Everyone educated before 1960 or so knows how the United States was
formed and the design of government which the founders followed.
They were intent on founding a democratic representative constitutional
republic.
There were flaws in the founding to be sure. They had an
unwarranted commitment to unity. So much so was this the case that they
sacrificed the natural rights of man (slaves) to their vision of
unity. Anyone who knows anything at all about values knows that
unity and diversity are both subordinate and not absolute values. The second
problem in the founding was expressed in the early and extensive speech by
Luther Martin. He argued persuasively that the lower body of the
legislature in its proportional representation constituted a surrender of
sovereignty by the states. He was right. Had I been there I would
on these points have walked out of the convention with him and not
returned. Madison's deprecating remarks about Luther Martin were probably
one of the earliest examples of the resort to
ad hominem in American
political history when substantive counter points were outside his intellectual reach.
Nevertheless, the Constitution was ratified by the states and it has
been downhill ever since. One of the early egregious moves occurred in
Marbury v. Madison to which we may attribute the beginning of judicial
supremacy. For those looking for a modern example of judicial
supremacy they may find it in any edition of any major paper running an article
on Iran. Iran is an example of judicial supremacy. In judicial supremacy
law really does not matter at all. It is
belief that is of the
greatest importance. In recent times the power of belief has been
reflected in one quite astonishing ruling of the Supreme Court. The
ruling that carbon dioxide is a pollutant in our atmosphere represents the
triumph of ignorance in our society and exposes the environmental movement as
nothing more than an apocalyptic religious cult.
Later in the history of the country came the rise of the
administrative state and a host of bad Supreme Court decisions especially
arising from the expansive use of the commerce clause.
The belief system that accompanied the formation of the administrative
state was an acceptance of the Hegelian historical dialectic produced by Fichte
and put into practice by Hegel. There was also their radical repudiation
of the value of the individual continued by Feuerbach. The
anthropology in the ideas of the German idealists was that man was a
perfectible being who perfected himself in the historical process through
conflict, violence, and punishment. The German idealists were rationalists like
Joe Biden who ‘chose truth over facts'. So to them it was no matter
of concern that man had not perfected himself in the past five thousand years
of recorded history and therefore unlikely that he would perfect himself in
either the near or remote future. They believed that the fundamental
existential truth of the universe was the punishment of man into
submission. It was a sort of science fiction Borgian view:
'you must submit, you must comply, and resistance is futile'.
Other aspects of the 'slouch toward Gomorrah' made the situation even
worse. The net result of all this is that our current form of government
is a tutelary fascist patriarchy of judicial supremacy. Some might ask,
'fascism'? Vast segments of the modern economy are owned or controlled by
the State. For instance, healthcare, retirement plans, transportation,
land use, education, and energy production are all highly regulated by government.
Some might ask, 'patriarchy'? It is a common view among many politicians
of the left to view their constituents as children who need to be led, fed,
housed, clothed, and most of all punished. They tend to see all levels of
government from local to federal as acting
in loco parentis. One must
remember that Barak Obama announced to an audience as he campaigned for
reelection in 2012, 'we are going to punish our enemies and reward our
friends'.
In stark contrast to the German idealists and their modern day acolytes
the founders did not uncritically accept the notion of the perfectibility of
man. They saw man as deeply flawed and frequently exploiting the
weaknesses of others in naked self-aggrandizement. The solution to this
flawed character was the separation of powers. The most egregious
behaviors of man in society were to be controlled by the 'chains of the
constitution'. Unlike the German idealists the founders were not rationalists
but rather were empiricists. They were followers of John Locke and undoubtedly
had a thorough understanding of his great empirical work in which he asserted,
'there is nothing in the mind that is not first in the senses'.
Even in the later Federalist papers Hamilton asserted that the 'least fallible'
source of all human knowledge and understanding is personal experience.
As I heard my late father (who was an industrial mechanical engineer)
say on many occasions, 'a single test is worth a thousand expert opinions'.
The question then comes, what is our exit strategy and what is the way
forward for us to a rebirth of liberty? I do not know the answer to this
question. Several ideas come to mind. An elimination of sovereign
immunity would help. Reform of libel laws would help. Deconstructing the
administrative state would be imperative. There would of necessity be a new
recognition that the administrative state itself is a violation of the
constitution which vests all legislative power in the House of Representatives
and the Senate. A balanced budget and a line item veto would help,
and so forth.
Proposals to move forward with an Article 5 convention have been made.
The problem with all of these approaches is that since the political class does
not obey the current constitution significant doubt remains whether they would
obey either a new constitution or new amendments.
The founders accepted the idea of natural law. This was the
idea that without regard to any Holy Scripture, the universe as it exists bears
moral content. Jefferson says as much when he refers to self-evident
truth. The first principle of natural law, the 'unmoved mover' of natural
law to which all other asserted aspects of natural law must be subordinate is
the inestimable value of every individual. The claim 'all men are created equal'
is nothing more than the assertion that none of us is endowed with a right to
dominion and none are endowed with an obligation of servitude.
The founders rejected the idea that the fundamental existential truth
of the universe is the punishment of man into submission. They asserted
natural law demonstrating that all forms of government must arise from the
religious disposition of man. However any person defined God they
believed that the fundamental existential truth of the universe was the grace
of God triumphant in the affairs of men. Grace and moral suasion were to
replace punishment and compulsion. This was the greatness of the American idea
and it was exceptional.
Modern man does not believe in natural law.
The center of gravity today in American Society is existentialism. In
this view each of us creates our own values as we wrestle with the exigencies
and vicissitudes of our lives. All of these constructed value systems are
morally equivalent. This has produced an atmosphere of moral relativism
and multiculturalism. Further, as one walks away from natural law, one
loses any basis for universal human rights and returns to the barbarism of
tribalism.
Another
aspect of humanity militating against a rebirth of liberty is
psychological. Even a cursory
examination of tyranny in history reveals a widespread insatiable desire in
despots for the accumulation and expansion of power. The drive for domination over others who
must submit is quite striking. It is
almost certain that this unquenchable desire to exercise dominion over others,
to direct their lives, and to manipulate their persons is related to domination
and submission in sadomasochism. It can
reasonably be argued that modern statism is advocated by persons who have a
socio-sexual personality disorder. Most
likely this disorder can only be treated through extensive group therapy. It is, however, to be noted that sexual
disorders are the most difficult to successfully treat and seldom result in the
recovery of the individual.
There must be a recovery of the moral center of man in our
society. I do not know how to address this complex problem. But
this I do know: the answer will not be found in any text written by
Immanuel Kant.
