What Do You Really Want?

      Amidst all the debate over government involvement and intrusion in our lives, we need to explore the more fundamental questions that underlie the arguments.  Too often we are caught up in the policy questions.  Should our government provide health care or housing or "old age pensions" as they were called in socialist Europe before we adopted the idea and called in Social Security.  The more fundamental question is what kind of government do we have and what kind do we want?  Some talk of "saving the republic" but are we a republic any longer?  Others talk of "threats to our democracy" but are we a democracy?  Then there are those who warn of our "slide into socialism" or even "fascism".  Who are we really, and what do we want?
    Let us start at the beginning.  The vast majority of the founding generation in the late eighteenth century understood the value of establishing a republic.  They were throwing off a monarchy but were just as afraid of the tyranny of the majority that would result from a democracy.  So what is a republic?  It is a form of government in which the citizens posses ultimate and absolute sovereignty and choose to voluntarily relinquish certain freedoms or powers to the collective to accomplish things they found difficult or impossible individually.  For example, securing the integrity of their territory or the establishment of more formal venues for pursuing justice.  In a republic, each citizen possesses as much of the collective sovereignty as any other.  In other words, no citizen possesses greater or lesser rights or freedoms than any other, not even those entrusted with the responsibility of governance.  That governance is restricted only to the specific areas to which the citizens have granted it authority.
    Aside from the anarchy that only works among small nomadic tribal groups with strong social traditions, a republic offers the maximum freedom within a large nation-state.  With little interference from governmental authority, the individual is able to maximize his or her potential.  However, a republic will only exists as long as the people themselves exhibit certain characteristics.  John Adams understood that our republic, and I would add, any republic, is designed for a moral people and no other.  The citizens must be willing to obey a public authority with little external force to back it up.  They must also exhibit a disposition to sacrifice their own self interest or personal desires for the greater common good.  Without this characteristic the American Revolution would never have happened.  The only glue that holds a republic together is voluntary patriotism, a collective esteem for the freedoms and advantages of their situation.  Finally, without an appreciation for personal responsibility, persnal liberty becomes license and devolves into lawlessness. 
    Based on that definition, we little resemble the founder's vision for our government and country.  Deep down, many Americans still embody the characteristics that make a republic work but we have turned over so much of our sovereignty to the state that the exhibition of those traits is no longer necessary.  In a republic one's primary relationships are with one's family and immediate community.  It is in these relationships we define our freedom and demonstrate our morality and responsibility.  We have turned all that over to the state.  The state is now responsible for raising and educating our children, we think is it the state's responsibility to ensure our employment and take care of us if we are unable to secure any and it is the state's responsibility to care for our parents when they are old.  Therefore, our time and treasure now go to fostering this new relationship with the state as opposed to our families and neighbors.  When we have relinquished this much freedom by allowing our government to ignore the restrictions placed upon it by our founding documents and redefined ourselves and our responsibilities according to our relationship with the state, we can hardly call ourselves citizens of a republic.
    So what are we?  Have we become a democracy, are we characterized by "mob rule"?  To a large degree, that was true but it has become much less so today.  When we decided at the turn of the twentieth century with the election of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilosn to expand the role of government beyond its specifically enumerated powers, we transformed ourselves from a republic into a democracy.  Politicians were once constrained in their activities by the constitution.  Now, if they received the majority of the votes, they considered it acceptable to embrace new powers and responsibilities for the government.  The people could have objected but they did not.  The majority decided an ever expanding government that did more and more things for them was desirable.  It is said that the American people ultimately get what they want.  When it comes to government that should not be true.  If the American people want to persecute a minority or give up some God given right or vote themselves into slavery, they should not get what they want.  That, of course, requires real political courage and statesmanship, something we have not seen for a long, long time.  This change to democracy comes at the expense of both the majority and the minority.  For everyone, an expanding government meant shrinking sovereignty and freedom.  For the minority, their wealth and property is be stolen from them to pay for it all.  This "democratic" experiment reached its height during the presidency of Bill Clinton.  In that administration polls were everything and they were treated as votes of the majority.  We, the American people, were playing with fire. Now we are starting to get burned.
    After allowing so much power to be concentrated in a central government, it was only a matter of time before individuals came into possession of that power who would ignore the will of the majority when it no longer suited their purposes.  Over time, as government grew, the political class evolved into a permanent edifice.  This is, in reality, rule by an oligarchy.  The "movers and shakers" from both of the established political parties have exercised this authority for years, dressing it up in the costume of liberty and patriotism.  But underneath the mask was the desire for raw power.  Now the mask has come off.  The political class of today has become nakedly blatant in their corruption and exercise of power.  They have placed themselves above the law and consider the people as mere pawns in the games of their ambition.  The will of the people is referred to only as long as it supports their agenda.  When it does not, they move ahead anyway, stating that they are the experts and they know what is best for all.
    What is next?  At some point one person will rise up and take control of the whole system and wield unlimited power.  The shell of the government will remain just as it did in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia but everyone will know where the real power lies.  A dictator is really only a modern monarch whose right to rule is no longer divine but fueled by his own narcissism.  A monarchy is the opposite of a republic.  A republic is held together by morality and shared responsibility.  A monarchy is held together by fear.  Monarchies tolerate a great deal of self interest, moral license and corruption among individuals because it is subservience to the ruler and not positive relationships with one another that hold the society together.  The monarch is the parent and the people are his children.  The monarch is the expert and knows what is best for them by the simple virtue of his being in charge.  The people are dependent upon the monarch for everything.  Few think about what dependency really means.  The one who is dependent is under the obligatio to perform for the one to whom they are dependent.  They have lost their free will.  In reality they are no better than slaves for they are all merely the property of the monarch, property to be utilized as he sees fit.  He can send them out to be slaughtered on the battlefield as a sacrifice to his ambitions or he can take their sustenance and leave them to starve merely to feed his voracious appetite for luxury.  Anarchy is absolute individual freedom,  Under a monarchy, freedom does not exist.
    The question about what kind of government we want really devolves into the question of what kind of people we want to be.  Do we want to be a citizens or subjects?  Do we want to be a sovereign individuals or the slaves of a sovereign?  Right now many find our servitude easy.  We have our flat screen televisions and cell phones and believe we have freedom because we can eat at McDonald's or Burger King or we can watch CNN or Fox News.  The reality is we only exercise our liberty within the ever shrinking confines of permissible government activity.  The republic is gone, our will is increasingly ignored and we are very close to returning to the absolute servitude we rebelled against.