Was his accumulation of extreme wealth mindless or was he driven by some other need?

But what about the “anti-Gates?”  Someone who lives in the inner city, someone who has dropped out of school, someone who can’t hold a job, perhaps is addicted to something, and just barely survives on the welfare of the state?  Is he happy? Should the government do more to improve his lot in life and would that make him happy?  What should the government do?  If happiness is an inner decision then how can the government with all its impersonal decision-making (where one size fits most), motivate this individual to pursue his happiness?

I come back to the basic phrase that started this “Money can’t buy you happiness.” My generation spent the entirety of its parenting years trying to buy happiness with its money.  We created trophies for everyone, we’ve told ourselves and our kids everyone is unique and worth admiration, we’ve tried to minimize the impacts of racism and discrimination while we pursued financial security for our senior years.  Our government told us “don’t worry you have social security,” so too many of us felt we should buy more than we could afford and are now looking at a bleak future.  We’ve passed those qualities on to your youngsters who now believe the government is responsible for making sure everyone achieves all the need levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, while men like Gates, Buffett, Musk, and Bezos are vilified for their extreme wealth and “white privilege.”

When does someone stop and ask, do we have too much government, and are all those supposed safety-net policies destroying the very things the poorest among us need to have the motivation to pursue their own definition of happiness and success? 

That Was Then - This is Now.

In 2009 I was hopeful the Democratic sweep into the Congress and the White House would result in a functioning government where they would learn from the failures of the Bush/Cheney administration and they would work in a bipartisan manner to solve some of the big problems of America.

I was not against universal health care and would have supported it if they had simply shown how they would pay for it, but they couldn’t.  As it turned out with acknowledgments after the fact there was never any attempt to make it affordable.  It was simply a bait and switch to consolidate government power.

Today, I have no such allusions regarding the transition of power.  The DNC will simply enrich its major stakeholders while making the neediest more dependent on government largess for their survival.  In many ways, it will be a return of the plantation system which is at the heart of the Democratic Party mindset.

The FBI

 

Background: The Federal Bureau of Investigations began its existence with an order from the United States Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to establish an organization within the DOJ to investigate matters that its already established agents couldn’t deal with.  These “special agents” would report directly to the Department's “Chief Examiner” who would, in turn, report to the AG.[1]  From this beginning in 1906 would grow the Bureau of Investigation, which would become the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

J. Edger Hoover became the first Director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1924, following the Teapot Dome Scandal.  One of his first acts was to fire the women agents in the agency as he “cleaned house” of all those who could be associated in any way with the bribery.  He then spent the rest of his career attempting to put the agency in the best light while he picked the cases they would investigate and feed to the press the highlights of their successes.  Many of those cases became fodder for Hollywood movies or television shows, always with the complete cooperation of the agency.  He remained the director until his death in 1972.  Along the way the FBI took on the mantel of the supreme law enforcement agency in America, although it was revealed shortly before his death that he had gone after “subversives and deviants” using tactics such as infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps, planted evidence and false rumors leaked on suspected groups and individuals.  He called Dr. Martin Luther King the “most dangerous negro in the future of this nation.”[2]  It is said J. Edger Hoover remained director for so long because he was so highly respected.  It is also said he remained director for so long because his political opponents feared the information, he had in his folders on each of them.

Today: With this as the historical background of the FBI should we be shocked to see the abuse of the agency as it strove to prevent the election of an outsider, or falsified evidence to further its investigations of people the leadership in Washington felt should not be allowed to govern?  There is very little evidence in the history of the FBI to indicate it is a non-partisan organization.  The real question - does its partisan allegiance shift from party to party as administrations change or does it, like J. Edger, keep files on everyone to use to protect what the agency believes is its self-interest?

From my lowly position it would seem those in authority of the FBI believe it is their job to protect those individuals who may be useful to them in future administrations, and the concept of political neutrality be damned.

 

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[1] https://www.fbi.gov/history/brief-history

[2] https://www.biography.com/law-figure/j-edgar-hoover

As Minneapolis Burns

This past week we saw the racism of a city, and perhaps a state and nation, on full display as the police of Minneapolis held down and strangled an African-American to death.  As a result of that horrific act, the aggrieved community has risen up and is in the process of destroying parts of the city and stealing whatever they can get their hands on.  News networks and their “influencers” are taking sides and mincing words to help keep this story alive and growing.  Is the destruction of the city riots and vandalism, or is it simply angry protest? You decide for I guess it all comes down to how you feel emotionally since rational thought seems to escape most of us in these times.

In addition to the racism on display, we are seeing the rise of police states as the various governments deal with the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.  It is interesting to see how differently the two main political parties handle the fear of a virus we are unfamiliar with, while the anointed medical experts fill the airwaves with guidance that is little-better than informed opinion.  Should we wear masks or not?  Does the virus thrive in sunlight or not?  Is it transmitted beyond 6’ or not?  Will people who flock to a beach, kill hundreds or thousands of others by their action or not?  When is the right time to resume our lives and livelihoods?

We see in the states with the worst impacts – governments who’ve made callous choices for the care of their elderly.  These same governments are praised for their courageous actions by a media that has long abandoned the idea of impartial and unbiased reporting.  These states continue with the pandemic lockdown and daily enforce the idea the government knows what is best and will do whatever is necessary to enforce their will.  The only thing that stands in their way is a citizenry and a court that will hold them accountable to the constitutions that are intended to define and limit the authority of the government.

Minnesota and Minneapolis are governments with a long history of being run by liberal/progressive Democrats.  Supposedly the party of the working man and woman, the party of the African-American, the party of equality and equity, the party of human rights, etc.  What this pandemic should have taught anyone willing to look closely at the approaches of the Democratic politicians, the truth is the party is really about control and domination.  They give lip service to all those ideals they claim, but the bottom line is it is about power and the wealth that comes from maintaining that power.

That thirst for power and control flows from the very top down to the lowest entity and is, in my opinion, why we see in a police force commanded by an African-American such obvious disregard for the rights of their citizens.  Not to single out Minneapolis, for we saw exactly the same thing in New York City where the police executed a government policy of stopping anyone they thought was suspicious, regardless of probable cause.

What seems most unfortunate in these revelations is the principles of the party won’t change.  They will continue to mutter the platitudes they think people want to hear, they will blame their opponents for creating the conditions they have governed to, and the people will continue to believe their empty promises that bigger government is better for everyone.  What we’ve learned is the bigger government is actually only better for the politicians in power.

In a Modern World.

In looking at the great governmental debates going on in the United States I believe they really boil down to two simple (opposing) positions.  Do you believe the government is the answer to most problems or do you believe the government is a source of most problems?  This is a binary question and there are rarely binary problems or solutions, but if you look at the modern political debates everything is painted in absolutes and polarized positions. One side is good, the other evil.

There are clear things we must have a government for and people have organized since before recorded time to address those unavoidable needs.  I’m talking about things like defense, social order, the economy of effort, and other basic needs required for communal wellbeing.

Our founding fathers, as they wrestled with the failures of the government put into place following our divorce from England, argued about what the right kind of government was and how to implement it.  The failures of the Articles of Confederation were obvious in the way it limited the economic well-being and the defense of the colonies.  ThoughtCo provides a good synopsis on the weakness of the original government and the issues the founders hoped to address with their second effort.  In essence, the Confederation failed to provide sufficient centralized power to regulate the commerce between the states and raise a military to defend the colonies from either external threat, or internal rebellion when the need arose.  But in those debates, the fear of an all-powerful centralized government remained fresh in the minds of the political leadership who knew firsthand the potential abuses of the state.

As John Adams wrote,  “It is by balancing each of these powers against the other two, that the efforts in human nature toward tyranny can alone be checked and restrained, and any degree of freedom preserved in the constitution”[1]

I believe, since the Second World War, the government has grown far beyond what the founders could have ever imagined.  For example, Congress was not envisioned as a full-time job.  The capital, built on reclaimed swampland, was uninhabitable in the summer months, so the Representatives would meet for a little while, address the necessary actions and then return to their communities to resume a normal life.  Now they are full-time federal employees responsible more to the people who will offer them wealth than to the people they represent.  Senators were to be responsible to the state governments they represented, now they too are full-time employees seeking the wealth that comes from their positions.  The bureaucracy of the executive branch has never shrunk from what we expanded to in the war, only the roles and responsibilities have changed.  With the social legislation put into place during the Roosevelt years and greatly expanded during Johnson’s administration, we have created layer upon layer of workers and managers whose tenure is untouchable, overseen by the political appointees who will come and go with each new administration.

Ask yourself three questions:

Has this larger more encompassing government made our society better or has it simply reacted to the changing culture by fostering more dependence? 

Do the top-of-the-pyramid politicians shape the course of society or do they simply respond to it, as they vie for political dominance? 

Is the social order actually set by those who are beyond public scrutiny? 

What I find rather humorous, in my own cynical way, is that those who favor an all-powerful government are now emotionally outraged to the point of derangement over the fact their government is led by someone they despise, and he is doing things they don’t like.  It’s almost like they don’t understand Newton’s third law of politics (actually motion but I think you get my point).  To determine if an all-powerful government is really something even worthwhile let’s put that aside and talk about how wisely we, the nation, have chosen to spend our money to make America a kinder, more tolerant, and loving society.

Let’s put defense spending aside for a few minutes, for although that is frequently a topic of how much money the government wastes it is an increasingly smaller share of the total government spending.  Rather, let’s talk about the great social experiment we began with the creation of social security under the Great Depression-era President – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The idea behind social security was to create a safety net for those who had been unable to save for their retirement years.  It was planned as a self-paying program where those in the active workforce would pay into the account at rates equal to or higher than people would draw out.

It appears to be a natural condition in humans to believe if the government was going to pay them in retirement they could use the money they should be saving to meet their more immediate desires.  This is the path those in my generation “the baby boomers” chose.  As my generation matured and as the economy flourished the social security account prospered and grew.  Unfortunately for the social planners, the labor force in society has not continued to expand in size at the rates necessary to ensure contributions would always exceed the rates of withdrawal from the account. 

In the 1960s we saw the government add healthcare as an expense that should be borne/shared by the government, as well as the expansion of the social safety nets with increases in the welfare programs.  At the same time, the states began to look into providing their own supplemental programs in healthcare and welfare, and private industry (both healthcare, social welfare, and private insurance) expanded to profit from those new healthcare dollars.  All of these programs became “mandated” or “entitlement” programs and are in fact “must pay” bills the government is obligated to fund before it funds the discretionary things (like defense or infrastructure) that most politicians get rewarded for spending on. 

As the baby boomer generation retires it leaves a much smaller workforce behind to pay into the system that will now payout to the boomers who will live for another 30-40 years.  As a result, the mandatory spending on Social Security and Medicare become an ever-increasing portion of the nation’s gross domestic product.  Growing from roughly 4% in 1970 to 10% in 2016, with projections to grow to 15% shortly and with no relief in sight.  Expenditures are, according to several sources, growing at rates far greater than the general economy.

When you add in the fact that any money laying around on a balance sheet gives the Congress ideas on how to spend it on things like new programs you quickly see a problem where mandated spending will exceed mandated income.  There are always more problems than there are dollars to pay for them, and Congress (whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans) has shown little appetite to limit themselves to the money they will receive in taxes. The solution they always choose is to borrow money based on good faith in the country.  They will borrow until the lenders decide not to lend any more.  For my purposes, I assume the end of the lending train occurs about the same time the dollar stops being the currency of international trade.

The costs aside, what have been the social impacts of an expanding government with an ever-increasing demand for social engineering and social welfare programs?  Are we a better nation for the trillions of dollars we’ve spent on healthcare, social security, and social welfare? 

From my perspective, it sure doesn’t seem like we are.

Remember when the government said everyone should have the right to buy a house, and the government expanded its home-buying guarantees so even people who didn’t have the financial resources necessary to sustain the loans could get them?  We had Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac as pseudo-governmental guarantors of the loans.  Well, those programs certainly worked well, at least until 2008 when all the smoke and mirrors of the programs came crashing down and so many people found themselves in homes they couldn’t afford.  How many lives were impacted by those failures?

How about the basic building block of modern society?  I’m talking about the family unit.  Is the family unit as strong as it once was?  How about in the minority groups like African-Americans, the Hispanics, or the Native Americans?  Have the social support programs we’ve invested in made those groups more independent and stronger, or have they turned them into groups with an increasing dependence on the state?

We talk a lot about the “American Dream” where an individual with the drive and ambition can succeed in life and rise above the station he or she was born into.  Recently Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this idea was absurd and no one could raise themselves up without the government doing it for them.  Some found this laughable coming from someone who just a couple of years earlier had been a bartender with a BS in Economics and was now making a six-figure salary as a Congresswoman.  But in one sense she was right.  It took her finding a government job that didn’t require any real skills (other than campaigning) to rise above the challenges she faced with the death of her Father.  Her biography is vague on what her parents did or how she was able to attend Boston University, so maybe she hasn’t pulled herself up at all and her statements are based on her real-life experiences. 

It seems, at least to me, the whole of the Democratic campaign centers on three main points.  First, we have the vehement anti-Trump rhetoric making claims that he is either a tool of the Russians, a bumbling idiot, or a criminal.  Next comes the campaign against wealth with the claims no one needs to be a billionaire and the idea the wealth of the rich takes away from the wealth of the poor (who are poor through no fault of their own), and finally a bigger government (run by the right party) would actually strengthen the middle class.

I’m sorry but after watching a bigger government unfold for the last 50-years, and regardless of the claims by the left’s adored leader, I’m not buying any of their claims.  The record is pretty clear, whenever government becomes the center of all society the middle class is actually weakened, if not destroyed.  It doesn’t matter if there is a Monarch, a Shaw, an Ayatollah, a dictator, a President for Life, a Prime Minister, a Chief, der Führer, or a General Secretary if the average person is totally dependent on the decisions of the Government for their welfare the middle class will be turned into the lower class within a decade.

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[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/checks-and-balances

The Party of Free

The Democratic Party’s Presidential candidates are almost tripping over themselves with promises of free stuff for the people.  This week Bernie has come up with a plan to tax investors (individuals and investment fund managers both large and small) so they can offer “free” education to those who want it, eliminating the problem of student debt.  Of course, Bernie doesn’t frame the tax as something paid by the average person, it will be paid by all those “greedy guys” on Wall Street.

To support him, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has weighed in to show how someone was accepted to her “dream college” but actually had to pay for it herself, and now has about $240,000 in student debt.

These two positions by prominent advocates for socialism raise two questions for me.  The first, why should someone go to college and incur debt with no plan to repay it?  The second, what happens to individual incentive when everything is free?

President Eisenhower, in his Fair Well address to the nation, warned of the Military-Industrial complex we had created with World War II, the Korean War, and the Cold War and how their growing power was influencing government spending.  I think the same could be said for the Education is Mandatory Complex.  The cost of secondary education in the US has far outpaced the inflation rate due to the growth of colleges into mega-institutions of political indoctrination.   

When I graduated from high school, my mother had conditioned me that I would go to college for the better life it offered.  I wanted to be a flyer in the Air Force and to get to that point I needed a college degree, so both Mom and I had mutually supported goals.  At the time I went, there were tens of thousands of young men who were going for other reasons, many young men went to avoid the draft and the likelihood of war in Vietnam, others went to find themselves, still, others just to get away from home.  All were promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  The colleges offered the opportunity for good jobs and career advancement over peers who had not gone.  That was pretty much a lie then, and it remains so now.  What the right colleges offered was tremendous networking opportunities, and an entryway to further education if you chose.

Fortunately for me, when I went to school the cost of even a private college like I attended was still within the realm of affordability.  I chose a path that got me through and commissioned into the Air Force so I guess you could say I was a success.  But I know several friends who spent four to six years hiding from the draft only to leave and find work as machinists, landscapers, and woodworkers.  Was college really that important to what they wanted for their careers?  By the way, does everyone have a career or do most just have jobs?

Today we have a bloated industry full of self-righteous professionals making six-figure salaries while telling us they are invaluable and we, the rest of the nation, should pay our fair share so they can continue to grow their mega-universities.  Are their arguments all that different than the televangelists who promise God’s salvation if we would just send them a monthly donation of say $50?

Should I feel bad that a girl went to her “dream university” when her parents couldn’t afford it, and her performance didn’t warrant any scholarship offers?  Sorry, I don’t.  The reality: there is a cost to making bad choices, outrageous student debt seems to be one of those costs.

Now let’s talk about what happens to human incentive when everything is free.  First and foremost, who can point out a successful human endeavor that was accomplished without a cost?  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

While I’m waiting I’ll just point out that free housing to the homeless has not solved homelessness.  Free money to the poor has not, for the most part, brought them out of poverty.  Free K-12 education has not eliminated illiteracy.  All the social safety nets we’ve built in this country has not eliminated crime.  Grand (free) mental institutions to house the insane has not made the problems of insanity less problematic.  Oh yes, none of these free things were actually free.  Someone had to pay for them, who was that again?

A story from my childhood education seems relevant here.

There once was a poor immigrant who arrived in America virtually penniless.  He got a job rowing boat in New York City.  He scrimped and saved his meager salary until he could buy his own rowboat to carry people between Manhattan and Staten Island.  It’s a rather long story but it ends with his becoming one of the richest men in the world.  To me, that is the American Dream.  Not the idea that people with money should give it to people who don’t so they can have free stuff.

On Government (With Apologies to John Locke)

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen.”

Henry Stanley Hoskins[1]

“Unless what is within us is petty, selfish and partisan to an extreme”

Me

We are in an age of transition where Americans, free from the demands of daily survival, now seek to rid themselves of the responsibilities of life and place the trust of their own survival on that mythical entity we know as government.  Is this, I wonder, a natural evolution in society as Marx had proposed, or is it an inevitable consequence of the human condition?  A result of our own choices gradually eroding the concepts of independence we felt when the government was a necessary evil to provide a framework for life, but not control it?

But then again, the “American Experience” was a unique experiment in the history of mankind and governments.  Most previous forms of government sought to build power or wealth for those in power and the citizens were capital to be used to support the goals of a few.  It was within this context that Ingle and Marx wrote.  The actual practice of their theories was, at best, flawed by the intemperance of humanity, which has shown up to dominate almost all great endeavors, (regardless of how the those who live with the dream of humanity as an all-caring species would characterize it).

Those who stand to inherit this nation, when the Baby Boomers finally step aside seem to believe the government must provide far more than what our forefathers envisioned.  But then again, haven’t we Baby Boomers and those of the Greatest Generation we come from created the conditions by which those beliefs were institutionalized?

Our parents, the ones who defended western civilization from the Axis powers created the “Great Society,” greatly expanding the safety nets first cast down as part of the “New Deal.”  We, as the young of that age, all agreed that the government must help the poorest of our nation to succeed and rise up from the oppression of poverty.  Unfortunately, like most government efforts, no one is willing to look back and demand answers as to why all those great ideas have done so little to actually accomplish the ideals upon which they were built.  It is far easier to lay the blame at the feet of those who would question the actual results.  It is an easy sell for the idealists to believe everything would be perfect if only those other guys weren’t around.

For the past 75-years, the U.S. dollar has been the currency of choice for the world.  This has afforded us an unimagined opportunity and fiscal stability.  As we continue to place more demands on government than we are willing to pay for, will the dollar remain the international currency of choice?  From my simple views, I think you can see our future in the current state of California.  Once it was ranked as the top in education, transportation, infrastructure, and economic expansion.  Today its infrastructure is crumbling, the cities are degenerating into places of disease and homelessness, home ownership for the middle class is unaffordable, and the government places the rights of non-citizens ahead of its own.  Some of the most dominating technical companies of the world have their headquarters in the state, but from what I can tell they are built behind elaborate security where those who have wealth -- are protected from those who don’t.  I don’t see where all the power and wealth of these companies, led by the young Gen X, Gen Z and Millennials are doing much to spread their corporate wealth to the working class as their socialist leanings would have you believe.  Rather, they call for more government involvement (except where it directly affects their businesses).

So, what will the government look like when, as we will soon see, all our taxes must go to meet the debt payments for the money we’ve borrowed to finance all the great safety nets we’ve created?  I wonder, do people really believe what people like NYC mayor Bill de Blasio said on twitter, “Brothers and sisters, there is plenty of money in this country. There is plenty of money in this world. It’s just in the wrong hands.”  If only we just took all the money the rich people had made and give it to the poor people it would be perfect.  Who better to do this than the government?  Oh yes, the politicians in government need to survive so shouldn’t they get a cut off the top?  Seems to have worked well in the USSR, Cuba, and Venezuela.  Didn’t the government of Finland just dissolve because they could not reach agreement on how to stay solvent while they funded universal healthcare? 

 Fortunately, the world will end in 12 years, won’t it?  Oh, Right!  AOC was just kidding, wasn’t she?

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[1] http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/X00012D3E/

Who Get's to Decide?

As is typical these days there are posts circulating on social media calling for signing of a petition to support the social media giant’s claim they will not support “fascist” posts.  I usually see these things circulated by liberals who are all about closing down what they consider hate speech.  Others might view the speech as dissenting speech, but in today’s world of vulgar and unedited though who really can be sure?  This leads to the question of the day, who decides what is fascist hate speech? 

Is there some all-knowing board of intellectual giants who’ve spent their lives studying the nuances of language and have the complete moral authority to render unquestionable decisions, or is it just some algorithms put together by some 20-something computer nerds who believe what they think is the only right way to think?

I’m guessing it’s the latter, and their decisions could be second-guessed if there is enough outrage, or the bottom line profit margins of the social platform are significantly impacted.

The funny thing about these calls and the people who support them is the mere fact they seek to limit speech, especially speech they don’t like, is a significant part of what fascism is.

Merriam-Webster defines fascism (a noun) as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" (emphasis added).

The other features (dictator, nationalism, and racism) explain why the political opposition to the President is so eager to present him, or his followers as such.  It fits their political narrative regardless of what the actual behavior is.  Ask yourself, who was more dictatorial, the previous President who could ignore Congress, govern with his pen and his phone, and had the unquestioned support of the press, or this President who occasionally says outrageous things, but is challenged at every turn.  And as we see in the Mueller Report, accused of things unsupported by fact.

At the end of the day, how different is fascism from socialism?  Both call for social regimentation and as we see in socialist and communist states (according to Marx socialism is just an intermediate step to the communist ideal), the forcible suppression of opposition views.  Those who advocate for socialism seem a lot closer to the ideal of fascism than a market capitalist would.

So, at the end of the day, should some social media company have the right to limit speech in a nation that has codified the right to speech within its constitution?  My answer would be a qualified (i.e. limited) yes.  As a private entity, they are not limited as the government is, but with multi-billion dollar companies, we are (I think) in uncharted territory as far as their ability to support or challenge the nation-state.

But She is Passionate.

Passion is Not the Same as Right

The freshman representative from New York’s 14^th district gave an impassioned speech, which fired up her followers.  She passionately explained to a Republican colleague how the New Green Deal is not elitist.  She notes within the first few seconds she just recently got health insurance for the first time in her life and caring about the air one breaths and water one drinks are not elitist concerns.  Her followers are thrilled with how impressive she was in her speech, and she is correct caring about the air and the water you use are not be elitist concerns.  Although caring about the air and water someone else uses seldom rises as primary concerns for politicians, unless of course there is some political capital to be made.

Of course, what gets totally overlooked in this speech are the roles and the failures of government (at all the various levels) in providing the essential things like clean water and breathable air in the district she now represents.  Her position has been clearly stated, a more overarching government, as long as it is the “right” government would fix all the ills of the world. 

Unfortunately, her life experiences seem to be focused on the failures of governments led by individuals who share her political views and without realizing it she lays blame for the bad air and water on individuals who seem more attuned to her political beliefs in a progressive/socialist government, and acquiring personal wealth rather than actually improving the lives of the average citizen in their city.  If you doubt this – just check the record for environmental wellness in NYC since the election of Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio. Within their terms, while bowing to the will of the social reformers and socialist there has been a marked decline in the simple services like sanitation and improvements to utility infrastructure.  Mayor de Blasio has famously said, “there is more than enough money, it’s just in the wrong hands.”  I believe you find Mayor de Blasio’s wife has done quite well financially as city funds are diverted to her enterprises, while essential social services for the impaired have declined despite the rhetoric.

We can look to Flint, Michigan as a textbook example of the failures of local, state, and the federal government to place the needs of their most dependent citizens first, yet somehow a socialist government would make all this right because somehow under socialism greed and self-interest would magically vanish.  Perhaps I am wrong but hasn’t Flint and Michigan governments been predominately liberal/socialist democratic bastions?  During the eight years of the Obama administration just exactly how much did the EPA and the federal government do to fix the failures of Flint?

Sadly, I’ve not found evidence that her kind of government would actually accomplish all she says it will.  In fact, I’ve seen other impassioned socialists make similar claims about how an all-powerful government would make life wonderful for its citizens.  Universally, those impassioned leaders have failed.  Here are a few specific examples.

Hugo Chavez – elected to lead Venezuela, he promised a socialist wonderland where everyone would have free everything.  He nationalized the oil companies, supposedly using this wealth to enrich the people.  In reality, he created a dictatorship, funneled most of the money to enrich his family, and dragged an oil-rich country into starvation and ruin.

Fidel Castro – overthrowing a politically corrupt government in Cuba, Fidel promised to rise Cuba from the cane fields into a perfect communist state.  Along the way, he nationalized the agriculture of the island while counting heavily on subsistence from the USSR to enrich his family and maintain his domination of politics on the island.  When people became a problem he effectively allowed their escape to the US.  The policies of the Castro government have kept the island-nation locked into the economy of the 1950s, in part because of the sanctions placed by the U.S. as it tried to export its communist principles to other nations in the Western Hemisphere, but to a larger extent his unwillingness to compromise on his global vision for a communist/socialist world where political control remains with a few and the workers receive just enough benefit to continue.   What is most fascinating is the fact the communists of Cuba have been lionized by those who would follow his beliefs that Communism is the wave of the future.  These individuals are most often from the affluent class (where they’ve done little to gain their position) or academia.  It is almost as if they seek a return to the divine right of kings.

Of course, we have those traditional socialist leaders who inspired their nations while actually destroying millions of lives as they pursued the workers ideal.  I speak of course of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Together they are credited with the killing of anywhere between 7 and 75 million people[1] in an effort to achieve a worker’s paradise.  By the way, this number does not include the deaths resulting from China’s one baby rule.  Both of these socialists were known for their passion, mostly to keep their power, but let’s not quibble with the basis for their passion.

Finally, and I think this is a perfect place to stop, we have that great German socialist.  No, not Marx but Adolph Hitler.  Who better represents the appeal of an impassioned orator’s ability to rise up and instill a sense of power in their followers than Adolph Hitler.  His speeches, first in Munich and then Berlin, crystallized a nation that had suffered at the hands of the French, English, and Americans at the end of the Great War.  The fact is he passionately laid the blame for the depression and inflation that swept the nation at the foot of the German Jews and led his nation into a war that condemned roughly six million Jews to death because of his passionate anti-Semitism, and roughly another ten million from the war he started.

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[1] The most popular number for Stalin seems to be 20 million deaths from purges, gulags, and abandonment, while Mao is credited or not credited with the deaths from the cultural revolution which could be as little as 3 million or exceed 45 million.

Betwixt and Between

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As of right now, I see Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) known best for their distain of the federalist concept, are now embracing the rights of the several states to govern themselves, at least when it comes to the legality of recreational drugs.

Lest anyone think these are long-held beliefs, let’s talk about their past positions.  Both are longtime advocates for a larger, more powerful federal government with increased regulatory authority to force upon the states its control and power.  At least until President Trump and the Republicans came into power.

Both believe the federal government, and not the states, must mandate the elimination of semi-automatic rifles that look like military rifles, and that there must be a national database of gun owners so that it can at some point reach out to take the guns should it determine it wants to.

Both support the federal government’s involvement in determining the rights of the states to set policies in education, housing, employment, banking, and voting.

In fact, with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Ms. Warren advocated for the creation of regulatory agencies that even the Congress couldn’t control.   So, I find it interesting that all the sudden there is a cry for the states to have the power to regulate Marijuana growth and distribution as if it would not be governed by the same statutes that control the interstate commerce of other products.

As with most issues the DNC now champions it seems pretty clear this new-found faith in the States is based on a perception that legalizing Marijuana will result in new support for the upcoming election.  I wonder, is there a secret poll that suggests stoners will turn out in force to support the DNC?  As newly minted pseudo-federalists will they demand the voting locations have to offer snacks to entice voter turnout?

Towards What End?

One of my favorite quotes is supposed to have come from Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL), although it is probably more likely a misquote or misattribution.  “A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”  For me, this speaks to a central issue with our government.  The scale of the money we print and spend is inconceivable to the average American (including most of our politicians).  We have reached a point where the questions “What is the right size?” and “What are the right costs?” for our government are no longer questions we consider, we only argue about how much of the promissory paper (i.e. money) we print should go to this or that government program.  But, towards what end do we do this?

Why do we have a government at all?  Why does anyone have one?  Could the United Nations ever be a world government, and if so would that solve all our problems?

These and a hundred other questions rattle around in my mind, and while I may have some opinions so does everyone else.  Some of those with opinions make a living out of espousing them in the hopes of influencing others to believe as they do.  I live under no such illusion.  I’ve come to believe we each must decide for ourselves the answers to every why question you can ask.  There are some that are so big there can be no definitive answer we can prove or disprove with certainty, and your personal choice becomes the basis for other answers. 

For example, how was the universe created?  We have, on the one hand, a scientific theory that suggests it started with a “big bang” where everything originated from a single nothing.  We have proved some of the supporting science to argue this is a fact, but not enough to say it is the only fact of origin.  Then, of course, we have the theological explanation, God created the universe and its creation is beyond our understanding.  Those who reject the idea of a God naturally aspire to the scientific explanation, even though their theory is filled with more questions than answers, they assume they will someday find all the answers, it is only a matter of time.  But towards what end is a man a part of the universe, why do we exist?  Although science has gone to great lengths to explain how man exists, it does not seem too concerned with answering the why.

So, why does our government exist?  What purpose does it serve? Our forefathers believed a government so far removed from the people could not serve the needs of the people and fought a war of independence to establish a more responsive government.  Their first attempt at government was a loose confederation of the 13 original states, with each state maintaining its own sovereignty[1].  After only a few years they found this form of government to be ineffective to the common good.

Their second attempt was and is what we have today, although I doubt the founders could have imagined the changes in power and control now exercised by the central government.  Their purpose was clearly intended to address what they found as shortcomings of the confederation, and are laid out in the preamble.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Here we are entering 2018, and the question before us is a simple one.  Do the various voices we hear yelling across the media still believe the government provides for the purposes intended by our founders, or would they abandon the framework for some other purpose?  To what end does the left rave about the character of the President while glorifying their own politicians, at least until they become a burden and are cast aside to maintain the illusion of moral superiority?

From my point of view, the political debate is now driven exclusively by greed and the desire of the political parties,  their politicians, and political activists to enrich themselves.  The illusion that a politician enters into the job as a “service” is thoroughly debunked by a simple review of net worth when they start the job and when they end it.  Of course, when someone comes into the job already wealthy the natural question is why?  Those who know only personal gain as a politician, of course, are the first to condemn them for seeking more personal wealth.

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[1] Article 2 (Articles of Confederation)

A Philosophical Question on Government

I was thinking about what questions I might ask a candidate if I were given a chance at a town hall meeting, press conference, or public debate, and what would be most important for me to understand in casting my ballot.  There are two questions I don’t think I’ve ever heard the press ask, although I tend to zone out and ignore most televised debates because of their Kabuki like presentation, and I am not sure most of the politicians from either party would answer simply, for in simple answers we would see their agenda too clearly.

The first question would be “What is the role of government?” 

In today's world of political and racial correctness this seems to be a most important question.  Is it the governments job to shape society, or is society and its standards only a medium in which government exists?  Unlike the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? We know society preexists government, but the two are inextricably intertwined as both are products of the humans involved. 

At our origin, the founders had, just ten years earlier, led a rebellion against a distant authoritarian government.  They were concerned with the rights and individual freedoms of the society, as it existed in the late 18^th century.  They built a central government with clear limits to its power through the system of checks and balances, and allowances for the rights of the several states to operate independently.

The preamble of the U.S. Constitution lays out four roles for government, they are “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, [and] promote the general Welfare…” Each of these roles come directly from the shared experiences of the political leadership of that society.  Justice was first – for without faith in the equality of justice by the majority of society neither the society nor the government can long exist.  With the Confederation of States the framers learned that only a central power with sufficient strength to settle the inevitable disputes between states, or rebellious factions can ensure society can flourish.  Next, understanding the threats from external powers the need for some kind of standing Army and Navy was a cost best born by the central government and not the individual states.  Finally, they believed government should not interfere with the individual’s rights to health, happiness, and prosperity.

Over the years we have moved from the original vision of the signers to something much more powerful than what our founders could have ever imagined.  It was inevitable this would occur since the strong men of the day sought to expand their authority just as strong men and women of today do.  This leads to the natural question, is the evolution of centralized power a good or bad thing for the health of our society?

The second question I would ask is, how long do you intend to “serve” in office?

When our government began, the individuals elected to office did so with the understanding this was a part-time job and after a couple of terms they would return to private life.  It didn’t take long for those same politicians see they had found the goose that laid a golden egg.  This led to expanding their employment into full time roles and life-long careers where they were able to significantly improve the socio-economic outlook.  Along the way the created a civil service to support their law-making, creating a bureaucratic class that also benefits from the expansion of government.  While it is true there has been expansion and contraction of our government there are two facts that are inescapable.  A contracting government never returns to the same size it was before it was expanded in the first place, and since WW II there has been only a significant expansion in the size and scope of the central government.

Since we appear to have reached a point in our history where we seem unwilling to establish term limits for representatives and senators through the amendment process, our only avenue for limiting government growth is to hold ourselves accountable and not vote f0r incumbents after a couple of terms.  Unfortunately, this works against our self-interest so that is not a likely course of action either.  

 It looks to me as if the expansion of government is likely to continue until such time as it topples from its own weight.

Make it so Number 1

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I see California lawmakers are considering a ban on gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.  I think this is great and they should do it immediately, but to be fair about it they should do it by political party affiliation. 

We know Republicans are: a) the minority party, b) climate change skeptics, and c) anti-progressive.  Therefore, don’t let them have the benefit of all this progress.  Make them drive these gas or diesel vehicles until they change their evil ways.  Maybe as a concession to the more moderate evil-doers allow them hybrids.

Only the progressive left should be allowed the benefit of the energy efficient all-electric cars available today.  They should be allowed to trade in their outdated and polluting vehicles for a cash bonus from all the excess money available within the California budget.

All the celebrities living within major metropolitan areas should convert within 30-days of the Governor signing the bill.  I think Rolls Royce must have a fully electric car by now.  Jay Leno should probably be forced to leave the state and relocate all his old gas and diesel cars.  I am not sure what to do with his Stanley Steamer, but that should probably go as well.

All the current gas stations in the state should be forced to convert to charging stations based on the party affiliation of their owners, or corporate sponsors.  For example, if the CEO of Exxon is a Democrat, all the Exxon stations must convert.  If the CEO of Sammy’s cheap gas is a Republican they won’t be allowed to convert until the CEO does.

Let’s let California bask in the glow of climate and identify politics, and make the world a better place.

What is the Purpose of Government?

If you’ve never wondered about why our government exists then perhaps it is time.  We are now in a period of transition; the unanswerable question is what will come from it? 

Our founding fathers, in the preamble to the Constitution said,

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Have we reached a point where these words no longer have meaning, and have lost their ability to bind us together as a nation?  We are at a point where the centrists have left the stage, and the radicals have chosen riot, rather than debate, as the means of communication.   The institutions we have historically looked to for our views of the world have chosen sides and news is replaced by opinion.

On the one side, there are those who would have “the government” be the nexus of all things.  They display a willingness to surrender their personal freedoms for the illusions of safety and expert control, placing their trust in a benevolent leadership.  In the process, they would forsake the traditional institutions of religion, and coopt the educational system, both of which served in the past to moderate the growth and abuse of power. 

The opposition must take the position of limiting government and the power it wields, opening it to attack from those who have come to expect a continuation of government largess, without consequence.  Everyone, it seems, loves the idea of paying no taxes and getting all the benefits of using other people’s money.

The Democratic party has pretty much admitted it stands for little, or nothing, except to gain power for those who control the party.  (Perhaps this has always been true, and now is now just more apparent.)

The Republican Party, is currently a fractured caricature of what it once was.  It seems apparent they have no clear and unifying understanding of either the needs of the nation, or the path to secure those needs.  It has proven itself great at complaining about the abuses of power by their opponents, but as we have seen, when it comes to actually legislating they have neither plan, nor the leadership to secure the “Blessings of Liberty” so desired by our founders.

Adding to the challenges of the traditional opposing political parties is the advent of a populist President who speaks to the concerns and fears of the average middle-aged working man and woman.  The very people the political elite have cast aside as they talk among themselves about the grand future of their parties and the utopia they will create.

Another element muddying the waters of political discourse is the rise of the religious right.  A growing force since the 1970’s.  It has become almost completely aligned with the Republican Party as the Democratic National Committee has moved further and further from its traditional “everyman” approach.

From this shift left comes the continuing attacks on what many centrists view as simple cultural norms, like the traditional holidays, but what the non- traditional religious and atheists view as state endorsement of a religion.  The courts have sided with their concerns often enough to provide the foundation for the religious activist’s belief the churches must engage politically if they are to survive. 

These almost daily legal battles ultimately end up in the legislatures as the politicians align with what they believe to be their most supportive constituents.  Oft times writing laws that are ill advised, or even counterproductive.

It has become apparent to me, and perhaps others, the political parties increasingly fail at providing the common people with a viable representative government.  Each party is bought and paid for by to serve their sponsors interests.  Couple this with the obvious self-interest for power and wealth on the part of the politicians themselves, and we have the perfect condition for institutional corruption.  One has only to look at the alumni of the Office of President, or the wealth accumulation of career politicians in Congress to see the obvious truth of this assertion.

We see in the class structure of our nation an increasing divide, where the traditional ideals of hard work, and ambition will no longer enable someone to migrate from the poor, to the middle class, or to the wealthy as was the promise of the past.  The question no one seems to consider is was that a reality, or just an illusion used to foster a unity of purpose?  I think the answer should be obvious.  The wealthy have always made up the 1%, but the ability to live comfortably and move from abject poverty was a real possibility for those who had the ambition, drive, and courage to seek change.

The Democrats have, for at least the past 10 years, talked about the wealth of the 1% and the poverty of the poorest, as if being wealthy is bad, and the poor are always victims of an unfair system who have no control over their status.  Remarkably the same time the Democratic politicians are blaming the rich; they have their hands out for campaign contributions while writing legislation that will affect those they are soliciting funds from.  What is the expectation of all those who contribute?  Is it just a magnanimous and humanitarian concern?

 The Republicans talk about reducing taxes, while giving lip service to the idea of reducing government, and like the Democrats they too have their hands out while blaming big government and writing legislation that will benefit the wealthy.  How important is the idea of reducing taxes for the growing percentage of Americans who pay no taxes?  With Republican control of the Congress they could have reduced the deficit through spending reductions on non-entitlement programs, but a Representative or Senator is elected to bring home the bacon (or pork) so why on earth would either party ever cut funding.  Especially now that they have convinced us that just slowing the growth of a program is called a cut.  Recently, my Representative claimed with all sincerity the House had passed the 2018 budget that would balance the budget in only 10 years.  Hmm, where have I heard that before?  With nine more budgets to pass, four more elections to hold, and an unknown global future I’m guessing in 9 years he will be claiming similar success is only 10 years away.                  

Neither party talks very much about the decay of the American dream where initiative is rewarded and a family has the opportunity to thrive and prosper without fear of a bank taking their home, or an employer laying them off to hire new workers at the minimum wage.  One party wants to open our borders to all, when we don’t have employment for those who are citizens, while the other wants to seal to border to those they view as threats.  As in most things these days, neither party wants to concede an inch and find reasonable balance to national employment, security, and immigration.

Sorry, I got a little side tracked there.  Let’s get back to talking about the meaning of the Preamble.

So, I come to the two questions, how do we understand the terms justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, and general welfare, and what is the role we expect of our government?  Fueled by a myopic media we, as a nation, seem increasingly unable to come to agreement over what the they should mean and what ideal they should represent.

Justice – at our founding, the original colonies had all experienced the rule of English law, where there was one set of expectations for the royalty and another for the commoner.  They had also imported, as their inheritance, the concept of “common law” as adjusted to the conditions of the colonies.  But as James Stoner[i] discusses in his commentary we have twisted the meaning of common law, and just as we seem to be twisting the meaning of common justice.  As proponents of “natural law” where the rights of the people come not from the state, but from a higher power (or nature if you prefer), then the ideal of equal justice for all would be foundational in their beliefs and would serve as a safeguard for the abuse of the state.  This was clearly their intent in the establishment of the checks and balances provided by organizing the government into three independent but interrelated branches.  Unfortunately, the execution of justice is left to us as a society, along with all our bias and hatred.  We may choose men and women who promise fairness to judge the law, but we see often they fall short when it comes to the having the wisdom of Solomon.   Slowly, perhaps imperceptibly at first, the common expectation of equal justice is eroded until one day we awake to find the political class is judged with a standard that differs from those who are not politically connected.  We are now at that point as we see with both the current and past administrations.  We are at a time where regardless of the public evidence of corruption a politically connected candidate will not be prosecuted, or despite a lack of hard evidence another will be continuously vilified, leaving the average man or woman to question the standards of justice this nation would have.  I’ve purposely left the issue of race and justice out of this paragraph for that begs for a much larger discussion.  Can a minority race receive equal treatment under the law? I am sure everyone has their own answer to that question, but the simple fact there are multiple answers would suggest in the larger sense a loss of faith in the underlying principle of equal justice.

Domestic Tranquility, what the heck is that?  Is it the same thing as “Happy wife, happy life?”  Well it kind of is.  When the revolution ended, we established the Confederation of States, where the individual colonies maintained a great deal of autonomy.  The federal government (much like the UN of today) had no real means to ensure the states cooperated with each other beyond brokering consensus.  We also had no means of quelling a resurrection should one occur.  These failures in our first government weighed heavily into the debates and concerns of the constitutional convention and led to the provisions within the constitution that placed limits on the states and gave the President and Congress the ability to quell rebellion (e.g. the Whisky Rebellion[ii])

Providing for the Common Defense.  This is, at least in my opinion, the simplest of the purposes of government.  Sovereignty is an interesting concept.  Throughout our history there have been very few years when our sovereignty has not been challenged by one group or another.  Without the means to defend ourselves would we exist today as an independent nation?   We’ve fought two wars with the English regarding our rights to exist, then there were the Barbary pirates who sought tribute and ransom, but as often as not we’ve used our military to achieve the political will of the day.  For example, when we annexed Texas and Mexico took umbrage, or when Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay.  In neither case was the employment of the military narrowly defined as “defensive.”  Today, our sovereignty is challenged by Islamic terrorism, and the defense of our nation is addressed by the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State, as well as the CIA. 

Finally, we come to that catch all phrase, promoting the General Welfare.  I share the views of Adam J. Bulava,[iii] writing in his blog “The Government Teacher” when he discusses the framers intent, and the conflict between unlimited and limited government.  He notes its origins lie in the classic philosophy, regarding putting the common good ahead of the desires of special interests.  Was it the framers intent that this phrase justifies an unlimited expanse of government?  There is sufficient other indication in the Constitution and the Federalist papers to lay to rest the idea the framers ever imagined Government as having unlimited power.

So, we come to today.  As the power of the government expands and the desires of the special interests are cried out with increasing demands and authority to that government, the question remains “What do we expect of our government?”

Clearly, we are willing to overlook the sins of those we favor, while we condemn those we dislike.  The Democratic candidate’s collusion, or the Republican President’s collusion are two sides of the same coin, yet we hear in the media completely different levels of acceptance or tolerance.  Clearly the needs of the general population are given little consideration by the public advocates who gain so much air time in the various media outlets.

To turn John F. Kennedy’s phrase around, ask not what you can do for your government, ask what your government is doing to you.  If we are to survive we must find a way to move from the extremes, and this cannot happen if we, the average citizen, support only the extreme positions our favored political party is moving to.

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[i] Liberty Law, Forum, "Why You Can't Understand the Constitution Without the Common Law

[ii] Encyclopedia Britannica, Whisky Rebellion

[iii] WordPress, The Government Teacher - Original Intent: The General Welfare