A Republic, If You Want It: The Left’s Overreach Invites the Founders’ Return

The concept of the modern state can be traced back to the theories of Thomas Hobbes, who wanted to replace the old aristocratic order with an all-powerful “Leviathan” that would impose a new order, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who, to achieve absolute equality, favored an absolute state that would rule over the people through a vaguely defined concept called the “general will.” Alexis de Tocqueville first pointed out the potential for a new form of despotism in such a centralized, egalitarian state: It might not be one of tyranny nor tyrannize, but it would weaken and extinguish liberty by reducing self-governing people “to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals which the government shepherds.

The great challenge of democracy, as the Founders understood it, was as therefore said to restrict and structure the government so to secure the rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence thereby preventing tyranny while preserving liberty. Their solution to tyranny was to create a strong, energetic government of limited authority. Its powers were enumerated in a written constitution, separated into functions and responsibilities and further divided between a national and state governments in a system of federalism- a strong central government provided by power divided between the national state and governments, checks and balances, including an amendable constitution. The result was a framework of limited government and a vast sphere of freedom, leaving ample room for republican self-government. Following Washington’s presidency two political parties formed; they were the Federalists and the Republicans. Whereas the Federalists wanted a strong central government, the Republicans wanted stronger state governments. The Federalist Papers – written anonymously by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison were commentaries on the Constitution and Republicanism.

In the early 20th century Progressives viewed the Constitution as a dusty 18th-century plan unsuited for the modern day and as designed stifled change. The progressive movement under a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, and then a Democratic Woodrow Wilson set forth a platform for modern liberalism to re-found America according to ideas foreign to the original Founders. And so the progressives began their radical revolutionary change with a massive shift of power from institutions of constitutional government to a labyrinthine network of unelected unaccountable experts who would rule in the name of the people.

American “progressives,” such as Republican Presidents Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), William Howard Taft (1909-1913) and Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) alongside Eleanor Roosevelt (18840-1910) and most notable Margaret Sanger (1879 – 1966) under the influence of German philosophical thinkers, decided that advances in science and history had opened the possibility for a new, more efficient form of democratic government, which they called the “administrative state.” Now enters both the Technocrat and the bureaucrats with their bureaucracies. Consequentially government must be ever more actively involved in day-to-day American life. Given the goal of boundless social progress, government by definition must itself be boundless. The question is now one of what is expedient-pragmatic-rather than one of principle. In effect a new Americanized version of the modern state was born.

The administrative state took off in the mid-1960s with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. By creating a truly national bureaucracy of open-ended social programs in housing, education, the environment, and urban renewal (most of which, such as the “War on Poverty,” failed to achieve their goals), the Great Society and its progeny effected the greatest expansion of the administrative state in American history.

So it is that today, many policy decisions that were previously the constitutional responsibility of elected legislators are delegated to faceless bureaucrats whose “rules” have the full force and effect of laws passed by Congress. In writing legislation, Congress uses broad language that essentially hands legislative power over to agencies, along with the authority to execute rules and adjudicate violations.

The Great Society also took the progressive argument one step farther, by asserting that the purpose of government no longer was “to secure these rights,” as the Declaration of Independence says, but “to fulfill these rights.” That was the title of Johnson’s 1965 commencement address at Howard University, in which he laid out the shift from securing equality of opportunity to guaranteeing equality of outcome. Liberty no longer would be a condition based on human nature and the exercise of God-given natural rights, but a changing concept whose evolution was guided by government. And since the progressives could not get rid of the “old” Constitution — this was seen as neither desirable nor possible, given its elevated status and historic significance in American political life — they invented the idea of a “living” Constitution that would be flexible and pliable, capable of “growth” and adaptation in changing times.

The objective of progressive thinking, which remains a major force in modern-day liberalism, was to transform America from a decentralized, self-governing society into a centralized, progressive society focused on national ideals and the achievement of “social justice.” Sociological conditions would be changed through government regulation of society and the economy; socioeconomic problems would be solved by redistributing wealth and benefits.

In our era of big government and the administrative state, the conventional wisdom has been that serious political realignment — bringing politics and government back into harmony with the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution — is no longer possible. Yet we can see early indications that we may be entering a period of just such realignment. Perhaps the progressive transformation is incomplete, and the form of the modern state not yet settled — at least not by the American people.

Growing opposition to runaway spending and debt, and to a looming government takeover of health care, doesn’t necessarily mean that voters want to scrap Social Security or close down the Department of Education. But it may mean that they are ready to remembrance clear, enforceable limits on the state. The opportunity and the challenge for those who seek to conserve America’s liberating principles is to turn the healthy public sentiment of the moment, which stands against a partisan agenda to revive an activist state, into a settled and enduring political opinion about the nature and purpose of constitutional government.

To do that, conservatives must make a compelling argument that shifts the narrative of American politics and defines a new direction for the country. Conservatives must present a clear choice: stay the course of progressive liberalism, which moves away from popular consent, the rule of law, and constitutional government toward a failed, undemocratic, and illiberal form of statism; or correct course in an effort to restore the conditions of liberty and renew the bedrock principles and constitutional wisdom that are the roots of America’s continuing greatness.

This is my personal summary of Matthew Spalding's work: "A Republic, If You Want It: The Left’s overreach invites the Founders’ return" which you can see at his web site shown below

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2010/01/29/a-republic-if-you-want-it/

or

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=NTNkMjM0ZTAwMDQ4MmRmYmUwODc0YjRmMTlhNGEyNGM=