A Very Tocquevillian Thought Today

I just had a wonderful thought about the role of government in our society. I know, you're thinking to yourself that a man who can have a wonderful thought about such a thing must be either exceedingly dull or perhaps somewhat odd, but follow me anyway. Since the election of our current President, government control of things has become a central topic of conversation. What should government control, and what should it not? To what extent should government be allowed to control these things and under what Constitutional doctrine? First let me start by stating that I don't tend to view the political spectrum about the Left/Right axis when talking about the scope and power of government. Instead, it's much more useful to view the spectrum which is itself perpendicular to that of the Left/Right; the Individualist/Collectivist spectrum. Let me further state that I tend to approach this spectrum from the Individualist end being that Liberty and the security thereof, I believe, are the highest Ideals to which a man and his government can aspire.

My wonderful thought is this: Government should be allowed to control only that which is uncontrollable by smaller units of society. For instance I cannot defend myself against the aggression of a foreign power, neither can my city, nor my county or state. In this case we cooperatively agree to bestow this monopoly upon the Federal government because it is the smallest unit that can accomplish the task. Likewise with the Space Program. There are perhaps a handful of other things which require a monopoly of control, but if we are to keep ourselves from drifting too close to the collectivist end of the spectrum where individual Liberty cannot be, I think you'll agree that there aren't that many more areas that require a Federal monopoly. Does the Federal government need to control education? It didn't until 1979 and people were very well educated up to that point by their local school boards.

Let's try some controversy: How about Social Security? Medicare? Medicaid? Health Care in general? Do these programs have to be administered by the Federal government? That they are administered so clearly creates a citizenry dependent upon the Federal government ahead of the State; a clear violation of the Constitution via the 10th amendment. A violation only if the State governments were singularly capable of running these programs. Is that the case? Could provisions for retirement be made and administered by the States alone? Why not? What would be the challenges? Are they insurmountable? What about Medicare? I am convinced that this program, more than any other, could become the miracle of our society if we would devolve it to the States.

What's happened is our laziness has caused us to only pursue these things at the Federal level because forging workable legislation to create and maintain them at lower levels of government might be messy. What we're left with instead is just a mess. Instead I believe what should happen is that the States together in Congress should formulate mandates instead of legislation for those things which are not best accomplished by the Federal government. Then they should leave it to the States to accomplish those things. Unfortunately for such a situation to become reality, the States, each as a whole, should be given the power to voice their concerns and opinions on behalf of themselves as States rather than an aggregate of citizens. We had that once. In fact it was written into the Constitution until the 17th Amendment wrote it out. That one act more than any other has insured that this country will not continue forever as a Republic. With it there is no longer a check against the central government overwhelming the States and turning them into merely administrative districts which are then powerless to hold back the centralisation of power in the only remaining legitimate government. Actually, since the Supreme Court is the only body that recognizes any of the States' sovereignty above that of the citizens, I think they may be all that stands between the Republic of the United States of America and the Democratic Bureaucracy of America!