The U.S. Rests On a Foundation of Violence

Much ink has been spilled debating the proposition that "vitriolic rhetoric" can spur a madman to violence. Politicians were quick to distance themselves from any association with violence, which is ironic since the power to compel the rest of us to obey the laws that they make ultimately rests on violence or the threat thereof.

Yes, government sponsored violence is controlled and sanitized to the point that it is invisible to most of us. You wouldn't want it any other way. A government that has to resort to frequent displays of violence is a government that has lost legitimacy.

Yet anyone who believes that a government could govern lacking the ability to arrest, imprison, and shoot people is a utopian dreamer. In order to maintain legitimacy, however, the government must abide by the terms under which it was empowered. When we-the-people granted a monopoly on the lawful right to initiate force to our duly constituted government we did so under a historically unique set of rules.

The very idea that citizens can confer sovereignty on a national government is, of course, a modern invention brought to us by the violent revolutionaries that founded our country. Prior to their decision to take up arms against their king the idea that a government should be constituted by and for the people was considered madness.

Because the American people went on to demonstrate the virtues of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness the consent of the governed is now modern civilization's sine qua non. A civil war was fought when this consent broke down, but after the federal government violently overpowered secessionist state governments the experiment resumed.

Despite that bloody interlude the founding formulation that the government should not wield absolute power but only limited and enumerated powers persisted into the 20th century. Only the unprecedented federal response to the Great Depression overwhelmed these limits. Their final destruction and the advent of unlimited majoritarianism is the central political question of our age.

The founders were not omniscient; hence our Constitution was designed to be amended allowing future governments to meet the needs of a growing nation. But the bar for granting powers beyond those originally listed was set high. Neither executive action nor popular legislation nor the sophistry of judges was supposed to be sufficient to grant new powers to the federal government. This unique architecture was designed to prevent the country from descending into a tyranny of the majority, the end stage of all prior experiments in democracy.

A growing segment of the public has come to fear that the American experiment is in danger of failing precisely because we have abandoned this concept of limited government. The list of things that American citizens are either compelled or forbidden to do under threat of violence has exploded, with no end in sight. The mystery is not understanding why so many people are angry. The mystery is understanding how anyone could be surprised that the uniquely American spirit of individual liberty is making so much noise as it mounts its last stand.

Close your eyes and imagine the vitriol that would spew from the pen of Thomas Jefferson or the lips of Patrick Henry or the tar and feathers of the Sons of Liberty if they were handed a copy of the federal register and could see how many nooks and crannies of our lives and businesses have been invaded by the government.

This state of affairs came about because the American people traded away their liberties piecemeal in return for promises of collectively financed economic security. Who wouldn't like to live at the expense of his neighbor? Besides, everyone knew that the day of reckoning would be far away.

This worked until an economic tsunami revealed the rotten pillars of our debt-fueled illusion. The day of reckoning has dawned. What happened next was entirely predictable. The federal government went on a binge intent on demonstrating that its bankrupt promises could somehow be kept.

This was not just a spending binge but a power binge. The binge was not restricted to tackling proximate economic problems, which might have been tolerated even if ineffective. Power was also arrogated to enact a broad Progressive agenda, unfinished business left over from that movement's last high water mark. A new set of even more expensive promises were born.

The politicians behind this agenda suspected they might hold the upper hand for only a moment, so after biding their time for decades they were determined to make the most of it. They laughed when challenged with the idea that the new powers they were grabbing had no basis in the Constitution. Limits? What limits? We have the majority and we will do as we please!

This is what sparked tea party rage. This is what drives the vitriolic rhetoric. This is what has people handing out copies of the Constitution with the second amendment underlined. More and more citizens seem to be shouting words to the effect that if ruling elites insist on using government sponsored violence to impose a Eurosclerotic social democracy on a people that still claim to value freedom, they had better be prepared to be answered in kind.

This is not the madness of a paranoid schizophrenic. It is neither thoughtless nor random nor misdirected anger. The nation is boiling with the rage of millions of citizens who understand and cherish their own history, realizing perhaps too late that they have foolishly squandered their patrimony.

Politicians claiming to represent these angry people may soon regain the majority. If this happens will these politicians be able and willing to stuff the genie of government power back in the bottle? Don't count on it. Power once obtained is more often abused than relinquished.

More importantly, will the American people mend their profligate ways and return to the historic values of economic prudence, individual liberty, and personal responsibility that made this country great? Will a majority be willing to surrender their illusions of unsustainable entitlements and stop rewarding politicians who promise more, returning instead to a life of self-reliance while limiting public charity to only the most needy?

History suggests that this is unlikely.