Years ago, I posted a thought on social media about something that had been bugging me for some time.
The question was layered, although it seemed to be a bit too political for the forum. I asked whether the citizens of the United States fare better if the country would turn back time and become a constitutional republic.
Then I asked if the citizens of the United States could handle that, because it required a lot of personal responsibility.
A friend of mine understood my point but felt that the status quo shouldn’t be upturned so easily.
More and more, that question has been bouncing around my mind, given the political climate and the tendency of both sides to demonize anything that is different from the perceived ideal of a perfect America.
Along with that question, an observation bounces around my mind as well: When, and how, did our country become a nanny state, not only to its own citizens but to practically every person on the planet, and in doing so, convince its own citizens (and practically every person on the planet) that it was not only the government’s responsibility to be so nurturing, but also the proper (insert religious preference here) to do?
It's becoming a growing trope that anyone denouncing the current way of things is labeled with one or more of a host of vicious epithets — racist, homophobic, transphobic, ignorant, unChristian — all to deflect from the obvious, at least to me, argument that this is not how things are supposed to be. Constitutionally, legally, and to my mind, even morally, this country went off the rails.
I read a piece the other day, shocking even to me, that the current and previous presidents have warped their constitutional mandates to allow all manner of ridiculous events to occur. While the piece was aimed particularly at Trump’s use of the National Guard to fight crime, but the sentiment was correct. The Constitution was written in a manner to keep the government from becoming de facto royalty.
Later, the same writer wrote another bit about the government’s growing entitlement problem and how it got to be so bad: the government, which help from the courts, stretched the general welfare and commerce clauses almost to the breaking point, conferring the feds with power it was never supposed to have.
The crux of that particular piece pointed out that in order for the government to ban alcohol, vis a vis Prohibition, it required an amendment to the Constitution. To repeal that fiasco, it also required an amendment.
Nowadays, the government requires, or bans, whatever it feels (based on impassioned pleas from lobbyists, most likely) when it can, willy nilly. While this might seem beside the point, this is the democracy that quite a lot of people claim is being reduced to ash.
My point is this: a country with “leaders” who operate through the government giveth, the government taketh away, simply is not democracy, nor a republic, but a socialist state, not the country as set up by the Founding Fathers nor the one that is delineated in the Constitution.
The reason for that is because of what is happening now, the government takes control of resources and uses its power to redistribute. That’s coercion. Our Constitution tells us, however, that the government’s power is derived from the consent of the governed, yet more and more, government’s power is derived from the consent of the government.
If that seems contradictory, here’s the thing: A very wise person pointed out that the people of this country do not elect “leaders,” but representatives who are supposed to present the will of people, which the government is to act on. I’m pretty sure that the reverse of that is not how things are supposed to work.
The answer to the original question, given that society has become accustomed to receiving governmental blessings, would be no, the country would not fare better. Perhaps if we convince the government to instill personal responsibility, instead of spreading the jam of tax dollars over too much bread.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
