The USA - A Nation of Sheep.
Dependent on D.C.
by Walter Williams (February 5, 2002)
[CAPITALISMMAGAZINE.COM] "The shift from personal autonomy to dependence on
government is perhaps the defining characteristic of modern American
politics. In the span of barely one lifetime, a nation grounded in ideals of
individual liberty has been transformed into one in which federal decisions
control even such personal matters as what health care we buy -- a nation
now so bound up in detailed laws and regulation that no one can know what
all the rules are, let alone comply with them." That's the opening statement
in Boise State University Professor Charlotte Twight's new book, "Dependent
on D.C."
What accounts for this monumental change in American ethos? Twight says that
Alexis de Tocqueville, observing America in the 1830s, explains it in his
book "Democracy in America" in a section titled, "What Sort of Despotism
Democratic Nations Have to Fear."
De Tocqueville envisioned a "species of oppression" that would be "unlike
anything that ever before existed in the world" -- rule by "guardians"
rather than tyrants. De Tocqueville saw Americans submitting to "an immense
and tutelary power, which takes it upon itself alone to secure their
gratifications and to watch over their fate." Every once in a while, de
Tocqueville believed people would "shake off their state of dependence just
long enough to select their master and then relapse into it again."
With ample references, Twight demonstrates how Americans became a nation of
sheep. First, there's been a ruthless and successful attack on the rule of
law. Rule of law means there's governance by known general rules, equality
before the law, certainty of the law, a permanent legal framework and
independent judicial review of administrative decisions.
These specifications of the rule of law have been emasculated. No one can
possibly know the thousands of pages of rules published by the IR S, not to
mention the hundreds of thousands of pages of laws applicable to health
care, banking, education, pensions, agriculture, ad infinitum. There's
arbitrary discretionary power exemplified by rules like requiring government
permission to disconnect an automobile air bag, or members of Congress
deciding to enact agricultural and dairy price-supports or sugar tariffs
depending upon whether the agriculture, dairy or sugar lobby contributed to
their political campaigns.
Twight points out that the U.S. Supreme Court, whose function is to protect
the Constitution, has become a part of the mob to destroy it. For example,
the Court has facilitated congressional use of the Constitution's "commerce
clause" to abuse liberty. The Court's 1942 decision in Wickard vs. Filburn
gave Congress the power to regulate anything. In that case, the Court
remarkably held that the interstate commerce clause could be used to
regulate an individual farmer's wheat production for his family's
consumption. The reasoning was that since the farmer grew his own wheat, he
affected interstate commerce; otherwise, he might have purchased wheat that
had moved in interstate commerce.
"Dependent on D.C." discusses how real or purported crises often provide
carte blanche for the expansion of government authority, and that's a
thought especially relevant as Congress and the president use the war on
terrorism as cover to seek more control over our lives.
Government control of education has created "despotism over the mind."
Twight cites one writer who said, "There can be no greater stretch of
arbitrary power than is required to seize children from their parents, teach
them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate
from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure." Government education
teaches acquiescence to its authority.
Twight closes by saying that to regain our liberties we must, like the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, commit "our lives, our fortunes
and our sacred honor" to that effort.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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