The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus (c. 56-117 CE)
That observation is as good a foundation for this section as I've come across. In that spirit, and given the political structure of our republic, I submit to you the following.
Basic premise of my political perspective... The road to hell is paved with good intentions. America has profoundly lost its way.
Classification:
I chanced across a PBS interview with Princeton University Religious Studies professor
Cornel West a few years back and one of the things he spoke of relative to his politics that stayed with me was a distinction between big "L" Liberalism and little "l" liberalism. The gist of this distinction of one of power party politics or
Statist solutions to social "problems" and fundamental political philosophy. Between an impulse to totalitarianism and scheming for power, and an acute understanding of history and human nature. The little "l" is what West would say corresponds to our esteemable tradition of liberal democracy here in the Western world over the past 350 years or so, whereas the big "L" corresponds to the post-Depression authoritarian Democratic party politics. The politics of "Progressivists" as the intellectual heirs of Socialism. The title is a laughable act of sophistry. Progressivism is a marketing slogan not unlike Compassionate Conservatism. The implication of which is that an alternative political vision or perspective is regressive by comparison and un-modern. This isn't to say that the theocratic and fascist inclinations of some elements of the Republican party are any better or less frightening, but from a practical standpoint it is much more difficult to convince people of joining in some Nuremburg-like rally or to burn crosses in the middle of the night than it is to promise them something for nothing. It is important to not relinquish the linguistic high ground.
This is, I think, a valuable and important distinction to make beacuse one thread trends towards liberty, peace, self-sufficiency and deeper human principles while the other has been, and continues to, lead to hopelessness and psychological emasculation for millions the world over. It is in this vein that I would classify my personal politics as
Classical Liberalism or in contemporary parlance, Libertarianism.
Give me liberty or give me death! - Patrick Henry (1736-1799)
Foundational Structure:
I have discussed this issue with my brother, among others, and believe it to be non-trivial to say the least. The United States of America is not now, nor was it ever intended to be, a democracy. It's basic structure is that of a
Constitutional Republic. So what's the difference?
Put simply, it's a system of mob rule vs. principled organization. A system wherein the citizens select representatives to defend their interests in accordance with the basic principles set forth in the Constitution and other
founding documents. It's what I semi-jokingly refer to ask the Uncle Jesse approach. For all those familiar with the old television program
The Dukes of Hazard, the main character's Uncle Jesse represented the wise and calmly deliberative village elder. Someone who everyone in town could turn to when conflict arose in order to bring deeper insight or wisdom to bear on the situation. The books of history and literature are replete with this archetypal figure.
The basic idea of our system of governance is that since getting 1,000 people together in order to rationally discuss a matter proves impossible 100% of the time (to say nothing of our current constituency of over 300,000,000) the only feasible approach is to select a few people we hope we can trust and put them in a room together to hash out some basic rule-sets. Again, in accordance with the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, etc.
Noam Chomsky is correct in that the Founding Fathers of our country were a relatively elitist group. That they were suspicious of the masses. That they were representatives of a segment of society that held the reigns of economic and social power. That they purposefully constructed a system that is not fully democratic and thus priviledged some over others in the manner in which the political system functions. But this is fundamentally correct given the nature of our species. He's dangerously wrong and naive in maintaining that matters should or could be otherwise.
Human nature is such that any other structure is unfeasible and unsustainable.
A great deal of thought and reflection went into the structure they devised. These men were among the most learned in the world at that time. They were the beneficiaries of the tremendous insights and lessons provided by contemporary European history and philosophical progress. They knew the horrors of endless religious conflicts across Europe. They saw the horrors that resulted in the herd mentality and mob rule as represented in the true democracy of the French Revolution. They understood profoundly the falibility and corruptability of man.
What they came up with was a brilliant and unprecedented system of checks and balances that priviledged liberty and virtue over state power as never before in human history. The system they devised explicity advances the notion of, when in doubt err on the side of freedom and personal responsibility. It trusts in the individual but makes demands of her as well. This last is a point too often overlooked in this day and age of entitlement and sloth. To quote James Madison from Federalist 55, "Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities [men's capacity for virtue] in a higher degree than any other form". With most of our civic virtue now eroded there is a case to be made that we will reap what we've sown.
As has rightly been said, the state is in the business of aggrandizing of it's power and must be watched.
Taxation:
Let's be very clear about this matter from the outset. While taxation may be a necessary and indespensible method in funding the proper and limited funtions of government, it is nonetheless a form of violence against the individual perpetrated by the state. It is a taking, no different in kind than the state excersizing its Eminent Domain powers in the acquiring of ones private property. That being said, it is a necessary evil from the perspective of all thinking people in that a society without properly maintained roads, a functioning postal service, responsive fire and police departments and the ability to defend itself is no society at all. The point of legitimate divergence is in both the effective rate and allocation of those taxes.
From 1776 to 1913, the federal government by and large followed its constitutional mandate regarding the collection of taxes (excises) in a geographically uniform manner and apportioned according to population as permitted. Meaning essentially that the government, until the ratification of the
16th Amendment, was not able to modify tax policy to apply differently to different segments of the population or different industries in order to manipulate towards social and political ends.
The graduated income tax structure we now enjoy is the fruit of a push by the Socialist Labor Party at the end of the 19th Century. This keen idea which has helped more than any other policy in our nations history (save perhaps slavery) to sew the seeds of dis-harmony within the population at large, has resulted in a code of
byzantine complexity over 13,000 pages and 17 volumes in total. Each Congress, a new series of political agendas and favors owed from campaign contributions comes onto the scene and does their best to modify and manipulate this abomination to thier
own ends. Neither side of the aisle being any better than the other.
There is just no defensible reason for this scheme. If Gross Domestic Product is the final market value of all goods and services produced in an economy, and ours is approximately $13.86 trillion, why would we not enact a flat 10% transaction tax on all this activity and bring the Treasury the resulting $1.386 trillion that would be more than sufficient to cover necessary and Constitutional expenditures? Not enough revenue? Ending our lost and immoral drug war and taxing the attendant contribution to the larger economy of an estimated $220 Billion, would bring in an additional $22 Billion alone. Need more? The CATO Institute estimates that one in every hundred American adults is now
behind bars. What are the economic and societal costs of that fact?
This is to say nothing of fundamental and empirically borne out economic theory. I find it especially disturbing to hear Democrats rail on and on about the necessity of raising taxes on those of us who actually pay them. This counter-productive Populist psychological manipulation of the masses leads nowhere but to increased societal division and, ironically, a descrease in tax revenue. I would recommend these divisive liars familiarize themselves with the
Laffer Curve.
The simple reality is that logical steps such as those would result in a system not subject to the class warfare beneficiaries and social structure manipulators in Congress and state governments. It's a transparent and binary power issue; it either lies with the government or with the people.
And as long as we buy the propaganda that there is a substantial difference between the two major political parties on these issues, they win and we lose.
The War on Drugs:
Our current illicit drug policy was founded on the racist pillars of anti-Chinese (opium) and anti-Mexican (
marijuana) sentiment in the first half of the 20th century. Not to mention the anti-black implications in
sentencing asymmetries in the application of current drug laws. By all accounts, in the last 20 years the cost of illegal drugs (quantity) has come down as purity levels (quality) have increased; not a good fact for anyone even remotely aware of basic economics. Any sober look at this situation reveals that our society's prohibition on these substances is clearly lost.
In yet another example of how our government misled its citizenry and corrupted the very system it swore to uphold, I submit the
Marijuana Stamp Tax of 1937.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 16,885 people died in alcohol related deaths on the roads of America in 2005 and another 440,000 died from smoking related disease in the period 1995-1999. Compare that to zero from marijuana overdoses, ever. See
this chart for additional statistics. Consider too that in 2004 there were 3,308 unintentional drowings in the U.S. for an average of 9 people per day. Should we outlaw swimming pools? I thought not, so don't tell me this is a public health issue.
And what of the foreign involvement implications of this "war"? The countless destroyed unknown
lives. The hundreds of billions wasted. The opportunity costs of not focusing finite political and economic resources on other endeavors. Necessarily turning huge swaths of overseas populations against us because of our collective schizophrenia inherent in our nations' voracious consumption of the commodities they can most profitably grow while at the same time denouncing their agricultural choices. I've actually had people tell me that in the case of Afghani poppy farmers they shouldn't choose to farm the one item that can keep their family from starvation and gross exposure. How dare we chastize subsistence farmers in the Third World on their choice of crop from our centrally heated, 5,000 square foot hill-top mansions! The temerity and arrogance is neuseating.
On Jacob Sullum's book - "After decades of a futile war on drugs, Saying Yes makes public what many Americans discuss only in private: Drug use as it is described by politicians and propagandists is dramatically different from drug use as it is experienced by the silent majority of users - the decent people who, despite their politically incorrect choice of intoxicants, lead productive and filfilling lives".
www.DrugPolicy.org
Mothballing the DEA, ATF, reducing the workload of the Coast Guard, FBI, local police forces, etc., letting non-violent and non-repeat offenders out of prison, and refusing medical assistance to those who choose to abuse substances they know full well to be toxic, and therefore deadly, would illustrate our fealty to personal liberties and save society tens of billions every year that can be better allocated to programs infinitely more valuable to society like teaching kids to read, cleaning up some beaches, providing proper health care to veterans and paying off debt.
There is no war on drugs; just a war on the Constitution, personal freedom and responsibility.
The Social Contract:
I believe it was Rousseau who first spoke of the
Social Contract. That set of responsibilities we as co-members of a society share with one another and freedoms we forego to the government in order to establish a more just society. It's an affirmation that functioning societies rest on a series of fundamental rights, and equally important, responsibilities.
In yet another profoud perversion of an important Enlightenment concept, the contemporary political classes drone endlessly on about "rights" without maintaining that they only exist within the confines of reciprocal actions that contribute to the peace and stability of the society. In other words, we owe no freedom to those who would bring violence upon the weak. We owe no healthcare to those who sit around watching television and gorging on Twinkies all day. We owe no place at the table of Public Policy to those who do not excersize the mind and bring only superstition, ignorance or greed to the public sphere.
Further, there is the crucial and not yet fully internalized reality that all life is not equal. The value of one's existence is predicated upon the choices and contributions made. There are great men. One
Paul MacCready or
Frank Ramsey or
Steven Pinker is worth more than 10,000 members of
MS-13. To maintain otherwise is moral and intellectual infantilism.
Social Engineering:
Most frightening and divisive aspect of modern politics.
Example 1.
Pernicious Effects of "Progressivism":
It's only after you build or create something that requires the involvement of those outside the safety of the Academy or genuinely participate in our system of taxation that you've earned the right to formulate "how things should be run".
Example 1 of the disconnect.
That government is best which governs least - Henry David Thoreau
Final Analysis:
Here's a couple dirty little secrets the Republicrats don't want us to know or acknowledge:
1. There's plenty of money in "the system" to handle every priority we have. From education and critical infrastructure to military and social safety nets for the truly needy. If we simply allocate more wisely and fairly all constitutional and intellectually defensible ends can easily be met. I exclude programs like Medicare and Social Security because they're both unconstitutional and totally under-capitalized entitlement programs. We're looking at approximately $50-$70T in obligations within the next 40 years which will, without question, bankrupt our society.
2. There are principles more important than life. As referenced above in the instance of Patrick Henry's claim regarding liberty and enslavement, there are fundamental principles upon which a good society must rest that are more important than the lives of individual citizens. The notion that ours is to be a government of laws and not of men captures this idea well. (See John Adams and the Massachusetts Constitution)
3. Consider the four pricipal reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire and there implications for our current state of affairs. First, a general populace dis-interested and dis-engaged from the body politic allowing a ruling class to get away with incredible baseness and corruption. Second, an over-extended and incredibly expensive military force. Third, the inability, due in part to the aforementioned over-extension of the military, and unwillingness to protect their borders. This permitted a critical mass of non-Romans to undermine the state from the inside out. Fourth, leadership failures and social immorality on a profound scale. I refer to the immorality here purposefully to denote a people whose primary interests consist of entertainment, the unreflective pursuit of ever more confortable existences and rampant consumerism. Be it the colluseum
When less than half of our eligible population bothers to vote and the overwhelming majority are ignorant of the issues we currently confront, what are we justified in expecting of our political representatives.
Note on The Great Credit Crisis of 2008:
We've done this to ourselves America. Through our ignorance, greed, slothfulness and lack of basic moral principals we have allowed a system to develop wherein our best and brightest will have nothing to do with political life. Until such time that we collectively begin to internalize that the current political environment of effective rule by one corporatist party must be done away with via the vote, we deserve the pain we're current living through. Stop being puppets and start using your minds. There is no Republican or Democrat. There is only them and us and they have everything we continue to give them. Kill your televison, save some money and begin considering alternative modes of existence. Obama will change nothing though the illusion will be compelling. I would suggest we stop being sheep and bring alternative parties into the fold. It's our only salvation. Consider.