Government by Default

In the past, America was a land of freedom enthusiasts. You can see it in the movies and newsreels of the 30's and 40's. The average citizen believed in the intrinsic honesty of the government. He/she believed that the people running the government were somehow wiser than the rest of the citizenry, and that decisions which were made by these invisible sages, though often appearing idiotic on the surface, actually came from some hidden wellspring of wisdom which, in the end, would prove to be a better course than that which would seem apparent to the person on the street.

The further one delves into the past, the stronger the evidence of the sentiment becomes. Freedom and democracy were not campy words in a jaded society; they represented concepts as real and serious as a heart attack to the American of the 19th century. They were the words that stood for righteous causes, tied intimately to religion and the individual freedom of the open frontier. The God-given right to "do as you damn well please" was the American mindset of the times.

Even more numerous and poetic were the expressions of patriotic feeling in 18th century America. The American people and the government of the United States were likened to the ethereal Utopia of Thomas More and compared favorably with John Locke's vision of "The State of Nature," found in his second treatise on civil government. Authors of the time waxed passionately and reverently on the "silken strings of government, which are like phantoms in evidence, yet bind a people together in strength of will and communion of purpose like chains of iron".

In today's society, we find out-spoken contempt for the government of the United States, not just from our adversaries abroad, but from our own people. The average, pious, indoctrinated, well-behaved, believing young person of a century ago might blanch in horror to hear the opinions of a modern teenager concerning the civil authorities of today. And that teenager of yesteryear was not a brainwashed fool, either. This country flourished on free thinking and new ideas, and that teenager suffered far less from ingrained myopia (in terms of the mass population) than his/her modern counterpart. True, there were some fixed ideas which were considered normal back then that are abhorred today, such as the idea of slavery; but those young people probably would have considered it just as strange that we can calmly contemplate obliterating half the world at the push of a button. Such attitudes in a society become so ingrained that they are viewed not as ideas in the human psyche, but as immutable facts of nature. We grow up with them as givens, therefore "they are." But, in the 1800's, everyday living, working and community associations were at least as tolerant of the raised question, the "why don't we do this. a different way?" as they are in contemporary America, and probably more so. People "thought free." They thought of others as having and exercising their own wills, of choosing their own ways. Of being self sufficient.

Today,a woman in Virginia wants the government to outlaw strip-teasing as a form of expression because her husband occasionally stops off to watch the strippers on his way home after work. In short, she has decided that her husband and the rest of society do not have the intelligence or maturity to decide about such things for themselves, so she wants to decide for all of us.

Have you noticed that everyone in today's society wants the government to stop other people from doing something? And the government is always eager to take away a liberty or two. Any excuse will do. As bloody and violent as our streets are these days, killings are committed by only 0.0001% of our population. But our government doesn't want to punish 0.0001%. It wants to punish everyone. The public outcry is not for punishment of the guilty. It is for mass removal of a liberty.

How often have you thought that they ought to pass a law against chainsaws or lawnmowers or kids' motorcycles or the neighbor's electric saw? Probably every Sunday afternoon that you have been annoyed while trying to watch a game on TV or take a nap. But would you really do it if you could? Would you shun Patrick Henry's famous words, and not defend your neighbor's right to say (or do) what he pleases, even though you do not agree with it? I am talking about words and activities that do not harm others. The noisy motorbike may irritate, but the noise won't harm you, and the motorbike rider is enjoying the pursuit of happiness. Perhaps he could show he a little courtesy and thoughtfulness about where and when he revs his engine, but we are talking about liberty here, and our perception of what it is.

I personally do not want to restrict anyone from doing anything, so long as he/she is not harming anyone else. That sounds absolutely extreme and radical in today's society, doesn't it? Yet that is what Americans all profess that we enjoy. Freedom! We all accept that it's a damned lie today, but we tout it anyway. The real pity is that we do accept the reduction of liberty today We don't care as long as "old Joe" is the one affected, As long as it doesn't take away something we like, it's acceptable. If it can be made into a popular cause, like flag burning; talking away some one else's liberty is okay. Being an anachronism, I like guns and hunting and chivalry and kids and feminine women and honesty and clean air and solar energy and the golden rule and the idea that my word is my bond. Contemporary society frowns on my attitudes. On the other hand, I hate organized sports, television news, the military, arrogance, fad causes, malicious stupidity, self-appointed leaders, over-population and health foods. I think they should all be done away with.

What would you think about my getting a like-minded group together, lobbying Congress and outlawing those things that you like and I don't—in spite of the basic tenets of the Constitution (you know, the Constitution that Congress swears to uphold and defend, as in, NOT CHANGE), and your God-given rights? What if I decide what is moral and what is not? Would you hold my government in contempt if it promised freedom to everybody, but only gave it to those who agreed with me, or with those who financed my campaign, or the lobby that wants the rest of you restricted in some way?

Today, tobacco smokers feel defensive and ashamed for behavior that was acceptable in society only a couple of decades ago. They feel this on a national scale. Forty or fifty years ago, a man was not really an American if did not have a rifle or shotgun in his home to defend himself, his loved ones, and his country from the usurpers of his life, property, and freedom. Anyone wanting to outlaw guns would have been retold some lessons of history: of how Hitler disarmed Germany so he could set the national policy without effective opposition, and of how a disarmed Europe fought him with pitchforks and clubs, and how they died in the withering fire of the mauser rifle, which was possessed only by the government. Now we have national consciences such as "Saturday Night Live" and "Head of the Class" (television, in a word), that preach that smoking and ownership of guns are in the same class as child molestation, while teenage pregnancy, AIDS, white-collar crime and recreational pharmaceuticals are simply minor problems of the times—about to the degree that bad breath used to be.

This attitude is the complete reverse of the attitude of a century ago. And it doesn't pass through the sieve of discussion from community to community, from parents to children, as it did then; it is communicated instantly to 250 million people who regard the communication medium of television as an "official" or "authoritative" source because they admire the people who act out their little skits and say their memorized lines. This same medium teaches the child that he is the fount of popular wisdom and the parent, in fact all adults, are hopelessly ignorant, lost, and in need of the child's guidance.

Today, society truly is a "herd." Our opinions and prejudices of the moment are largely in nationwide agreement. Our schools and universities hold up current happenings as examples of natural human inter-relations. These same institutions do not teach the concept of a fair and reasonable profit, or any ideas of the past such as fair-play and honor; oh no, they teach the economics of today, that where the curve of profit crosses the curve of consumer sticker shock is where you price your good and services, be that price 100 percent profit or 1000 percent. They teach how advertising can be used to influence the consumers' threshold of sensitivity, to drive that curve ever upward. It used to be known as the "all the market will bear" philosophy and was considered unethical. Today, it's just "business". Between our educators, our politicians, and television, we have fostered two generations of sharks, of teenage and thirty-something people who are disillusioned by the fact that our government no longer makes any pretense other than rhetoric of being a government of, by and for the people; these are generations who are contemptuous of that government, but fear that government too much to do anything about it.

These two generations see special interest groups banding together to get self-serving legislation passed, in obvious violation of individual freedom and the literal meaning of the Constitution. As a consequence they turn away, or rebel by attacking their fellow citizens in hopeless, helpless, apathetic-seeming frustration; and finally, as they mature, they adopt the methods that society has shown them, and they then become part of the problem: "selfish, cynical, everyone for himself," or our modern American society.

How can they be or do otherwise? The largest self-serving special interest group of modern times is government. The politicians and law enforcers break constitutional law as often, or more, than anyone. Organized crime hasn't disappeared, it just got smart. Instead of fighting the government, it became the government.

If we want to reverse the trend, we must no longer rely on our so-called representatives to look after our best interests. We must enact, legislation that strictly forbids the passage of new laws without a majority vote by the affected population. Legislation that is good for New Jersey, for example, may not be good for everybody and should not be passed, to govern everybody in the United States. No law should ever even be considered by state or national legislatures unless petitioned for by the affected populace. Did anyone petition his/her legislature for a fifty-five mile-per-hour speed limit? Did you ask for a tariff on imported cars? Did you give the internal Revenue Service freedom from due process? Are you the one who decided that we cannot have a flat tax for everyone, and cannot do away with the form 1040 and all the hassle that unequal taxation and allowed deductions create? Did you decide that judges and lawyers can create law by establishing precedent? That they can arbitrate sentences? Plea bargain? These are crimes against society that legislatures are deciding on. Who gave them the right to decide for society? Lawyers are granted permission to practice by the public. It is not their right. That's why there are state boards and bar associations funded with your money.

Immunity from prosecution should be removed, as should any laws that place the politician above the people he/she serves. Why should someone who kills a policeman or politician get an automatic death sentence while some one who kills a private citizen is free in five years? Why is the public servant more important that the citizen he serves? Get rid of such ideas as "national leaders." We do not have leaders if we are a free people. Government officials are public servants, hired to run our government, and entrusted with its care and operation only so long as they serve our interests. Who decided to elevate the hired help above the employer? Instead of a five-day waiting period to buy a gun, let's enact a five-day waiting period before public stock can be traded. Wouldn't the Wall Street gamblers love that? Such a law would stabilize our economy and immediately reduce the suffering of far more people than an anti-gun law ever will, since it is aimed at the self-interested business world rather than the law-abiding citizen. Are we capable of making a psychological adjustment of such magnitude as to ignore a popular myth that outlawing guns will prevent criminals from getting them, and do something about an ignored business practice that harms millions of people and destroys economies and livelihoods on a international scale?

Why not outlaw the tele-marketing industry, an industry that uses the telephone you pay for, to invade the privacy of your own home and subject you to sales pitches, sometimes even using recorded messages and automatic dialing equipment to harangue you? This industry's defense is that outlawing it would put people out of jobs. But do you really owe it to other people to pay them to irritate you? Do we only exist to support the advertising industry and its clients?

And how about instead of giving people a tax deduction for having a child, raising the parents' taxes? The parents are the ones adding a burden on the infrastructure of society, not the single people or non-childbearing people who have to make up the difference in taxes caused by the deduction allowed the parents. Do we really need parking meters? Communities existed a long time without them. Do we forever need to increase taxes and government revenues, or can we limit what we want government to do for us?

It is not government's job to set land or crop prices, or to subsidize the production of goods or products in the interests of the business that produces them. The free market will take care of that. An economy cannot be stable if someone is screwing around with it, making false markets for products that rot in warehouses or subsidizing soil banks for people who never intended to plant anything. The only exception that ever should be allowed the government in the matter of subsidizing an industry is one where a small segment of the population suffers from a disease or other health risk in which it is not economically feasible for private industry to develop and market the needed medicine. No Chrysler or Savings & Loan bailouts should fall on the private citizens' mandatory contribution list. Tax-supported free enterprise? Russia calls it socialism.

The government's job is to fix the streets and provide sanitary sewers and clean water to regulate only those things and behaviors that represent a threat to peace, individual freedom, and the public welfare. Furthermore, government should not be allowed the liberty to decide what those things are. Only the affected citizens have that authority.

At present, government sees its role as having the authority to pass any law it chooses, unless there is enough public outcry to prevent it. Even where there is overwhelming public opinion against a law, it may take years to repeal it, whereas it may have taken a few bureaucrats only days to put in place. This is government by default: it does anything the bureaucrats want until we the people stop them. They assume that you and I will consent unless we tell them otherwise.

A current example is being proposed by the health care industry. It wants a law which presumes consent of an accident victim for the removal and use of his/her organs. Why not presume consent to void the Bill of Rights and get it over with in one fell swoop? It doesn't take much intelligence to see that legislators have it far easier in passing laws than you and I do in preventing them. Is this representation?

We need to take action to limit the authority of government officials from the township level to the federal level, and everywhere in between. We must take back our role as the rightful government of this country, and stop letting the hired help dictate to us. We must rediscover the pioneer concept of freedom, and practice what we preach. We need a healthy dose of tolerance and honor, and a law that says our Constitution is automatically and forever inviolate from anything but a national consensus by the people of America. We must stop defaulting on our legacy. If we do not act, government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall perish from this earth.

...Lee Fellows...

© Copyright 1991
Institute for domestic Tranquility