Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:07:33 AM
I was sent a column by a friend which, in a strange way, encapsulates all the problems we face as a nation. The column is
545 v 300,000,000 (aka 544 People) by Charlie Reese. The basic premise can be summed up in the first line.
Politicians are the only people in the world who create
problems and then campaign against them.
Nothing could more clearly summarize today's zeitgeist, not only among conservatives, but even among the centrists and many moderate liberals. And yet, nothing could be more wrong.
Don't get me wrong, politicians are at the root of many problems, in one sense. Much of what we are experiencing today is the result of political action. But to blame politicians is to show a very superficial understanding of the problem.
It is an easy way to look at things, just blame the politicians. It makes us feel better to have villains ("
Enemies Into Villains"), people with a face we can blame ("
Rethinking My Earlier Position","
Life Without Villains"), but that does not make it true. Just because it is easy to point to the politicians and their bad laws does not mean they are to blame. Or at least not entirely to blame.
So, if the politicians are not to blame, then who is?
We are. As I wrote in "
What We Deserve", we vote in these guys, and vote them back in. We claim we want to vote them out, but that always means voting out every pork barrel politician except the one who brings pork back to our district. We claim to want strict constitutionalists, but when a politician says "this isn't the government's business" we vote him out.("
Doing Something") Why even when someone points out that we run whining to the state for every discomfort, we pillory him. ("
Why We Needed Phil Gramm", "
Activism As The Only Acceptable Position?")
The problem is, we claim to be a principled group, dedicated to our values of small, limited government ("
Smaller Government , Fair Weather Friends and Special Cases"), but in practice we want that for everyone else and cherish our own exceptions ("
Special Cases"). We want a small government, with limited powers, but also one with unlimited powers to resolve the few problems we find important. We want a government which is scrupulously fair, and infinitely biased in our favor. One which hands out no treasures appropriated from others, unless they flow to us.
In short, we want to have fixed rules with one exemption for us.
And since each and every one of us vote based on that foolish premise, we end up with the politicians we have.
Until we accept that rules must be absolute ("
Inescapable Logic", "
All Or Nothing Thinking") or they have no meaning we will end up with what we have, a slapdash state voting in various policies based on trying to benefit this group or that, shifting priorities as the polls shift. At best, we end up with unpredictable ( "
"Empathy" Threatens not "Justice" but Predictability"), ever changing "pragmatic" government ("
The Shortcomings of Pragmatism", "
Pragmatism Revisited"), often pursuing policies which achieve the opposite of their stated purpose ("
Practicality Versus Dogma"), whose sole measure of success is the incumbents' tallies at the ballot box. Only a dedication to absolute principles, even when it is uncomfortable for us personally ("
WSJ Misses the Mark Again", "
Place Blame Fairly, Regardless of Party", "
Mixed Blessing"), will we have a truly limited state.
POSTSCRIPT
Thanks to
Bobbie and her wonderful mailing list for the article. As I said, the article is right, in a way. Politicians are to blame, they are the proximate cause of our immediate problems. But as I described in "
The Wrong People", "
The Nature of Evil", "
Planning For Imperfection", "
Transparency, Corruption and Reform" and "
Why Term Limits Will Fail (And Should)", they are but a symptom of a bigger, underlying problem, our unrealistic views of government and our lack of a consistent, principles understanding of the role of the state ("
The Benefits of Federalism","
My Vision of Government", "
My Vision of Government Part II","
An Analogy For Government", "
In A Nutshell"). Even with perfect politicians, our expectations, coupled with the unlimited power of the state would eventually result in similar problems. It is not the politicians, but the people they govern who shoulder the blame in a representative government.