Tag Archives: freedom

An Outcome of Big Government

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The proper lessons of the unfolding IRS scandal are twofold.  First, any effort to have the IRS police advocacy activities of social-welfare organizations is bound to be clumsy and prone to degenerate into either selective or broad witch hunts.  Second, the remedy is not to further limit political speech by nonprofit entities—which would certainly raise significant constitutional issues—but to encourage such speech by imposing fewer restrictions.

That combines with this:

There are two valid takeaways from the IRS scandal [and the other scandals: AP; Benghazi; Sebelius’ HHS “fund-raising” for Federal government’s health exchanges, just exposed this year].  First, it confirms that big government, whose power Obama is bent on expanding, cannot be trusted to behave properly.  Second, it calls for further investigation to determine how high up the chain the wrongdoing extends and whether the administration acted promptly to stop the targeting once it learned of that activity.

The need for an investigation and the firing of miscreants and subsequent jailing of those miscreants whose behavior was criminal certainly is warranted.  However, the IRS’ unconscionable behavior, and the Obama administration’s behavior vis-à-vis the other…scandals…, aren’t unique to the Obama administration.  These are the inevitable outcomes of Big Government, even when that government acts with the best of intentions.

Our Federal government needs to be drastically shrunk in size and scope, returning it to the small, limited, and so controllable, entity that it was designed to be.

A first step in this, in the present context, would be to do away with the distinction between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations—the legal distinction is wholly artificial and without meaning, anyway.  All entities engaged in otherwise tax exempt activities must be able to engage in some political activity.  That’s at the core of the speech clauses of the 1st Amendment:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There’s nothing in there about “except for when individual Americans or groups of them peaceably assembled are doing certain government-identified things.”

Subsequently, reform the tax code altogether to a single low, flat tax and thereby eliminate the need for tax exempt status for any organization.

Political Corruption, Big Government, and Generational Struggle

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Government, by its nature, is vulnerable to a broad reach of failure, and that becomes increasingly difficult to correct as government’s size grows and corruption, or even mere arrogance, increases.  Ultimately, government becomes large enough that it deems itself no longer responsible to the people who created it, and it engages in activities for its own benefit instead of ours.  Finally, these activities become centered simply on preserving and expanding its own power—which fosters corruption, which fosters further self-preservation and growth, which….

Here are some recent and current examples:

  • The Community Reinvestment Act and refusals to reform it, which created the conditions for the housing bubble and subsequent collapse.
  • Fast and Furious, DoJ’s gunwalking scam.
  • The method by which Obamacare was enacted, and its enactment against the loudly expressed wishes of the American people.
  • DoJ’s selective prosecution of crime, refusing for instance to prosecute voter intimidation crimes unless the alleged victim was from a government-favored group and the alleged perpetrator(s) from a government-disfavored group.
  • DoJ’s use of disparate impact analysis to manufacture racial discrimination where none exists and solely to satisfy a government’s politically motivated goal.
  • The process surrounding the stifling of the Keystone XL pipeline by the White House.
  • DoJ’s secret seizure of press telephone records (the AP, for instance) in New York, Washington, Hartford, and the main office for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.
  • The cover-up of the government’s preparation for and response to the terrorist attack on our Consulate in Benghazi.
  • The politicization of the IRS, and its use to persecute government-disfavored groups and men.
  • Labor Department’s selective enforcement of laws regarding the killing of members of protected bird species, including the refusal to prosecute wind energy farms that kill over 80,000 hunting birds per year.

And so on.  This kind of thing isn’t unique to big government, of course; any time men are placed in power over men—a necessity even of consensual governments—the potential for arrogance or corruption abounds.  However, small consensual governments, inherently limited in power—formally by a constitution, and practically by a vigilant and involved population—are easier to control, and the growth of corruption and arrogance much more hindered.

It’ll be a long, cross-generational struggle to restore our government and to repair the damage done these last 80 years.  It’s a struggle that must be engaged, however.

IRS and Politics

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Recall that in the last election season, the Internal Revenue Service demanded of a number of nonprofit organizations information about the nature of their politics, who their contributors were, even asking about family members.  The IRS intended to use this information to challenge the organizations’ nonprofit status.  That this was a biased request is demonstrated by the fact that only conservative nonprofits were targeted, and they were targeted on the basis of the presence of terms like “patriot” and “tea party” in their organizational names.

The then-IRS commissioner, of course, denied this.  Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012,

There’s absolutely no targeting.  This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people….

Turns out he was lying.  Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, said,

That [demand] was wrong.  That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive, and it was inappropriate.  That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review[.]

Then she said,

The IRS would like to apologize for that[.]

Well, Madam, when will the IRS apologize for that, instead of just talk about wanting to?  And what assurances are you or Steven Miller, the acting IRS Commissioner, going to provide that guarantee this politicization of the IRS’ function has been erased and will not recur?  When will we see IRS action on these assurances?

This…behavior…makes me wonder if David Axelrod has gone to work for the IRS.  Or whether Janet Napolitano, DHS Secretary, is directing the IRS’ oversight function.

A Thought on Privacy

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in an absolutely awesome expression of governmental hubris, says that New Yorkers should just “get used to” the city’s rapidly proliferating surveillance cameras.

You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras everyplace…whether you like it or not[.]

Amazingly, Federal Judge Richard Posner agrees.

Obviously, surveillance cameras didn’t prevent the Boston Marathon attacks.  But they may well have prevented further attacks planned by the bombers, including whatever destruction they may have attempted to cause in New York City.  Moreover, the criticism ignores deterrence.  By increasing the likelihood that terrorists or other criminals will be apprehended, surveillance cameras increase the expected cost of punishment.  That will not deter all attacks, but it will deter many.

Surveillance cameras also can be expected to increase the cost—and difficulty—of maintaining individual freedoms in the face of a constantly snooping government.  But surveillance cameras are of a piece with the lockdown imposed on Boston during the recent manhunt.

Ben Franklin was right.  Posner and Bloomberg are wrong.  But the latter plainly are speaking from the perspective of government and not from the perspective of government’s employers.

Progressivism, Conservatism, and Moral Equivalence

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Herb Croly, a founder of the Progressive movement, had this to say about the advantages of Progressivism:

To be sure, any increase in centralized power and responsibility, expedient or inexpedient, is injurious to certain aspects of traditional American democracy.  But the fault in that case lies with the democratic tradition; and the erroneous and misleading tradition must yield before the march of a constructive national democracy.  …the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat.

Theodore Roosevelt, another founder of the movement, spent much of his New Nationalism speech touting the virtues of the Federal government in nationalizing American businesses and of government guidance for individual prosperity.  There’re these, for example:

It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business.
…
It is my personal belief that the same kind and degree of control and supervision which should be exercised over public-service corporations should be extended also to combinations which control necessaries of life, such as meat, oil, or coal, or which deal in them on an important scale.  I have no doubt that the ordinary man who has control of them is much like ourselves.  I have no doubt he would like to do well, but I want to have enough supervision to help him realize that desire to do well.

And

We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used.  It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community.  We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.  This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

FDR imposed wage and (farm) price controls because he didn’t believe businesses or Americans who ran them or worked for them were smart enough or honest enough to make their own decisions.

President Barack Obama is working to nationalize one-sixth of our nation’s economy, and he is on record as saying

I think at a certain point, you’ve made enough money.

And

I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

On the other hand, our Declaration of Independence has this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….

Thomas Jefferson had this on wealth redistribution and personal responsibility, in particular:

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

Jim DeMint, late of the US Senate and current President of The Heritage Foundation:

Well, one of the most important things for Americans to be reminded of is that a lot of the exceptional nature of our country is founded in Judeo-Christian values that promotes individualism, personal responsibility, a strong work ethic, and a commitment to family, charity.

Mitt Romney had this during the 2012 Presidential election campaign:

We [conservative Republicans] believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution.  These principles, these American principles, are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.

It’s clear that Progressives subscribe to the view that Big Government is a better arbiter of what an individual should do with his prosperity or his business than is that individual, and that Big Government is the proper repository of moral obligation toward men and not men themselves.  The inevitable outcome of Progressivism, though, is failure.

It is a dependency on government (which can only benefit the men in government and not at all those dependents).  It is all men being equally poor, rather than all able to increase their individual and family prosperity, albeit some will be more successful than others.  It is all men being equally amoral, having surrendered their moral obligations (if not the duties themselves, as these are as inalienable as the rights that flow from them) to government to handle in their place.

Conservatives, on the other hand, subscribe to the view that government is legitimate only when it works for the people—the people consent to its behavior and governance.  To that end, government is best when it’s kept small and controllable.  Moreover, Conservatives hold to the primacy of the man over the state.  They also believe that not only are individuals better suited than government to determine the disposition of their own efforts and assets, they are obligated to make those decisions for themselves.  And to help those less fortunate, whether that poorer fortune comes through poorer decision-making, lesser ability, or just bad luck.

The inevitable outcome of Conservatism is quite different than that of Progressivism.

It is the opportunity—and the ability—of every man to show the best that there is in him.  It is the ability of every man and his family to climb the economic ladder, to leave poverty behind.  It is the ability for every man to satisfy his own moral obligations: his obligation to be the first to take care of his family, his obligation to do his best to not be a burden on others’ charity (and to stop being a burden as soon as may be should circumstances force him onto that charity), his obligation to help those less fortunate than himself, no matter his own present circumstance.  It is a recognition that government does, indeed, have a role to play in charity when more local resources are exhausted or otherwise unequal to the task—but as a last resort, not a first.

It is moral and economic prosperity and innovation for each of us, for all of us together, and through that, for our nation—and so for our safety.

There is no moral equivalence between these two ideologies; one world view plainly is superior to the other.  (In truth, the present dichotomy isn’t unique concerning the premise of moral equivalence; that’s just a tool with which Progressives attempt to legitimize their Big Government Knows Better meme.)