On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau wrote this piece in 1849 and the concepts he discusses are perhaps more important now than they were when he wrote them.  Take the time to read this essay from an American that lived over 150 years ago.

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience Henry David Thoreau.

2010

The holidays are upon us, and a new year approaches.  There are wars and rumors of wars and revolutions.   Politics in America are fractious and factioned.  The United States of America, and indeed the world entire is threatened with potential economic collapse, and yet I see room for hope.

America is unique in the history of the world.  We are a nation founded on a fundamental ideology of economic and personal liberty, and limited government as described in our Declaration of Independence  and put into practice by our Constitution.    Some might ask “Why limited government.”   The answer to this question is simple.  Economic and personal liberty can only be achieved and maintained by means of a limited central government.  Justice Louis Brandeis understood this and remarked on this understanding when he wrote:

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial.  Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.  The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Justice Lous Brandeis

And this is how government grows and becomes more intrusive of our liberties.  That is through the  “insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” That is men and women who would do good for others, and use the government to that end.

Wanting to do good for others is both commendable and laudable, but this is not natural or necessary, or in my view an acceptable role for the federal government.  This is a role for the states and the  communities within those states.  No government in Washington D.C. understands the  problems of the myriad of communities across this nation better than do the communities themselves.

Top down systems of government and economics simply do not work well.  Capitalism, as viewed by Adam Smith in his seminal work  Wealth of Nations, shows that an individual’s decisions based on his personal economic well being was led by “an invisible hand” to promote the well being of the greater community.  Well intentioned and intrusive governmental regulation often have consequences that are unintended by the lawamakers.  These consequences then require more regulation and intrusion and so on ad infinitum.

I smell a sea change, however.  America is disgruntled.  With near 20% of Americans un or under-employed, the realities of our government’s fiscal irresponsibility are beginning to be noticed and understood by a larger number of our citizenry.

Bills in congress and the senate to audit the federal reserve bank are but the first rumblings to bring under control a spending addicted government.  As our economic condition worsens, and  there are many  reasons to believe that it will, more and more of the people will begin to see that the statist road towards empire , along which both Republicans and Democrats  have been leading us for the last century, should be a road less traveled.

So, yes, there is hope for a brighter future, a new America, an America of principles,  freedom and liberty;  A nation where a free people can keep the fruits of their labor and involve themselves in community:  a country that serves as a beacon of liberty to the world while avoiding the hollow greatness of empire.

So, I wish you the best for the coming new year.  It promises to be a tumultuous one.  Guard your finances, your friends and family well, and above all, remain hopeful for the future.  We are a great people, a great nation, and we will, in the end, survive and I believe prosper.

My Problem with the Republicans

I recently had a comment in the  About Me page of  this blog regarding the statement that I hoped for “the formation of a political party that can speak to something other than the extremes.”   I was asked to “Define extremes” and relate that definition to the Republican Party.  I made several extensive, yet general remarks that were unsatisfactory to my reader.  I will attempt to rectify that here.

The title of this blog should not be construed to mean that I only have a problem with Republicans.  I don’t like the Democrats either.  They are, both of them, Republicrats.  But I will leave the Democrats for another day in a “My Problem with the Democrats” post.

First let me describe my fundamental political/economic beliefs.

• I am a capitalist. I believe that capitalism meets best what Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan described as man’s appetitive nature. Capitalism has made us the wealthiest  country in the world.
• I believe in Free Markets
• I believe that a man, or woman, should be able to keep the fruits of their labor.   I believe in low taxes.
• I believe in what the founders of this country described as Republican government, and that this government derives its power from the consent of the governed.
• I believe in limited government, for as Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, Government is, at best, a necessary evil.
• I believe that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness extends to All citizens.
• I believe in the separation of Church and State
• I believe that government interests are:
  • the protection of myself and my property.
  • Education (As a people, we have a great interest in an informed and educated citizenry, and a poor child should have the same educational opportunity as does a child born to wealth).
  • Infrastructure i.e. : roads, bridges, ports.  (this enables business growth… read job growth)
  • Creating an environment where business can prosper (limited and enforceable regulation)
• I believe that communities are best suited to care for the indigent and infirm (read this as as non-redistributive).
• I believe in a small and effective standing army.  (The founders believed, and we have proven this in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, that standing armies lead to adventurism)

In a nutshell, these are my beliefs.  Now, If I look at the Republican Party Platform, my ideology is quite similar.  However, what one says is very often quite different from what one does, and I am not interested in party platitudes.  I would state that the actions of a party are those that denote it.

1. Limited Government:  The republicans have supported the expansion of government for the last forty or fifty years.  Witness most recently the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. Republicans voted overwhelmingly for this (207-19) and  George Jr. signed it into law.  The expected costs over ten years are 534 Billion to the taxpayer.  This ain’t small potatoes.
2. Low Taxes:  The Democrats are a Tax and Spend party.  The Republicans are a Don’t tax, but still spend party.
3. Free Markets:  one example… Milk pricing supports.
4. The Republicans believe in a unique set of individual rights… as long as you are not a gay or lesbian, black or hispanic.  Their belief in individual rights seems to extend only to people like themselves…  Those that have the same moral code.  If you doubt this, listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, self appointed Republican spokesmen.  Or take a look at the Republican National Convention.  You will see a sea of white faces.  The Republican’s umbrella is neither large nor inclusive, at least not at the national level.
5. In their platform, under “The Armed Forces Protect and Defend our Democracy”  they say they are “committed to preserving our national strength while working to extend peace, freedom and human rights throughout the world.”    How about working on peace, freedom and human rights here at home?  The extension of force to bring about democracy elsewhere is a bad idea… it doesn’t work, and it is terribly expensive in terms of money, lives, and our reputation throughout the world, witness recent examples Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
6. Witness the Patriot Act…  In his book 1984 George Orwell called this Newspeak, where language has no bearing on reality (war becomes peace… hate becomes love).   The Patriot Act gives Big Brother the right to spy on you…  This is patriotic?   This extends our personal liberty?  Republicans voted overwhelmingly for this act, and George Jr. signed off on it.
7. TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program)… The largest transfer of wealth in government history.  God Bless the Republicans on this one, except for then President Bush, who signed the bill into law.

So I cannot sleep with the Republicans.  It is easy to say that one believes in something.  It is much more difficult to live by those principles.   I could go on and on with this.  Examples of the National Republican Party’s failure to adhere to its basic beliefs are endless.  They talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.  That is my problem with the Republican Party.

Shoe Repair… A Metaphor for Our Time?

When I was a young man, every small town had one or two shoe repair shops or cobblers, as they were known.  Those days are now gone.  My small town in Vermont doesn’t have one, though Chittenden County, along with the City of Burlington, does boast three or four by my count.  As we increasingly become a throw-away society, fewer and fewer repair shops for appliances, shoes and electronics can be found.

Repair shops were often owned by men that were tinkerers, and offered jobs for men that had that talent.  Before the modern era, back into the earliest days of the colonies, blacksmiths filled the position in communities as “fixers of broken things”…   Not only did the blacksmith repair objects that were broken, he created nails, bits  and hinges…  materials that could be used to build homes, harness and agricultural equipment.   Smiths were  valued members of the  community as were the cobblers and repairmen of my youth.

But, alas, times have changed.  I occasionally remark to those around me “the old ways are best,” as much to cement my position as the local conservative curmudgeon contrarian Luddite  (CCCL) as it is to remind them that there are qualities in the American character that we simply cannot afford to lose, qualities that have separated us as a people from other peoples  before and since the revolution that separated us from the Kings of England and Europe.  Nowhere were the virtues of  the American people more exquisitely rendered than in Toqueville’s Democracy in America. If  you are interested in what America was, and what I believe America must retain if it is to remain in Ronald Reagans words “That shining city on a Hill”, you must read this book.

According to Toqueville, Americans were doers. He was astonished at the number of community organizations created to fix the problems of the  communities he visited, and he noted this throughout his travels across the nascent states.  This is perhaps, I believe, one of the most telling of his observations.

As government intrudes more and more into our lives, becomes more responsible for the rearing and education of our children, care of the indigent and infirm,  and soon a greater control over the health care that we receive, we give up that control and responsibility for our community to others.   Liberty requires personal responsibility, and when we give up that responsibility to a government distant or near, we give up our liberty as well, and liberty, my friends,  is hard won and easily squandered.

The cobblers, blacksmiths and radio repairmen may be slowly passing away.  And though I may  bemoan their passing, I do not yearn for a “simpler time”.  To do so would be to yearn for that which has never been, for the complexities of life have been with us always.  They have simply been different from generation to generation.  But the myths, the collective consciousness that sustain us, the ideas of freedom and liberty must remain with us, and we must maintain our commitment to them, our responsibility to them,  or our great experiment must surely fail.