The State or the People
By Paul Craig Roberts
04/19/07 "ICH"
-- - -What use is the political left? This is a serious
question, not a rant. The same question can be asked about the
political right.
The question does not imply derogatory implications about
individuals on the political left or the political right.
Rather, the question concerns the basket of emotions, issues,
and knee-jerk responses associated with the political left and
the political right.
Traditionally, the political left has had a Benthamite view of
government, seeing government power as the tool for improving
society whether through revolution or reform. Paradoxically, the
political left has believed in Big Government despite the
political left’s emphasis on civil liberty. The political left
sees government power not as a threat to civil liberty but as a
tool for enforcing civil liberty, for example, through Brown vs.
Board of Education and coerced integration in the southern
states.
Traditionally, the political right has had a Blackstonian view
of government, distrusting government power as a threat to
individual liberty. Paradoxically, conservatives value
individual liberty while tending to view civil liberties as
protective devices for criminals and, currently, terrorists.
The political left tends to blame problems on existing societal
institutions, especially on capitalism which is believed to
foster greed and private power that is not accountable to the
people. The political right blames problems on human fallibility
and on laws and regulations that create the wrong incentives and
that replace private action with government action.
The Founding Fathers, being mild revolutionaries, set up a
Blackstonian Constitution in which law is a shield of the people
and not a weapon in the hands of government. The Founders
balanced this restraint on government with reformist democracy
that works against status quo hierarchies.
Another essential difference between the left and the right is
“compassion.” The left tends to regard criminals, the poor,
misfits and failures as victims of society and reacts with
excuses and social safety nets. The political right emphasizes
individual accountability.
In a world of pragmatists, differences in emphasis would be
compromised. But ideologies are different. Ideologies run to
extremes. They are fighting creeds that demonize opponents.
Whether one stands with the left or the right, it is apparent
that both political factions are failing the country. The right
responded to 9/11 by asserting American hegemony over
international law and by permitting the executive branch to
waive aside civil liberties. The political left went along with
these developments, perhaps thinking to use the enhanced power
of government for its own purposes later.
Hoping to restrain the executive’s assaults on the Middle East
and civil liberties, the electorate gave control over Congress
to the Democrats last November. However, the Democrats have not
ended the war or overturned the encroachments upon civil
liberties.
There can be little doubt that the Republicans have brought
discredit upon themselves. The question is: now that the
political right has damaged the Blackstonian civil liberties
that restrain the Benthamite impluse, what will the political
left do with executive power when it regains it?
The “war on terror” has further eroded the Blackstonian check on
Benthamite impulses just as Lincoln’s Civil War, the Great
Depression and the New Deal did earlier. Our political system
has become unbalanced. The Civil War effectively erased the
Tenth Amendment, ended states rights and concentrated political
power in the central government, thus undermining the Republic.
The New Deal undermined the legislative power of Congress by
giving the executive agencies the right to make law by writing
the regulations that interpret statutes. The Bush administration
has used the war on terror to assert executive branch hegemony
over international law and the Constitution.
The foundation is in place for rule by the executive. Normally
this is called dictatorship. The tendency is always strong to
look to the executive for leadership. With elite power now
concentrated in a few material interests and the demise of an
independent news media
(except for the Internet), we face a future with a more powerful
and less accountable executive.
Those with agendas will welcome this development, but the fight
to gain executive power will become more vicious than ever.
The people are diminished as government accountability declines.
An important buttress to the power of the citizenry is the
Second Amendment with its implication that the people have the
right to overthrow a government that abandons the Constitution
and oppresses the people.
The gun control movement reifies guns and attributes to
inanimate objects the behavioral failings of humans. Events such
as the Blacksburg shootings by a deranged student provide
powerful propaganda for gun control. Those who would overturn
the Second Amendment should not proceed blind to the fact that
stripped of the right to bear arms, the people would be stripped
of the right and the means to resist government oppression.
Overturning the Second Amendment would complete the
transformation of the American people from citizens empowered to
hold government accountable to mere subjects of executive power.
Paul
Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was
Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial
page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is
author or coauthor of eight books, including
The Supply-Side Revolution
(Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic
appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political
Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous
scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30
occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious
Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer
for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert
Mundell.
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