For a long time now, I have had issues with extreme libertarians on the issue of the role of government. Extreme libertarians as a rule generally want government removed. Period.
I’m with the founders… I think government has a place, but needs to be severely restricted, which is something that the Constitution has sought to do. The trouble is we let government for too long get away with bypassing the Constitution, most recently in the person of Barack Hussein Obama.
A discussion I had recently with one extreme libertarian, exemplifies the difference is I’m talking about. He had just come off of a rather lengthy diatribe about the left and its efforts to eliminate guns by means of law.
Leaving aside for the moment the idea that such restrictions fly in the face of the Second Amendment, I engaged the gent on the following ground… And please understand I’m paraphrasing here for the sake of both brevity and privacy…
“One of your arguments against the banning of certain weapons is that they are merely tools. You rightly suggest that it’s how the tool gets used that makes the difference. I find that a compelling argument.”
“OK…”
“The leftists among us will tell you that guns are inherently evil, and should be banned outright. Personally I find that an extraordinarily stupid argument. You and I have discussed in the past the reasons for that. And, I expect we agree.”
“Yes, we do.”
” Certainly, guns can be used to evil effect. But like any other tool, they can be used for good, as well. For example, defense. Including defense from a hostile government.”
“Correct.”
“Would you consider guns to be a necessary evil?”
“I’d consider that a fair statement, though I don’t know that I’d word it precisely that way.”
“Banning, or banishing something because it can be used for evil, negates the good that it can do as well. Do you agree?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t government a tool?”
(Confused silence)
“Wasn’t Thomas Paine the one who told us that government as a necessary evil?”
(More confused silence.)
…
Now, before you start tuning up, I’m not playing the card that Obama played about making government cool again. Nor am i moving away from Reagan’s axiom that government isn’t the solution, government is the problem.
But again, I hold with the founders.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
We in these United States have been the beneficiaries of that wisdom. I think there is no argument against the idea that as established these United States grew to be the best example of freedom operating in the history of this world.
That said, there is also no argument against the idea that we have failed this experiment in freedom by allowing government to grow beyond its purview, from both an ideological and constitutional perspective. That, too, is a point to which the founders spoke rather eloquently.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by Government abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such , and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Unfortunately, we here in America find ourselves in just that situation. It’s our own fault, having let government get outside of its purview as I say. In my judgment our founders would be long since shooting.
And yes, that eventuality is exactly what the 2nd amendment was designed for.
But how have we come to this stage? How did we get here?
To answer that question, let’s refer back to something I posted in these spaces a little over a decade ago….
1: Who invented the concept of government?
2: What purpose would that entity have had in such creation?
One way we can answer those two questions at once, would be to look at what existed as the most powerful force before government was invented, and therefore what was the most likely inventor of government: CULTURE.
If we make the logical assumption that governments were originally created by the individual cultures, then it follows that each culture constructed their respective governments in their own image… governments that best reflected and advanced each culture’s interests.
The original purpose of government, therefore, is to protect, nurture and defend, and if possible expand the influence of, the culture that gave it life. As such, to the greatest of degrees possible, each government’s laws, on the whole, were the culture, codified. It follows, then, that any government holding to the original purpose of government will perform this task.
Now, notice I said to the greatest degree possible. I freely admit… Trumpet, even, that there are no perfect governments, no perfect laws. No law, or government can ever capture in amber, a culture. Cultures are far more complex than any law, however written, can encompass. So it is that laws cannot be the end-call and be-all to a culture, or to a country. Laws when taken too literally and made to apply to all events uniformly, can instead of being just, will instead dispense injustice. It is said that in hell, there will be law and policy and little else. Yet, this imperfect tool did at least manage to provide a mechanism toward the intended purpose… The furtherance of the culture that founded said government. This understanding that there is imperfection in government implies that other values should supersede governmental power when the tool of government doesn’t fit the task at hand well. I submit the highest value applied here should be the values of the culture, not that of the law.
(Which, I would argue is why there are judges which read not only the wording of the laws but then intent of them.)
Now, I hear some of you balking at this, suggesting the right of the individual are paramount; a noble sentiment. But consider this immovable fact:
Rights are not universal.
Yep. That’s what I said…Read it again, just to be sure.
Rights are not universal.
Clearly, this will raise many questions on the part of some. This should answer most;
When Jefferson wrote that “WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT” he was not speaking a universal truth at all. The operative word in that phrase is “WE”.
Rather than talking about a universal point of view, a universal truth, if you will, he was instead talking about the point of view of WE the new American culture. With this angle, many of the long-held myths about rights tend to disappear.
Consider; if it was in fact a universal truth that all men were created equal, it wouldn’t have been such a radical idea, for the time, much less then to now. Last I checked, it is quite true that a vast majority still do not consider these as any kind of truth, universal or otherwise; they consider them to be anything BUT self-evident. Royalty still exists, as do class structures, and slavery, as well.
Again, I say…Jefferson was speaking of the point of view of OUR culture, not that of others.
The fact of the matter is that RIGHTS ARE A CULTURAL CONCEPT, and are nigh on meaningless outside that construct. Once the culture is allowed to fall to the law, even in an attempt to impose rights where they do not exist, what happens to real rights, which are a cultural concept?
When one says “freedom”, the question should be ‘freedom from what’? The answers that come back will invariably be cultural in nature. They do not make any sense outside that environment.
As I’ve said, the law and government has been abused by some, it has moved away from that intended purpose of supporting the existing culture. They are in fact being used by the left to alter that morality, to alter that culture, and when that happens, the fall of the government cannot be far behind… and the fall of the culture itself beyond that, becomes a larger possibility. Often as not, the downfall of that culture is what they have in mind.
I submit what we have here, today, is the reversal of roles. Governments thinks itself the arbiter of the culture, not the servant of it. The US has the culture dramatically changed, and with it the concept of Rights. What is a right and what is not.
So the question becomes, what to do about all this.
First of all, we need to put government back inside of its constitutional box, and get it out of the business of being the arbiter of culture. That means among other things, getting it out of the education business, getting it out of the medicine business, getting it out of regulation of food, closing down the EPA,, and all that just for openers.
Now obviously, all that’s not going to happen instantaneously. It took us a hundred years of government sneaking out side of its boundaries, from Woodrow Wilson forward. That stuff’s not going to be cured in a day. And it may not be cured in a hundred years. But our survival depends on walking in that direction.
As to those who figure in the elimination of government all together is the best path, perhaps a lesson from history is worth having.
The history of revolutions, specifically revolutions intended to overthrow a given government, with the exception of the American Revolution, have not fared very well. Consider the socialist state that is now France, for example. Or, England for that matter. The idea of the constitutional republic as set up by our founders, is as I say the best example of freedom the world has come up with yet. I submit that moving toward that end is the best path forward. Get government back inside that constitutional box.