The Obvious
Surely someone has said this before but, it seems to me that we in the US need to think very, very seriously about these two facts whenever anyone starts publicly fuming and fussing about the need for legislative minimalism and the “proper role” of our democratic government.
1. Pure, unregulated Democracy as the basis of a government is the best possible instrument for those in the majority to take total social control over - and advantage of - those in the minority.
2. Pure, unregulated Free Enterprise as the basis of an economic system is the best possible instrument for those who are the most financially secure and influential to take total economic control over - and advantage of - those who are much less financially secure and, therefore, without influence.
The ONLY thing that makes democracies and free enterprise systems work “in the real world” is the presence of necessary and effective constraints that define the limits of the social and economic freedom these systems provide. Without an adequate set of operating rules, neither system can be defended as rational or workable.
and The Argument
From their first ground-breaking legislative activities it is very easy to see that Tom Jefferson and his friends knew these two facts very well, which is why they set about to provide enough necessary laws to get us off to a good start. They actually enacted quite a lot of legislation in a remarkably short time. So where do we get the idea that they had a philosophical attachment to legal and legislative minimalism? While the wisdom contained in the US Constitution certainly deserves enormous admiration and respect, on its face there is no imprint to suggest it was not intended to be interpreted in the context of whatever conditions prevailed as time passed. They even provided an orderly way for us to change the Constitution itself as often as we felt circumstances might make us want to. They were among the smartest and wisest men of their day and they made it clear they recognized that laws would have to change as prevailing circumstances changed. So where does the historical support come from that so many rely on for their theories of alleged governmental minimalism being built into our country as a stand-alone ideal?
We now live in a complicated technological society in which the circumstances and problems we face would be unrecognizable to Jefferson and yet many of us get nearly apoplectic whenever it is suggested that changing old laws and adding new ones may be necessary to deal with some of our new circumstances. Again: There is nothing about the US Constitution that suggests Jefferson and Company believed it contained all of the wisdom Americans would ever need to keep our democracy working and ourselves adequately governed. Yet many politicians and even some scholars keep trying to make us believe that the Constitution should be read in the same way fundamentalists read their Bibles. That is “literally” as if freshly written, without recognition of the evolving definitions or the changing conditions imposed by the passage of time. And they even continue to beat their minimalist drums even after our financial wise-guys nearly ruined everything for all of us (and DID ruin the futures of many of us) without doing any more than what the law allowed. But hey - there was nothing that told them they couldn’t do it and so they had a right. And some try to claim that right should not be questioned.
But our track record isn’t encouraging. In the good old US of A we have a tradition that seems to make common sense and obvious facts irrelevant to the functioning of our government. While us plain folks continue to believe that our government is there to do its best to serve us, a great many of those who are in government definitely do not see it that way. To them, the entire purpose of our government is to keep themselves employed and to do that it is necessary to please the people who can make that happen; that is to say, the “people of influence.”
As bad as the financial crises is, it is not bad enough yet to convince our self-serving elected officials that they need to actually do what they are there to do - independent of whether they think it will get them reelected. Pleasing those who “put you there” and getting reelected is still more important than preventing the demise of civilization. With perfectly straight faces, they advocate our leaving the regulatory door open far enough for the manipulators to slip through. And they will probably succeed because a remarkable number of us ordinary folks have a strong and apparently treasured tradition of ignoring reality. It is just simpler than actually taking the time to learn enough to do something constructive (no generalized whining does not count.)
One old, but still relevant, example: We place more importance on eliminating the possibility of our manhood being threatened by our being legislatively disarmed than to the fact that we now manufacture enough guns that any kid who really wants one can find a way to get one - not only for himself, but for all his friends, too. Irrational and unbelievable as it is, it is possible for some people to sell the idea that because there was a rational need to be permitted to carry a gun in 1787, that now-obsolete reason keeps us Constitutionally powerless to take control of the real threat to public safety caused by too many available guns in 2010. No rational person can truly believe that the right to have all those guns makes our streets safer when it is those guns that are the reasons our streets are unsafe. But hey, they have a right. Can anyone really imagine that Tom Jefferson and his co-authors intended to make us powerless to fix that? And the way to fix it is not some unproven theory; NO OTHER civilized country comes anywhere close to having the percentage of deaths from gunshots that the US has. “Yes, but we’re Americans and Americans are different.” That is certainly proving to be true, but it is beginning to look like what makes us most noticeably different is we are collectively dumber than the citizens of any other civilized nation. But boy or boy are we self-righteous about it. The possibility that even just one American “tradition” may be unjustifiable simply cannot exist in the average American mind.
And please don’t bother me with mindless slogans: “Guns don’t kill . . . “ But I’m on the losing end of this one, too, because we also have a tradition of preferring glibness to intelligent commentary. Bring us the guy who can sling the cleverest “put-down” and we’ll give him whatever he wants. (“Boy, I wish I could talk like that!”) But did what he say actually make any sense or did it just sound clever? Whoa! No one wants to ask questions like that because that sounds wimpy. Is it just possibly important - even critical - to know and care about these things instead of worrying about one’s imagined image? And to do that before deciding whose campaign to support?
The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the “seed of doubt” can kill anything. Never mind about knowing the facts or the truth because they won’t impress us if enough seeds of doubt have been spread around. The soil of humanity is always fertile and receptive to seeds of doubt even though it takes no brainpower to create seeds of doubt; all you need is the desire to cause trouble. Why do we allow ourselves to be taken in? “Well, yes - I know . . . but you never can tell . . . .” Spoken like a true lump of wet clay.
Finally, try to find me a person who does not avoid reading, watching or listening to anything he thinks will conflict with his current beliefs. Yes, there are a few, but very few and that is why so few people ever change their minds about anything important. (If this sounds familiar, it is because this phenomenon is widespread and it makes an appearance in some of my other essays.) Although it is not unusual for human behavior to be eccentric, it is particularly puzzling that we find a moral reason to be unquestioning and steadfast but no moral reason to find out whether what we believe is genuinely true. Instead of trying to find out whether we are part of the problem, we simply double our effort to find someone to blame. Every day Pogo is still being proven right: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
© Gerald L. Andrews
(May 4, 2010)