Yuri N. Maltsev worked as an economist on Mikhail Gorbachev’s economic reform team before defecting to the United States. Thankfully, he managed to immigrate to the United States without stopping in Siberia. Today he teaches economics at Carthage College and is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute. In a recent speech he gave in Florida, which was part of The Mises Circle in Naples, the former Soviet economist explained to the audience that in truth, all governments are socialist. Yes, that’s right…When it comes to governments, it’s only a question of the quantity of their socialist content.

Shortly after the midterm elections last year, columnist Gene DeNardo made a similar point in an article that appeared at NolanChart.com

“Believing that certain forms of the state or certain forms of governing are socialist and certain forms are ‘free’ is erroneous and a bit ridiculous. All governing states are socialist by nature. The state by definition derives its control and power to enforce its monopoly by confiscating and redistributing the resources of its populace. It cannot survive without acting in this manner. While it may not directly control the ‘means of production’, to ensure its survival and growth it will control the necessary proportion of the product of those same productive means.

Attempting to try to ‘unsocialize’ the state is futile. One political party referring to the other as ‘socialist’ is hysterical. All politics that exist within the state monopoly are only variations on the question of who the wealth will come from and where it will go. This has always been the nature of the state.”

But can a government exist that does not confiscate and redistribute the resources of its populace? In principle, I tend to think so, just as there might exist certain forms of voluntary socialism that redistribute without confiscation. In the broadest sense, governments are simply authorities that establish and maintain order, and (hopefully) justice, according to a system of law. If such a government can perform these functions with the unanimous consent of the governed and without redistributing wealth, then it would qualify as a non-socialist government, in my humble opinion.

But unless you’re are dealing with such a non-coercive government that does not redistribute wealth, you are dealing with a socialist government. You may be dealing with a big “S” socialist government that has a complete monopoly over vast territories, spanning multiple time zones, or you may be dealing with a small “s” socialist government in your state, county, city or town. But because almost all governments are based on socialism, Maltsev asserts that they can’t be reformed, “fixed” or ever made to run efficiently the way a business can in the private (voluntary), sector. The closest we’ll ever get to subjecting governments to market discipline, is by containing them, keeping them weak and dividing them up into as many competing jurisdictions as possible.

If we fail to do so and allow the consolidation of power that Jefferson, Madison and other founders feared, the result can be a dystopian nightmare, like the one Yuri Maltsev managed to escape from. On the other hand, if we succeed in doing so, we may force socialist governments in the U.S. to compete with each other, resulting in a greater number of freer and more prosperous political societies. Such an arrangement is called federalism, and I believe that it would naturally tend to prevent big “S” socialism from becoming a permanent feature of the federal government and gradually diminish small “s” socialism among the several states, as long as Americans remain free to move from one state to another.

Listening to Yuri N. Maltsev’s speech validated my belief that the federal government cannot be “fixed”. It also reinforced my conviction that Americans in one state shouldn’t be in the business of arguing with people of other states, about just how much socialism they ought to embrace or reject. Every state has a different level of acceptable socialism, but they are all socialist to one degree or another.

Now I’m not saying Americans residing in different states shouldn’t dialog with each other or coordinate their efforts when it’s mutually advantageous. But when more populous states choose to use their disproportionate influence in Congress or their greater number of electoral votes to elect a president who they know will usurp the authority of the states and micromanage their affairs, it violates the Constitution and is a recipe for political strife and disunion.

The Constitution authorizes a federal government of strictly limited powers, which are to be exercised for a few, carefully defined purposes. And both elected representatives and a the people the are supposed to represent, need to be reminded that the Constitution is a compact among the states, which are supposed to function as fifty competing laboratories of liberty, as it were.

Modern American’s seem to have lost sight of essential truths clear to the country’s founders more than 200 years ago.

Today, everybody from mega agribusinesses executives to consumer advocates are lauding the Senate for passing a massive overhaul of the “food-safety” system. The legislation would grant broader inspection power to the F.D.A., allow the government to mandate product recalls, oversee farming and regulate the food production industry to an even greater degree.

“Everyone who eats will benefit,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “F.D.A. will have new tools to help ensure that we have a safer food supply that causes fewer outbreaks and illnesses.”

Benjamin Franklin would have likely taken a different view.

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

In fact, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act represents yet another massive expansion of federal power, much of it unconstitutional. (And before you send me emails justifying this monstrosity based on the commerce clause, please do us both a favor and do a little research on the meaning of commerce as understood by the framers. Click here.)

Sadly, if history provides any insight at all, and it usually does, this act will do nothing to actually protect the American people. It will instead serve as a tool for big corporations to gain a competitive advantage over small, local farms and food producers. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this – why else would big companies support legislation that on its face will exact huge costs in time, money and resources?

And it will also give politicians and bureaucrats yet another lever to maneuver and manipulate for their own purposes.

True to form, power hungry politicians and progressive thinkers have churned up the American public with scare tactics to gin up support for another expansion of government power –  as always, at the expense of liberty.

Proponents say the act will protect Americans from foodborne illnesses. But does the problem justify such a massive, expensive, intrusive cure?

Not really.

According the the Centers For Disease Control, only about 1,500 people per year die from salmonella and other known foodborne pathogens. Another 3,500 people die  from illnesses stemming from unknown foodborne pathogens. Many of those deaths result from improper food handling and cooking after purchase.

Certainly, 5,000 deaths is 5,000 deaths too many. Nobody wants to see fellow Americans die. Nobody wants tainted food on grocery shelves. But protecting citizens from every danger, risk and threat is not the role of the federal government – or any government for that matter.

But nanny state politicians continue taking us for a spin on a never ending carousel. Several thousand deaths under a heavily regulated system creates the panic necessary to enact even more expansive, overreaching regulation.

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To live life invites the risk of death. No law, act or government edict can mitigate that reality. Franklin was right. When we begin looking to others for protection from every eventuality, we necessarily give up our freedom, and in the end enjoy no greater safety.

Alexander Hamilton wrote of the threat to liberty posed by war. His reasoning applies equally to government’s other attempts to “protect” its citizens.

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”

Note: the legislation passed 73-25. Click here to see how your Senators voted.

Sheriff Richard Mack, the former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, talks about how the sheriffs in this country are indeed the ultimate law authority in their respective jurisdictions, how the sheriff has the power and responsiblity to defend his citizens against all enemies – foreign and domestic, how presidents use the IRS as a political hit squad on their opponents, his landmark court case – and supreme court victory – in response to the Clinton administration and the Brady Bill back in the 1990′s, the federal government’s authority being only that which has been delegated to it in the Constitution, how to approach your county sheriff to encourage them to stand up for the Constitution, and more.

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The County Sheriff: America’s Last Hope

Printz v United States

Sheriff Mack Video on the Supremacy Clause

Copyright © 2009 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

With a faltering economy, multiple wars, and the approaching demise of the dollar’s reserve status, there are more than enough problems to keep politicians in Washington working day and night. In between handing out cash for clunkers and nationalizing healthcare, the administration is busy sending more troops overseas, escalating existing wars, and seeking out excuses to start new wars. Congress is working on “urgent” legislation to address crises like healthcare reform and climate change.

The reforms are so very urgent that legislation must pass swiftly with no time to read the bills even though the new laws wouldn’t take effect for several years! Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is busy dealing with our dollar crisis by printing up more dollars.

Yes, there certainly is a lot for Washington to do these days. Most, if not all, of what Washington is doing however, is more of what created the problems in the first place. Capitol Hill is filled with politicians running around putting out fires – but with gasoline. The truth is that all these fires keep so many powerful people employed and wealthy that it is not truly in many decision makers’ interests to be very effective problem-solvers.

If Washington ran out of problems, think how many lobbyists would be out of a job, and how many special interest groups would just disband? Sadly, whatever is bad for the greater economy is good for the economy and job market in DC.

Of course, no form of government, not even one that respected its Constitutional restraints, would magically create a problem-free society. The question is: how should a society deal with its problems? The form of government that our founders envisioned, in which the federal government was strictly constrained by the Constitution, allows private citizens and communities to solve their own problems.

The role of the government should be to protect contracts, punish fraud and violence through appropriate laws, law enforcement and the courts. Not a whole lot of laws or bureaucrats are really necessary to work on just that. Instead, new laws are constantly needed to fix the problems that previous unconstitutional laws created.

We have ended up with an incomprehensible maze of laws and regulations that severely constrains the people and expands the government – the exact opposite of what our founders intended.

This is all because the Constitution is treated like a suggestion manual instead of the supreme law of the land. Under the Constitution, politicians’ hands are supposed to be tied in most of the areas they involve themselves in today. But somewhere along the line, politicians stepped out of Constitutional bounds and started pretending to solve our problems for us.

All we have to show for it is more problems.

Today, Washington politicians can busily “solve” one problem, knowing that unintended consequences from that “solution” will keep them and their friends all very busy tomorrow. The people are ultimately left suffocating under the burden of Washington’s helping hands. It is coming to a point where our economy, our dollar, and indeed, the rest of the world have had about all the help from Washington that they can stand.

The United States is headed the way of Rome and the Soviet Union, for the same reasons, unless we reverse the trend.

I continue to hope that enough Americans will realize that the true strength of our country doesn’t come from Washington, but rather the limitations placed on government in the Constitution. We must resolve to reverse the destructive course that we are on and then never again let big government problem-solving take over our lives and our country.

Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas

As I learned when recently delivering a lecture, the 10th Amendment is getting a lot of attention. Tenthers — those believing the federal government’s authority should be strictly limited to the enumerated powers in the Constitution — are passionate. Their opponents are equally passionate.

One person asked me if Tenthers’ argument had any constitutional legitimacy. My answer was, well, yes.

The 10th Amendment simply states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Since 1789, the major political question has been concerning the paradox of dual sovereignty: To what extent shall we be national and to what extent shall we be federal? To what extent shall the United States government be sovereign and to what extent shall a state be sovereign?

Historically, the 10th Amendment has been used to preserve regional particularism and resist centralization. During the 1850s, some Northerners used the 10th Amendment as a justification to ignore the Fugitive Slave Law, and after Lincoln was elected, some Southerners used it as an excuse to preserve slavery.

During the Civil War, some northern governors invoked it to resist Lincoln’s centralizing tendencies, while some Confederate governors, including North Carolina’s Zeb Vance and Georgia’s Joe Brown, used states’ rights arguments to resist Jefferson Davis’ policies, including conscription.

A lot of contemporary liberals don’t have much sympathy for the 10th Amendment, however. “This argument has been used to stop progress, and to not keep hope alive,” said commentator Alan Colmes. “If the tenthers had their way, there would be no Medicare, no Social Security, even no public education. How about Every Child Left Behind”

What a simplification!

The 10th Amendment does not prevent states from having public education or creating welfare systems — to name two examples. In fact, North Carolina had public schools during the antebellum era.

Although it has problems, TennCare, a government-operated medical assistance program, has existed in the Volunteer State since 1994. Again, the argument is whether such programs should be created or heavily controlled and directed by the national government.

Invoking 10th Amendment concerns about sovereignty is nothing new.

In 1788, North Carolina balked over ratifying the Constitution and relinquishing more of its power to a centralized government. It remained out of the Union for a year, and in many ways, acted as a quasi-nation.

In 1818, the Tar Heel State levied a tax on out-of-state banks doing business in North Carolina, and charged each branch $5,000. The state snubbed its nose at a national bank: The Bank of the United States.

In a truly federal government, regional particularism lives. Sometimes it can be ugly and immoral. Other times it showcases genuine progress. Sometimes the argument “It’s just the way things are done here” is good enough for me; everyone doesn’t have to think like me.

In a truly federal government, Massachusetts could allow same-sex marriages and bar the Ten Commandments from public displays. In a truly federal government, Alabama could display the Ten Commandments in state courtrooms and outlaw same-sex marriages.

Until State of Missouri v. Holland (1920), migratory bird hunting was regulated at the state level, and in a truly federal government, it would be so today. In a truly federal government, states would make laws concerning abortion, health care, and many other issues.

And in a truly federal government, these states would continue to trade with each other and join forces in times of national emergency.

As government becomes more centralized, and states relinquish authority, the powerful redouble their efforts to make others act (and believe) like them.

Originally published in CarolinaJournal.com – reposted here with permission of the author.

Troy Kickler [send him email] has been Director of the North Carolina History Project since August 2005. He holds an M.S. in Social Studies Education from North Carolina A&T State University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Tennessee. His specialty areas are nineteenth-century U.S., Civil War and Reconstruction, African American, and religious history.

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This year, hundreds of thousands of citizens have met in Tea Party rallies across our nation and have given a voice to the Jeffersonian tradition. The crowds support the reduction of federal power and an end to undisciplined government spending. This approach to government is the philosophy advocated by our third president, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was one of the early proponents of the “strict constructionist” view of the Constitution. This view affirms that any powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, should be reserved to the states and to the people. This is the essence of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was part of the Constitution Jefferson swore to uphold in his oath of office.

Jefferson defended the rights of the common man over the prerogatives of the state. His view on the subject is stated succinctly in a letter to Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the U.S. Constitution and one-time governor of Massachusetts. The letter was dated 1799, a year before Jefferson was elected president.

“I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union, & to the legislature of the Union [Congress], its constitutional share in the division of powers; and I am not for transferring all the powers of the States to the general government, & all those of that government to the Executive branch.”

In his first Inaugural Address, Jefferson also touched on this subject when he listed his “essential principles of our government.”

“…the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies…”

Jefferson would start another revolution were he alive today, for what he opposed occurred in the twentieth century. The federal government assumed more and more authority in every area of government policy, from building roads to educating children. Jefferson would have left these matters to be handled at the state level; he would not have enlarged the federal government to administer them in Washington.

Executive branch departments and so-called independent agencies control the program delivery systems and administrative rule-making powers that define federal policy today. Meanwhile, state officials must go to Washington, D.C. and beg for federal money and federal programs.

The states should tell the Feds to keep their programs and their money, but that would be difficult politically and financially. States would have to raise state and local taxes to make up for the loss in federal funds and the federal government would lose control over the states and the populace.

Of course, this would mean the federal budget could be balanced and the national debt retired, over time. This is the program of reform that Congress would enact if it really wanted to serve the people and carefully steward the taxpayers’ money.

Jefferson’s strict constructionist view put him at odds with Alexander Hamilton, who advocated the opposing doctrine of implied powers, which gave the federal government a much more expansive field of authority.

Jefferson and Hamilton were both members of the Cabinet during George Washington’s presidency. The two men sharply disagreed over the question of public debt. Hamilton saw it as a positive tool that could be used to establish credit for the United States, while Jefferson saw public debt as an affront to the liberty of the citizens.

Hamilton believed a national debt to be a blessing. Jefferson, however, was of a different mind. He wrote to James Madison in 1789 regarding the nation of France, “. . . would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years?”

In his 1799 letter to Elbridge Gerry, Jefferson commented on frugal government and eliminating public debt.

“I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.”

In getting Congress to accept all Revolutionary War debts at face value, Hamilton obligated the government to pay for years on the principal and interest. In order to make payments on the debt, several new taxes were necessary. These taxes included tariffs or import duties and excise taxes on such things as alcohol, refined sugars, auctions, and licenses. Once in office, Jefferson and his allies in the Congress worked to repeal the excise taxes.

During his presidency, Congress, at Jefferson’s request, abolished the internal revenue service, which had been established to collect the excise taxes. This branch of the Treasury Department should not be confused with the modern Internal Revenue Service.

The agency in Jefferson’s day consisted of about five hundred employees who were involved in collecting excise taxes. (The income tax had not yet been established.) With the excise taxes repealed, there was no need for this tax-collecting agency. Jefferson and his Treasury secretary also persuaded Congress to cut government spending and make substantial payments to reduce the war debt.

According to Americans for Prosperity, a free-market advocacy organization, our government has already spent trillions in its attempt to solve our economic problems. This is more than the cost of World War II. In addition, the government has committed to spend trillions more over the next few years, which will bring the grand total to an unbelievable $11.6 trillion in new spending – more than 26 times the size of the New Deal.

It is time for citizens to engage their public servants and demand a stop to this madness. It is time for the Washington liberals to wake up and do what common sense demands. Fiscal responsibility is a big key to solving our problems. Now is the time to make the changes that will re-establish American liberty.

Jim Jess has participated in politics as an activist, writer, and nonprofit organization leader for 30 years. He worked in the office of Governor Sonny Perdue and is a member of several conservative groups. Jim writes for Examiner.com and maintans the website ConstitutionalEducation.org.

Speech before the State House supporting passage of HCR-69

Prior to the Tea Party demonstrations across our nation I have not heard of a ‘Tea Party’ since grammar school and the last one held in the U.S. was well over 200 years ago.

Resolution HCR 69 and the Tea Parties seen this past April around the state and nation could actually go hand in hand.  In different, but similar ways both address our federal governments excessive federal spending, an increasingly burdensome tax code, as well as meddling into our personal and professional lives at unprecedented levels.  For many Mississippians they’ve had enough and they are looking to us for a solution.

Simply stated this Resolution is about the 10th amendment to the US Constitution where it states –

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Congress’s most important role granted by the constitution is to protect the rights and safety of its people, most notably by providing national security.  However, they have interpreted their responsibility well beyond the intent of our founding fathers and find themselves treading deep into the powers granted to this legislative body.  They seem to be making it up as they go.

Some in our very own Congressional delegation has tried to limit the size of government, but they need our help because it is now out of control.

The federal government is growing unchecked as seen by this current administrations actions as well as prior administrations.  As a country we are governed by a written constitution that grants the people and the states the right to keep government in line and that we cannot be forced to accept an oppressive and intrusive federal government.

The Constitution was well designed, and checks and balances are in place to prevent this through the various amendments, but if they are not adhered to and enforced then the Constitution is dead.

Resolutions of this nature are currently being considered in over 30 states and many are garnering strong bi-partisan support. Some have passed and others will be passed.

Mississippi’s resolution was drafted with the aid of my colleagues in the house and our legal counsel.  It was designed to reflect the diverse nature of this membership and not to be inflammatory or too demanding.  This resolution is designed to reinforce the principle of limited government that protects us from an ever expanding federal government.

We have seen the federal government continuing to encroach into our every day lives from dictating how we teach or children, funding federal initiatives that many believe to be immoral, over regulating and taxing our citizenry, meddling in our personal lives and interfering with the affairs of our State.

Mississippians and our fellow Americans have made it very clear on April 15th that we are not willing to let our government dictate every aspect of their lives from a fact made very clear by the thousands who turned out to protest the government.

The federal government has proven, time and time again, they can’t manage their own affairs so why we would we let them manage our companies, our schools, our businesses and our families.

I’m asking this House on behalf of many Mississippians to reaffirm our rights as a sovereign and unique state to prevent the federal government from continuing to grow unchecked and illegally assuming powers reserved by the Mississippi legislature.

Let us pass this resolution, send to the Senate for concurrence and then send a clear message to Congress and the President.

Steven Palazzo is a member of the Mississippi State House of Representatives.  He was first elected in 2007.  You can contact him here.

That really is the question.

To increase the one, you have to limit the other. There’s no two ways about it.

If confronted with that choice, which one will you increase??

Naturally, there is only one sane answer. Yet, good, well-meaning, but horribly deceived and misled Americans are constantly choosing government over freedom and prosperity by their daily actions, behaviors – and voting patterns.
Why?

The reason is that nobody is being told that this is what the choice boils down to. The big – and going – lie from the government/corporate establishment is: “Hey, vote for us, and we’ll get you freedom and prosperity, too … uhh, … eventually, at least … I think!”

It’s the siren song of modern politics, and we are taking it all in as if it was a beautiful symphony. We smoked the establishment’s crack and believe we can fly as we jump out of a twntieth-floor window.

All that needs to happen for Americans to find their way again is to make it very clear to them that these two are incompatible. If you increase one, you MUST and WILL limit the other.

Proof:

Freedom has never suffered more than during times when government power increased the most. Bush’s legacy is that he literally gutted Lady Liberty, more than any other president in US history, (short of maybe Lincoln, FDR, and Nixon), to the point at which she almost expired.

Her last hope is not Obama, it’s YOU.

Obama will absolutely not give up the power Bush has stolen and bequeathed to him; he will only wear a nicer smile as he cuts her heart out as well.

What will you do?

Will you finally take the shackles off of Lady Liberty and put them on your government, or will you stand by as she finally bleeds to death while she lies handcuffed on the floor, holding her spilling bowels in her hands?

The choice – as always – is yours.

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger.

Every four years, voters in the United States are given a choice between two major party candidates in the Presidential election.  We are often told that either of these candidates are the “mainstream” candidates and if you want your vote to count, you need to choose between either one of the two major party candidates who have a “chance” at “winning”.

However, for true supporters of limited government and personal liberty, this is often a choice made in vain.  If you truly believe in a limited, decentralized government which protects both economic and personal liberties and rights, during most elections there isn’t a major party candidate that will generally fit your values.  You have a choice between the Democratic Party, of which too many members wish to violate your economic rights and liberties, and the Republican Party, of which too many members wish to violate your personal rights and liberties.  This is not a judgment of individuals in either party.  Most individual members are doing what they think is right.  This is a judgment on those than run the major parties.

To illustrate my own philosophy of government, I’ve often used an analogy of a road trip.  The route and destination are analogous to the choices you make in life and the level of freedom you possess.

Too many big government Democrats want to drive your car for you.  They feel that if they know the route better, it’s in your own interest to just sit in the back and let them drive the car for you — they will be able to plan the best route and will be able to get to the destination according to the way they think is best.  It doesn’t matter if you feel that a different route may be better, because they know how to get there better than you do.

Unfortunately for the American people, some Republicans have deviated from the principles that the party was founded upon, limited government and personal responsibility.  Therefore, there is also a part of the Republican Party, a segment of big government Republicans that also want to choose the route and destination for you.  Rather than driving the vehicle for you, they will let you sit in the drivers seat and give you the illusion that you are making free choices when in reality the government is in the passenger seat next to you with it’s own set of omnipotent pedals and a steering wheel that they can use to override any choice they deem as unacceptable.  Like the omnipotent Drivers Ed teacher than can take control of the vehicle at any moment, big government Republicans want you to have the illusion that you are making your own choices but in reality are only holding up a smokescreen.  If they don’t like your choice, they can (and will) quickly override you.  The only difference between big government Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans want to give you an illusion that you will be able to choose your destination, when in fact the level of control is the same.  Pro-corporate bailout Republicans fit into this category, and it hurts good Republicans like Jeff Flake and Ron Paul.

Those who advocate limited government offer a different path.  Grover Norquist wrote that, “The Leave Us Alone Coalition [Norquist's name for limited government advocates] is not antigovernment.  It simply wants properly limited government that plays a role in protecting the life, liberty and property of citizens.”

The proper role of government is not to shepherd you to the “correct” decision, government’s role is to protect your rights so that you may make your own choices, whether popular or not, good or bad.  Therefore, in the context of the above analogy, to an advocate for limited government, the government is not in your car at all.  No judgments can be made on either your route or destination because government is not a participant in the road trip.  Instead, government is the mechanic, keeping your car running so that you can make your own decisions while driving.

The proper role of government is not to make sure people make good decisions.  There is no role for personal morals in government.  The real purpose of government is to maintain minimum social order for people to live their lives by their own morals through their own choices. The key word in that sentence is minimum.  For too long, authoritarians have used the guise of “social order” to induce massive control and individual rights violations.  To protect minimum social order, government exists to protect nothing more than individual rights, with individual rights being defined broadly enough to include the right to do anything until you restrict the freedom of someone else to do what they please — the classic example being that you have the right to swing your fists through the air, but the right to swing your fist ends at the tip of another person’s nose.  This self-correcting view of rights is the only way to ensure freedom.  Some may even question whether government is the proper avenue for the protection of rights.  Throughout history, it is rare to find an institution that has as evil a record on protecting rights as government does.  However, while government may be a bad mechanism for protecting rights, it’s probably least bad way we have, and certainly the only demonstrable way.  Barry Goldwater illustrated this point when he stated in his classic Conscience of a Conservative, “All too often we have put men in office who have suggested spending a little more on this, a little more on that, who have proposed a new welfare program, who have thought of another variety of ’security.’  We have taken the bait, preferring to put off to another day the recapture of freedom and the restoration of our constitutional system.  We have gone the way of many a democratic society that has lost its freedom by persuading itself that if ‘the people’ rule, all is well.”

However, the deference to government power is moving us from the individualistic “Father knows best” mentality to our current way, a “government knows best” mentality where Barack Obama and his band of merry travelers will dictate economic planning from above because they know best.  This is the same type of argument that Justice Holmes gives in allowing the power of government to dictate what’s best in the 1927 decision Buck v. Bell in which Holmes reasoned that government could dictate solutions to social problems.  By reasoning that it was within the power of government to forcibly sterilize the “feeble minded and socially inadequate,”  Holmes’ reasons for why the government could sterilize women against their will and the reasons behind the entire platform of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign are identical:  government knows best, and government will attempt to solve social problems.  If there is one lesson to take from history, it’s that deference to government knowledge and planning is dangerous and responsible for most of the suffering in the world.

However, under no objective analysis have the Republicans done any better.  Too many Republicans have given in to the demands of big government is an effort to hold on to power.  The Republican Party is not in the gutter because they have been too laissez-faire.  The Republican Party is in the gutter because the status quo of the GOP has thrown the principles of limited government into the trash. Discretionary domestic spending under George W. Bush rose at a higher rate than it did under Bill Clinton.  The legacy of George W. Bush will be as the Great Spender and the Great Regulator.  If you are proud of the record of the GOP in the last eight years, you are not an advocate for limited government.  If you are proud of the record of the GOP in the last eight years, you are a supporter of big government.

The main problem for this stems from the fact that when presented with a big government Republican, advocates for limited government are often pressured to support the big government Republican in the name of ‘victory.’  Unfortunately, I see no ‘victory’ in creeping socialism, despite whether there is an R or a D next to the name.  Republicans who supported candidates like John McCain and other politicians who voted for the bailout seem to welcome socialism, as long as there is an R next to the candidate’s name.  Instead of standing up for the principles of limited government, these Republican socialists have tossed aside what’s right and many have become no better than Democrats.

Under President Bush, this Republican administration has left a legacy of big government.  Among the legacies of the Bush administration

• When President Bush took office, the national debt was approximately $5 trillion dollars.  As he leaves office, the national debt is currently over $10 trillion dollars.  President Bush has doubled the national debt in eight years.
• President Bush has made it his policy that the federal government should micromanage who should and who shouldn’t get married.  The federal government must approve of your relationship before you can wed.
• President Bush spearheaded the federalization of education in 2001.  President Bush has decided that unelected bureaucrats in Washington should control your child’s education, not parents and teachers.

This is only a select portion of the harm that runaway government power under George W. Bush has threatened our nation and way of life.  Big government was slipped in by Republicans because no one was minding the store.  Many of the largest budget items weren’t even included in budgets, because they were so outrageous that they wouldn’t survive budget negotiations.  They could be added later with a sense of urgency because of “emergency” purposes.  According to Grover Norquist:

“The Bush administration has perfected the strategy of pretending to send up a budget and then showing up later with ‘emergency’ spending requests to pay for such ‘unexpected’ costs as pay and equipment for the hundred thousand American troops in Iraq that have been there for years, but somehow the guys at OMB forgot this when they wrote their budget”

The fiscal policies of the Bush administration while running interference on budget supplementals would make Senator Goldwater roll over in his grave.  In the end, there is really no difference between the “Compassionate Conservatism” of President Bush and the Great Society socialism of President Johnson.  Both are big spending, big government social programs designed to treat the “symptoms” of poverty and not the actual “disease” of poverty.

Henry Hazlitt understood these problems when he wrote the free market classic Economics in One Lesson.  The central thesis of the book is that economic planning by government will always attempt to benefit one group (whichever group is lobbying for a policy enactment) at the expense of all other groups, and will always help in the short term while being harmful in the long run.  Therefore, he states that, “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”  When government tries to meet the need of whatever group has power or money at any given time, the results are almost universally bad.  Hazlitt states,

“Each one of us, in brief, has a multiple economic personality.  Each one of us is producer, taxpayer, consumer.  The policies he advocates depend upon the particular aspect under which he thinks of himself at the moment.  For he is sometimes Dr. Jekyll and sometimes Mr. Hyde.  As a producer he wants inflation (thinking chiefly of his own services or product); as a consumer he wants price ceilings (thinking chiefly of what he has to pay for the products of others).  As a consumer he may advocate or acquiesce in subsidies; as a taxpayer he will resent paying them.  Each person is likely to thinking that he can so manage the political forces that he can benefit from a rise for his own product (while his raw material costs are legally held down) and at the same time benefit as a consumer from price control.  But the overwhelming majority will be deceiving themselves.  For not only must there be at least as much loss as gain from this political manipulation of prices; there must be a great deal more loss than gain, because price fixing discourages and disrupts employment and production”

Because we have many different roles in our economy, any policies which are enacted for your benefit as one role will harm you in your other roles.  The only way to keep everything is free market capitalism.  Enterprise capitalism is the only way to ensure justice among all the roles within a diverse economy, strictly because it avoids the problems of central economic planning expressed so eloquently by Hazlitt above.

This all leads back to the fact that the powers that be in both the Democratic and Republican Parties have ignored two of the most important parts of the Bill of Rights:  the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

The Ninth Amendment states:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

In layman’s terms, this means that just because some rights are specifically mentioned in the Constitution, naming those rights should not be taken to mean that rights that are not mentioned are not protected.  Put simply, the list of rights in the Constitution is not exhaustive or complete; there are other rights held by the people which are not named, because it would be impossible to name every single right retained by the people.  Leading Ninth Amendment scholar and law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center (and native of my home town/graduate of my high school alma mater) Randy Barnett has this to say about the Ninth Amendment and the protection of rights, from his book Restoring the Lost Constitution:  The Presumption of Liberty (p. 58)

…natural rights define a private domain within which persons may do as they please, provided their conduct does not encroach upon the rightful domain of others.  As long as their actions remain within this rightful domain, other persons — including persons calling themselves government officials — should not interfere without a compelling justification.  Because people have a right to do whatever they please within the boundaries defined by natural rights, this means that the rights retained by the people are limited only by their imagination and could never be completely specified or enumerated.

There is no better paragraph on the meaning and bounds of natural rights of which I am aware.  The Ninth Amendment is not a source of any specific rights per se, it’s a guideline that ensures that just because a right isn’t mention doesn’t mean it isn’t held by the people.

Next up is the Tenth Amendment.  It states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This is probably the most ignored part of the entire Constitution.  The meaning has been lost to many currently in power, yet is so simple:  the federal government only has the power it is specifically given in the Constitution.  Unless the Constitution gives the federal government the power to do something, it doesn’t have that power.  This system was set up by the founders precisely to give autonomy to the state and local governments, with minimal power to the federal government.  The federal government serves an important purpose, and that’s why powers are delegated to the federal government in the Constitution.  However, the power that was delegated to the federal government was minimal.  Current politicians have chosen to completely ignore this amendment, and give a completely illiterate reading of the necessary and proper clause of the Constitution.

The ninth and tenth amendments work hand in hand.  The ninth amendment gives an expansive view of individual rights, and the tenth amendment institutes a strong limitation on the powers of the federal government.  It seems that too many Republicans want to ignore the expansive view of natural rights in the ninth amendment and Democrats want to ignore the strict limits on the power of the federal government of the tenth amendment.

The most principled person in Washington understands this problem.  Back in 1998, Ron Paul wrote,

“But rather than abide by our constitutional limits, Congress recently passed two pieces of legislation – neither containing a shred of constitutional authority – which, of course, were “non-controversial” despite moving us further from the notion of a limited government. One piece of legislation pledged that the Congress will “pass legislation that provides the weapons and tools necessary to protect our children and our communities from the dangers of drug addiction and violence.” Setting aside for the moment the practicality of federal prohibition laws, an experiment which failed miserably with alcohol in the 1920s, the threshold question must be: “under what authority do we act?” Whether any governmental entity should be protecting individuals from themselves and their own stupidity is certainly debatable; whether the federal government is constitutionally empowered to do so is not. Being stupid or brilliant to one’s sole disadvantage or advantage, respectively, is exactly what liberty is all about.”

Unfortunately, not enough people have read the Constitution.

It is for these reasons that I call on advocates for limited government to pledge to support the World’s Smallest Political Platform.  It reads that we “support reducing the size, scope and power of government at all levels and on all issues, and opposes increasing the size, scope or power of government at any level or for any purpose.”

There are good organizations out there that believe in limited government.  Some good ones to support are (There are many, many more good limited government organizations.  This is just an example):
Heartland Institute
Americans for Tax Reform
Illinois Policy Institute
Cato Institute
Republican Liberty Caucus

I leave you with a quote from Mr. Republican himself, Robert Taft.  If we had more Robert Tafts in the Republican Party, we’d be much better off.

I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing. – Robert Taft

Jeff Wartman [send him email] is an activist for limited and local government in Will County, Illinois.  He is fighting to restore the principles of limited government, liberty and competitiveness to the people.  Visit his website at http://jeffwartman.com.