Editor’s Note: We are starting the new week with some thoughts onconstitutional issues. Arrias this morning, Point Loma tomorrow. Notice how COVID has knocked everything else off the charts since last Friday? It almost makes one think…oh, never mind.<\/p>\n
– Vic<\/p>\n
Aesop and Government<\/p>\n
\t![](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Arrias.jpg\")
Aesop was born a bit more than 600 years before Christ, in a village on the Black Sea in what was then called Thrace, now called Bulgaria. My suspicion is that most people don\u2019t read Aesop these days, though they should; his stories teach valuable, fundamental points about life and how the world works. <\/p>\n
\tIn any case, just the other day I was reading about the founding and funding of several politically active groups in the US, groups that have been identified as supporting both Antifa and BLM; and one of Aesop\u2019s tales came to mind\u2026<\/p>\n
\tThe main focus of the material I was reading was that many of the founders of these various movements, and much of their intellectual foundation, is socialist in origin.<\/p>\n
\tBut, so what? The question we need to ask ourselves is not: Is Antifa dangerous? The real question we need to ask would seem to be: Is socialism dangerous?<\/p>\n
\tThere are a great many people in the world who believe that a central government should have a direct hand in ensuring everyone is properly fed, properly housed, has a decent job, has health care, is educated, clothed, and is a productive member of society. That\u2019s what socialism is, isn\u2019t it? <\/p>\n
\tWell, yes and no. That\u2019s what socialism is trying to achieve. But there are a few problems with it. For one, that\u2019s not all that socialism is. Secondly, to be able to do the above, the government needs a great deal of authority, that is, power. And third, there is the little issue about the nature of man.<\/p>\n
\tIn fact, in the end, the real problem with socialist governments isn\u2019t really socialists, it\u2019s government. The real question we need to answer is this: Is government dangerous? And if so, what can we do? Socialism – which is really another version of highly centralized government, fails because all governments fail. Not just the specific system, but the people. Some just fail faster than others. <\/p>\n
\tThat\u2019s why democracies (and republics) are of such value. Every once in a while, folks need to be – and can be – turned out and sent home – because they\u2019re people. Give a person a little power and soon they will want a little more – to help people. Invariably, they\u2019re sincere. But they also come to believe that what they believe is good is – in fact – good. It happens at every level of government. The faceless bureaucrat who comes up with insane rules is so common it\u2019s been a cliche in stories for centuries. Such figures can be found in Shakespeare, and in the new. Want to see a junior figure who wants to rise to the top? Corruption of power? Executive over-reach? Try Coriolanus. Or Macbeth.<\/p>\n
\tWhat the Founding Fathers did was set up a system where the government had limited powers. And was answerable to the citizenry. And if the government wanted more power, they would have to change the rule book. That\u2019s why it\u2019s hard to amend the Constitution; not because what they made was perfect, but because what they made was limited. And that\u2019s why judges must be chosen to respect the Constitution as written and not find new powers and authorities as the times dictate.<\/p>\n
\tPeople who work within the system will become, over time, possessive of their power, even if it\u2019s only a small amount. They not only won\u2019t let go of it, they\u2019ll look for opportunities to use it. Eventually, they\u2019ll look for ways to interpret their power so that they can actually expand their breadth of control. Anyone who has run into an overly authoritative member of the Department of Motor Vehicles has experienced this.<\/p>\n
\tStated simply, power corrupts. And people who have some power invariably want more. \u201cI\u2019m different\u201d they tell themselves, \u201cI\u2019ll use my power to solve problems, I\u2019ll do good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe fact is that not only do most people who abuse power not set out to abuse power, they still believe, even as they abuse the power they have, that they\u2019re doing good things. But that is the nature of government, of bureaucracies, of the Leviathan.<\/p>\n
\tIt also points out that we need a mechanism in our government to turn out bureaucrats after a certain number of years. In the military officers are not allowed to hold major commands for more than a few years. And no one remains at the same job for longer than 4 or occasionally 5 years. <\/p>\n
\tThere are many in government, and many running for office right now, who want the federal government to do more, spend more, oversee more, control more. Call it socialist government or the new democratic government model or whatever you like. In the end it\u2019s about Government.<\/p>\n
\tReturning to Aesop, consider the Tale of the Farmer and the Snake. Briefly, a farmer finds a snake under a bush, following an early frost. He warms the snake up, it recovers, and then the snake bites the farmer, killing him. The moral of the story is that you can\u2019t change a thing\u2019s nature, no matter how kind you are.<\/p>\n
\tThe same applies to government. <\/p>\n
\tThe story of the Founding Fathers isn\u2019t that they were in love with democracy. They understood, 200 years before Churchill said it, that: \u201cdemocracy is the worst form of government – except for all the rest.\u201d Government is dangerous, even the best government is dangerous. And even the best people will, if left to their own devices, go bad. Leaving someone in Washington for 30, 40 or 50 years is a near certain guarantee that they\u2019ll stop working for the nation and start working for their own version of the nation. That was why the Founding Fathers sought to limit government. <\/p>\n
And stripping away those limitations and restrictions that keep the federal government in check is as dangerous as warming the freezing snake.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2020 Arrias
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor’s Note: We are starting the new week with some thoughts onconstitutional issues. Arrias this morning, Point Loma tomorrow. Notice how COVID has knocked everything else off the charts since last Friday? It almost makes one think…oh, never mind. – Vic Aesop and Government Aesop was born a bit more than 600 years before Christ, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arrian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20164,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20160\/revisions\/20164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}