It has often been noted of late that our country is evenly divided along philosophical lines. I wish to take exception to that. Our country is evenly divided along partisan lines. And further, I think many on both sides, many of those who vote, have no idea what they are talking about or voting for. There are a lot of intellectually lazy people on both sides who just feel that they are best represented by either Republicans or Democrats, in general, based on pretty hazy definitions of what it means to have either an R or a D by your name.
It is interesting, therefore, to watch the recent debate inside the Republican party between people like John McCain and people like Rand Paul. Those folks who think they are best represented by Republicans should probably figure out which Republicans they are talking about. John McCain was once again on tv this morning, and he presented the following; he is not concerned about the recently revealed NSA scandal where government is monitoring our phone call data. He thinks that, despite there being really no good options that we cannot just sit by and let one side get slaughtered in Syria, and we need to get involved there because we are the world’s superpower. And he wants Republicans to trust their committee to negotiate on the budget without adding a resolution that the budget talks not involve raising the debt ceiling. McCain’s philosophical allies include folks like Lindsey Graham.
Ted Cruz of Texas is one of those in the Rand Paul camp, along with Marco Rubio. He recently said on the Senate floor that he does not trust Republicans, probably referring to McCain and Graham, because they have been involved with the status quo for too long. Rand Paul is appalled by the NSA data collection, and thinks we need more liberty and less government. He was also on tv this morning, advocating such things as finding a compromise between an immigration plan sponsored by his friend Marco Rubio and House Republicans, who want nothing to do with any plan that provides a path to citizenship for people who came here illegally.
And that is just within the Republican party. Democrats and even those who call themselves liberals are also apparently on different sides of things. Many long time liberal voices, including Lanni Davis, Bob Woodward, and Bob Beckel are outraged by some of the recent scandals that threaten our liberties, although one of the most powerful liberal voices of all, one Barak Obama, runs the current administration that now seems very comfortable with the Patriot Act and wiretapping and AP and Rosen cases and is defending things that you would think would be George W. Bush territory. Even Ms. Pelosi and Ms. Feinstein have been outraged at and/or defended policies depending on which one you pick.
It is getting increasingly difficult to tell the players without a scorecard.
This may be strange but it is not unprecedented. One thing I am guilty of is talking about what “The Founders” would do. A quick look at history answers the question; they would argue amongst themselves. I am a huge fan of Thomas Jefferson, but Alexander Hamilton not so much. Let me say that I am a student of history, not a master. Those who have studied these things more may feel free to correct my understanding of history but the point is not history but philosophy.
As you know our nation was founded in 1776 but our first government, The Articles of Confederation, was a failure. The problem seems to have been that the federal government was made very weak, in response to the colonists having just overthrown a strong monarchy, and they wanted states to be free to do as they pleased. But the weak central government was unable to do much, including solve disputes between the states or protect the citizens of those states from state governments. Alexander Hamilton was the founder of the Federalist Party, and he argued that we needed a stronger federal government and a different system to replace the Articles. Not only were Americans, as Jefferson said, “novices in the science of government”, so were the states. But between 1776 and 1787, when they adopted our current constitution, they learned a lot from trial and error. Hamilton, a Federalist, envisioned a powerful federal government, and initially thought the President and members of Congress should serve for life. He was a nationalist and as first Secretary of the Treasury argued that the Constitutional powers included the power to tax and apply tariffs and fund the national debt.
Patrick Henry and others, those in the anti-federalist camp, did not want a strong federal government, because they feared a strong federal government would endanger their rights. They argued that state governments, which were smaller and closer to the people, could be kept under control more easily and would not be as susceptible to tyranny. In order to ratify the constitution these Anti-Federalists would have to be convinced.
Madison and Jefferson had founded the Democratic-Republican party, which opposed Hamilton’s Federalists. Madison had been a chief author of the Constitution, based on ideas that came partly from the vigorous debates at the Annapolis and Philadelphia conventions. In order to convince people like Patrick Henry that the new Constitution would protect their rights, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay wrote a serious of papers called the Federalist Papers, in which they argued that the structure of the new government, with 3 branches, and a bicameral legislature with Senate and a House of Representatives, and enumerated powers, would protect their liberties. And the argument had to be made that a stronger federal government would be better able to protect their liberties than a weaker one. And the powers of the federal government would be “few and defined”.
The Federalist Papers went a long way, but to satisfy the Anti-Federalists, Madison had promise to push for a Bill of Rights to be added as Amendments. Obviously the Constitution was ratified, but barely.
A condensed version of some of the philosophical discussions involves the concepts of liberty, equality, and democracy. Often we make the mistake of saying these three words together, as though they go together. They do not. Republicanism is primarily concerned with liberty. The concept is that all men are created as sovereign beings, endowed with inalienable rights. These rights are not given to you, or granted by a monarch. You have them; ALL men have them. You have the right to live, to speak your peace, to worship as you see fit, and to pursue you own happiness as you define it. Jefferson was a huge supporter of the concept. These rights are written into our founding documents as acknowledgement that you already have them, and that they are not to be taken away. We often think of the taking away of rights as something a monarch or dictator does. Jefferson worried (and Tocgueville later warned) about rights being taken away by democracy. If democracy is the idea that the people have the power, and that power can be exercised by popular vote, then there is a danger that a majority or super-majority could try to vote away your very rights, which are inalienable.
Tocqueville writes of the “tyranny of the majority”, and said, “But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom”.
Equality is the idea that all men are created equal. Equality is different from equity, which is defined as equal outcomes for all. The United States benefitted greatly from the idea of equality in that the standard model of societies had always been European-type monarchies and social structure. There were kings and ruling classes and nobles and peasants, and rarely did one change from one status to another. In America, one found that hard work and thought and a little luck could allow one to rise to any station in life, and that was pretty much unique in all of human civilization. Americans developed a distain for class and the trappings of it, at least for a time.
So, although I have lots more to say on the subject, we must return to the present day. Some are concerned primarily with democracy, some with equality, and some with liberty. And some are simply federalists, to which a Bill of Rights is an afterthought to appease others. Some are closer to Patrick Henry, and some are closer to Alexander Hamilton. I would say Hamilton reminds me of McCain. Many in the House of representatives remind me of Patrick Henry.
I did not mention John Adams, but he was the president who signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were mainly intended to silence criticism of the government and allow the president to punish or deport those who disagreed. Might I suggest this sounds like Barak Obama or at least Richard Nixon?
For me, I am concerned that we are experiencing the tyranny of the majority. The majority in this country continues to elect representatives who will give them goodies, and who will not make us pay for those goodies. I fear the electorate is mostly ignorant of what or whom they are voting for. Democracy is alive and well and threatens our union. We have made great strides in equality, since obviously the founders saw black people as less than full humans, and women were not allowed to vote. I know there is bigotry, but I think we mostly agree that all men are created equal.
My concern is that we have lost our precious Liberty. There does not seem to be much concern for the Bill of Rights, even from those like McCain who wear the badge Republican. I am heartened that there are still people like Beckel who see the problem. And as for the size and power of government, let’s just say that although nobody can say what the founders would say, since they are not here, I think that is one area where they might all be in agreement, perhaps even Hamilton. The federal government to too big, it has too much power, and it is taking away our Liberties.
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