The Revenge of Conscience

Revised:

The tendency of American thought has been to re-invent itself every few decades. We have little historical sense, so we end up running into the same wall over and over again ― thus fulfilling the very definition of insanity. So here's how our story has gone: the American Founders revolted against Monarchy for the sake of natural law. The Progressives of the 1900s revolted against the Founders for the sake of evolution. The 1960s radicals revolted against the Progressives for the sake of change. So what's next?

I am certainly inclined to say that we should recover natural law as the American Founders understood it. But many would object that it is difficult to make a case for natural law in modern times: it was, after all, a more-modern thing, and the world had moved on considerable from what it once was.

But I think most of the difficulty is not because of the conditions of modern life, but from a total misunderstanding of what natural law is. We tend to think of it in terms of imperatives, e.g., "the natural law commands x, therefore we must do y." But that's Kant's idea of natural law.

The classic view, on the other hand, says instead that mankind, or each individual person, is meant for a proper end, or highest purpose; and that everything we do or think, and all that we value or desire, ultimately aims at that end. It is the reason the opening lines of Aristotle's Ethics is so shocking: it is so foreign to us, and yet it is something we have always known ― something we may have known before we were born, and will probably see all the more clearly when we die (if we choose to, of course).

Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has been beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim. (1094a)

It was was Thomas Aquinas later recognized as the most basic inclination of the human heart, and the truth that all human beings desire to be virtuous, even when they are not.

Now each thing is inclined naturally to an operation that is suitable to it according to its form: thus fire is inclined to give heat. Wherefore, since the rational soul is the proper form of man, there is in every man a natural inclination to act according to reason: and this is to act according to virtue. Consequently, considered thus, all acts of virtue are prescribed by the natural law: since each one's reason naturally dictates to him to act virtuously. (I, II, Q. 94, A. 3)

If this is the case, and I believe it is, then returning to natural law is as simple as recognizing the nature of human desires, and seeing how they all find completion and wholeness at one point. And that point is God. It's a matter of revealing something quite obvious: that all the vast forms of human debauchery, makes people miserable ― or, what is more common today, the degraded, smallness-of-soul and hatred for pleasure and greatness that is the key feature of modern man ― their hearts tell them them they are meant for something better. It may not be a big, broad, social revolution; but it is something you can show to one person at a time.

I wouldn't teach if I didn't think my students couldn't be persuaded of such a thing.

But the big question seems to be this: what if mankind's highest end is not something realized in individual persons, but in History as a whole, as it unfolds into the eschaton, or that final end of History where earth and heaven are finally one? It is most certainly a thing that will happen. But are we really supposed to see that, and only that, as our end?

The appeal of this idea is, in many theological circles, a "revolt against nature" ― "nature" meaning nothing more than "an order that is," particularly a social order. It is held that so long as we maintain nature ― especially natural law ― the more we will perpetuate the dominance of some people and the oppression of others. The eschaton, the end of History ― that is what abolishes all of those "natural" distinctions, and finally renders everyone equal.

That makes sense, but here is one thing I can't get over: the meaning of "nature," at least in the Aristotelian/Catholic framework to which I subscribe, is not about "what is" but "what ought to be," especially for each individual thing.

The American Founders, who I referred to originally, placed a huge "ought" at the center of their project: the self-evident truth that all people are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights; and that government exists to protect those rights.

Is that really the sort of "ought" that maintains social hierarchy and injustice? Societies and governments do that, of course. But when a government or society oppresses some of its members in such a way, we object on the basis of that principle, which is not subject to history at all.

Or maybe not. Perhaps it is based on the end of History, rather than a precept of natural law in our conscience. If that's the case, though, don't we have to admit that the problem with racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, poverty etc. is not that these things are "evil" ― but that they are simply old? and that we only call things "good" because they are new, being closer to the eschaton?

By "going back," I don't mean regressing or holding on to the past. I mean recovering what our conscience tell us, or the moral truths that we already know ― in our case, the self-evident truths of human equality stated in our Founding.

It seems to me that any progressing we make without that is simply leaping into a void. I think that's the real significance of "change": it doesn't mean getting better or getting worse; it simply means something different for the sake of difference itself. It gives no more reason to prefer kindness and equality over cruelty and vice. If "change" is the goal, there is no "good" or "evil" ― just "old" and "new."

This seems a pointless thing to promulgate this view, since it is the way all modern people think since the twentieth century. Even if it's true, one is not actually showing the truth about God's involvement in the world, so much as updating theology to fit the current trend in modern thought. To make the case that man's highest end really is at the end of History, one must begin by saying, "there is this antiquated old notion called "virtue" which people believed for eons was the purpose of human life, and the condition we are in once we enter the presence of God" ― and that's all students get about the vast scope of human history. Then we move on to what we know so much better ― that all is growth and chance and unfolding into God himself. What that ought to be is an hypothesis to be carefully thought through, not an unspoken assumption, or else we are simply burying ourselves in our own modern prejudices, and doing absolutely nothing for our students.

What we should show is how often the brutal systems of oppression in modern times have occurred precisely because of progress, the rejection of natural law, and the belief that we are, in fact, advancing toward an end of history. The antebellum South rationalized slavery by rejecting what they called the "self-evident lies" of Jefferson. The eugenicists of the twentieth century justified their project by saying that we must get over those silly old maxims about human equality, and turn instead to "superior types" ― a project that actually involved a great many Christian figures, who were certain that eugenics would bring the eschaton. Much of the push for American imperialism was because of the belief that America really would lead the way in spreading global democracy. And the examples go on and on. But now we are supposed to believe that "progressing toward the end of History" will bring more equality and dignity? Maybe that's true; but I see little effort among those who promulgate such a view to distance themselves the horrors of past progressivism.

More importantly, as a teacher, I cannot believe that I am in any way doing good for my students by rejecting natural law and the goodness of virtue for the sake of History. I see them suffering through the aimlessness of modern life, and the total lack of expectation that they will be anything great or noble; I see them reduced, as I was, to the "nice person" ideal, which expects nothing more of them than to simply be what they are. Hence, I see depression and anxiety and porn addictions and eating disorders and unruly thymos ― all symptoms of modernity's destructive success. I cannot ignore how deeply they long for something so much better than that. To tell them that such desires do not matter ― or that God himself desires nothing more than that they be "nice" little cogs with the correct political views in the working out of History ― seems, in my mind, the height of educational betrayal.

Madison Today

James Madison's Federalist Paper #10 is easily the greatest piece of political thought presented in under ten pages. It is always a joy to teach: it is one of those documents that slices right through the layers of surfacy confusion about political life, and shows us the fundamental realities at the core of our thinking about our national community. Madison holds up a mirror to our souls. His central point is that politics is never going away, and that when you add liberty to it, it rages like gasoline on a bonfire. But this is not because people are stupid or unwilling to work together or understand each other's opinions; it is because the nature of human passions, and the way they can blind even the most rational and open-minded souls from the truth about how to order a community.

The allure of Federalist #10 is how it seems to confirm one side of the political divide. Madison often ends up like Jesus: we want to read him in a way that seems to confirm "my views" rather than the truth about the whole. In Jesus' case, its the cosmos; but in Madison's case, it's politics. I wish I did not have to say that the New Republic has done that. But alas, I cannot seem to read the piece by the editors today without thinking it.

"Factions," as Madison called them, were simply interest groups, or narrow-minded, short-sighted, self-serving associations of citizens who are bent on getting their way no matter what. This is not the sort of label one can stick on someone without it sticking to oneself: it is every single one of us. And when such factions rise up against each other or against the state, it is, of course, reason for alarm among the "friends of liberty."

But our alarm has been tempered by the knowledge that, in a way, this is as it should be: In our form of government, the minority party should be the opposition party; and, while the Obama administration did make overtures to the GOP on the stimulus and its selection of Sotomayor, those overtures were largely symbolic. The factionalism, while regrettable, was understandable. But, this week, as the health care reform battle reached a crucial juncture, the violence of faction has become gratuitous.

This overlooks the fact that by the "violence of faction," Madison did not mean political resistance against what is now the mainstream set of policy preferences. He meant real violence. Considering the histories of ancient and modern republics (which he addressed extensively in later Federalist Papers), Madison could say with certainty that bloodshed was the norm in a free country ― a painful paradox, but one that had to be confronted squarely if Americans wanted to find a solution.

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

This was, of course, the reason that so many people were happy to settle for a king ― or even a tyrant. At least then, the people are not fighting each other. The only way to avoid those alternatives, though, was to admit the truth about the nature of politics, and the cause of factions, and what it would take to contain them.

The New Republic's criticism does have an interesting point to it: the Republican Party, they claim, no longer represents a variety of interests. Instead, it is an interest, better known as the "anti-Obama" crowd. That is nothing new. The Republicans have long been more unified, certainly since the 1970s; but this is primarily because the Democrats are so factional ― a massive ideological hodge-podge of ideology, often overlapping, and sometimes even contradicting, but nonetheless unified in their dislike of conservatism, or anything that smacks of tradition or natural law. Indeed, should the Republican Party ever disappear, the fractures in the Democratic Party would grow more intense, and probable snap ― New Englanders against San Franciscans, or big-government types against people's radicals. An common enemy is what holds things together.

In any case, the "anti-" stance that most Republicans are currently taking, according to the editors, is in fact the thing that is inhibiting any realistic concept of the proposed health care legislation. Max Baucus' bill apparently does a great deal for all major interests involved.

Virtually every industry group ― from hospitals to drugmakers to device manufacturers to insurers ― that faces new fees or budget cuts in the Baucus bill is rewarded with additional revenue from the legislation. And, when it came to winning over Republicans, Baucus went more than halfway: eliminating the public option, strengthening protections against federal funding of abortions, and lowering the legislation's price tag.

And what did all of Baucus's efforts get him? Well, from most key interest groups, outright support or, at the very least, not much indication of outright opposition. But, from one of the two major political parties that, theoretically at least, is supposed to represent many of those interest groups? Absolutely no Republican support ― not even from the three GOP members of the Gang of Six, two of whom (Mike Enzi and Chuck Grassley) voiced their outright opposition and one (Olympia Snowe) who remains on the fence.

The editors seem to ignore the bigger features of the bill ― the eventual requirements under federal law that all Americans have health insurance, for instance.

In any case, this proves to be an odd reason for praising James Madison. The goal was not to produce pieces of federal legislation that would try to equally schmooze all interests. It was instead to contain the variety of interests that were out there. It was a plan for the public, not those in Washington. Madison described the role of representation this way:

[T]he first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.

Views that were "refined" and "enlarged" were those that considered the nation as a whole. But much of this meant admitting something which the Editors of the New Republic do not: that there would still be factions, and that even those with the most "refined" and "enlarged" views would still frequently succumb to passionate opinions of their own interest group ― a socio-political reality that no piece of thoughtfully drafted federal legislation could overcome. It is a nice try on the New Republic's part; but there can be no doubt that Madison is simply not their guy on this point.

The assumption seems to be one that Madison clearly rejected: the possibility of "giving everyone the same opinions, passions and interests." But it seems that it is possible to give everyone the same interests after all: all must concede to those who claim it is axiomatic that government really is the solution to everything. Grant that, the central liberal truth, and then we can get on with sensible politics. If anyone does not grant such a thing, then it is they who are stifling democracy.

Sparta and Us

The idea of law for the Greeks, or nomos, was not simply the written Constitution or a legislative act as we know it today. It was instead the powerful force of custom. It was the way of the people living in a certain place, a polis, whose habits went all the way down to religion and, social structure, and family life. It was the ancestral way, or the way of the dead, who took the most pressing human question ― "How should we live?" ― and answered it so completely that there was no reason to ever ask it again.

What kind of laws, though, could create a society like Sparta? Lycurgus, the legendary founder of Sparta, was rumored to have visited with Thales the lyric poet while contemplating the kinds of laws his people would receive. Plutarch writes that Thales

had a reputation as a composer of lyric verse and used this art to cloak his true activities, which were those of any powerful legislator, in the sense that his songs were actually arguments in favor of obedience and political concord. This aspect of his songs was enhanced by the music and rhythm, which were so orderly and soothing that anyone listening to them became, without being aware of it, a more even-tempered person and learnt to replace the mutual hostility which prevailed there at the time with an admiration for noble qualities. (Lycurgus, 2)

It is, of course, the kind of thing that we in the modern West quickly identify as mere propaganda: any art or music that embodies any sort of nationalism is inherently aimed at manipulating the masses around the will of the state. But we should remember that in the ancient world, there was not "state" as we think of it; there was only the polis, where all citizens were directly involved in the life of the city. Music of this kind was therefore more like folk music, or the songs that unify us around a common national identity.

There is a trace of this, I think, in the American national anthem: it was never written, or is it ever sung, by state-sponsored activites; it is instead a voluntary activity at football games and holiday parades. More importantly, though, it has a way of pushing aside political differences and uniting people around a common vision of what America is supposed to be. That definition of the regime is really there all the time: it is not anything that either Left or Right rejects, but the thing for which each side claims a more accurate definition.

The unity of the Spartans, though, because of Lycurgus's legislation, was not the sort of national identity that future citizens would struggle to define though a political process. Instead, it was a definition that was clear, and final, as seen in the broad, sweeping power of Lycurgus's new laws. As soon as he returned to Sparta, after a long tour of surveying foreign political systems,

he set in motion a plan to effect a revolution and bring about constitutional change, because he could see no point or benefit in piecemeal legislation rather than a fresh start, just as in dealing with a body which was in a terrible state, riddled with all kinds of diseases, one would first eliminate and alter the current blend of the humours by drugs and purgatives and then begin on a whole new regimen. (5)

With that, Lycurgus went to Delphi to seek the approval of Apollo of his laws.

He claimed that when he asked for lawfulness the god had granted and promised him a political system of such quality that it would leave all the rest far behind. (Ibid.)

The kind of society that resulted, though, seemed to have been nothing less than perfect, given the limits of human nature. It turned in on itself, rendering its citizens precisely that ― citizens, and nothing more. There was nothing left of the human things in them, because Lycurgus identified those things as the source of so many problems in other cities.

That is precisely the romance and allure ancient Sparta for the modern mind. They seem to have relieved themselves of all the burdens that came with being human; they loved the whole more than they loved their own families, and became so perfectly absorbed into the city that there was nothing left of their humanity. Spartans had no appreciation for tragedy, or the fallenness of mankind that makes our lives so rich and beautiful: they only knew the flat existence that comes with living in a city whose customs devoured all natural desires and limited all needs to things that were achievable.

Centuries later, Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it this way in his book, The Social Contract:

One who dares to undertake the founding of a people should feel that he is capable of changing human nature, so to speak; of transforming each individual, who by himself is a perfect and solitary whole, into a part of a much larger whole from which this individual receives, in a sense, his life and his being; of altering man's constitution in order to strengthen it; of substituting a partial and moral excellence for the physical independent existence we have all received from nature. (68)

This is the classic idea in Rousseau's own political thought, which was greatly modeled on his understanding of Sparta: that must be forced to be free ― free especially from all desire for anything beyond the community. According to this very popular modern philosophy, we must allow ourselves to become perfectly at home here in the world, and to wish for nothing beyond it.

So would we ever want this for ourselves? Perhaps we wouldn't seek anything like Sparta in the modern world; but maybe we could do something even better than what Lycurgus did. After all, he didn't have biotechnology or mind-altering drugs; he only had his own personal magnetism and the songs he taught the Spartans. So maybe we can outdo him, and perfect ourselves in a more enduring sort of way, minus all of the warlike institutions and assaults on personal dignity and family life.

Still, would it be possible to achieve a perfect society without sacrificing those things? Or, more importantly, even with far more social-engineering power, would such a thing even be possible?

And who exactly do we mean by "we" in such an undertaking?

The President Addresses the Youths

Critics of the Obama Administration are quite upset about his address to school children this week. For all its quirkiness, this is understandable: people are very sensitive about their kids, and when a president, with whom they adamantly disagree on a variety of policy grounds, or perhaps one who they personally despise, gives an address aimed directly at their children, it can be upsetting ― even if the speech is as bland and generic as the one we actually heard. It was doubtless a fluffy piece of rhetoric, and not at all the president's best. No one could either object to or agree with a statement like this:

The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

But I think that's exactly the problem: the speech was quite void of any explanation of what education was actually for, aside from "success" and "contributing to society" and the "reward of hard work," etc. It emphasized the need to study and take school seriously; but it said nothing about why, or what the end of education was, aside from a vague notion of the public good.

Obama's speech was nothing new: many presidents have addressed school children. While education has always been a grass-roots affair, it is still very much an aspect of the national interest. That view has provoked many presidents to discuss education, and to even describe it in very policy-oriented terms. George Washington could see this well enough in his Farewell Address, where he had plenty to say about the the way citizens were prepared to not only receive but actually deserve their freedom.

Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. 'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government. Who that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric.

Education, according to Washington, was deeply moral, and such morality was only sustained through religion, and the transformation of the soul that Christian faith guaranteed. Competence and skill were certainly important; but those had little to do with the character of the American regime, as Washington understood it. Any regime, even a tyranny, needs competent artisans and farmers, and even inventors and musicians. A republic, however, by definition, does not require excellent workers nearly so much as excellent human beings. The most important aspect of American education was therefore to teach virtue.

Contrast this with Obama's reason for educating the youths:

Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide...

And no matter what you want to do with your life ― I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

This is not exactly his idea. This is what most people today think education is: for those who do work hard and pull the good grades and dish out thousands in college tuition, all the learning is fundamentally a matter of job-training and technical skill ― and nothing else. "If if it is not useful, then why study it?" we ask.

But again, this narrow approach to education, which we accept without question, is not necessarily the sort that one expects of a free people.

One can be an excellent plumber or an excellent computer programmer or an excellent attorney; but the technical education that goes in to those vocations does not guarantee an excellent human being. (Though the plumber is probably more likely to receive such wisdom than the programmer or the attorney.)

This is the most important thing about a republic, which President Washington was keenly aware of: it is the one kind of regime where the excellent human being and the excellent regime coincide. If we are not concerned with the excellence of the individual persons, then we have forgotten what a republic means. Obama did not exactly reject republicanism in this speech, but the conditions of that kind of freedom did not seem very important to him.

In fact, the president never once used the word "liberty" or "freedom." He certainly emphasized the character of future citizens, but it was stated in terms of duty and responsibility, rather than what it meant to live well.

These are, I suppose, deep-dish objections. But one thing does stand out: Obama's total de-emphasis on civic education. A basic civic awareness about how American government works, and their role in it, seemed quite important to him; American children, as future citizens, were at best devoted workers. Their duty to the nation was not civic, but social and communal:

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that ― if you quit on school ― you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.

Civic illiteracy is, of course, a monumental problem. I teach American government and political theory, and I spend a great deal of time simply defining terms and going over rudimentary concepts that students should have known a long time ago. For example: an official in Congress or the Presidency is elected, while a civil servant is not. The government itself does not generate the money it uses to pay for its programs; it taxes. Democracy is not the "power of the people"; it is the power of the majority over the minority. And then there is the fact that Abraham Lincoln did not live in the time of the Founding; that not all Americans were slave-owners in the 1800s; that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are two different documents; that the Civil War came before World War I; that the Constitution does not create political parties ― and on and on it goes. A complaint about these problems does not show an "ideological" agenda on my part. These are just conceptual and historical facts, which are more or less essential to political deliberation. But even many of these points are difficult to grasp, because students rarely practice the sort of careful thinking necessary for studying such things. Public education might show them how to debunk and deconstruct all social conventions, and give them a false sense of wisdom for their ability to grasp one social theory or another. But it does not prepare them to be citizens. And, as far as this speech indicates, our president does not particularly care.

Ronald Reagan gave a similar address to school children back in 1988. It was, of course, a quintessentially 80's speech, complete with goofy pop-cultural references, jokes about the president's age, and the usual call to "just say no to drugs" (an idea his "roommate" came up with.) There is, indeed, much to mock in the speech. It does seem to reveal a tired man on his way out of office. But embedded within all of that were these words:

The United States is the world's oldest democratic government... And it's not just that our government is the oldest of its kind, but that it's based on the world's most revolutionary political idea. You can see that concept in the very first line of our Constitution, and it begins with three simple words: "We the People." In other countries, in their constitutions ― they all have constitutions, and I've read a great many of them, those other ones ― and the difference is so small, but it's found in those three words. Because their constitutions are documents by the Governments telling the people what they can do. And in our country, our Constitution is by the people, and it tells the Government what it can do. And only those things listed in the Constitution, and nothing else, can Government do. So, in America, it is the people who are in charge. And one day you'll be those people out there voting and creating the Government.

This was the reason to study hard: not social but civic participation was the essential thing according to Reagan, and the right to deliberate, speak and vote demanded a tremendous amount of competence and character on the part of the people doing it. It was the condition of self-government, as the Revolution's generation understood it.

Mr. Obama did indeed make one reference to history: the story of America, he said, is

the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

Hence, the trajectory: each new generation does not recover the past, but defeats it as we progress into the future. We do not recover our foundations; we reject them in order to move forward. What else could "change" mean? These words, though, seem to be almost modeled after Reagan's:

Now, the Revolution may seem like something they say happened a long time ago ― to me 200 years seems just like yesterday ― but I think it'll prove to be America's most important guidepost for the future. I believe that the chief moral task for America in your generation ― a period destined for great change ― will be not so much to chart a new course or launch a new revolution, but to keep faith with the original American Revolution and that remarkable vision of freedom that has brought us two centuries of liberty and is still today transforming the world.

There was indeed a certain sort of "change" and progress in Reagan's outlook, and it certainly was the duty of each new generation to realize it. Yet the basis for moving into the future was obvious: we do it be always going back to first principles, and bringing them to greater and greater fullness. It was this moral point of reference that made "change" good, and showed why it was desirable ― and, of course, this was to be the square-one of civic education. Obama's idea of progress, however, does not come with any self-justification, aside from one basic assumption: what ever is new is inherently good, and whatever is old is questionable.

Maybe it is necessary to evolve out of the old order, as our current president, and several modern presidents and public intellectuals before him, seem to be believe. Maybe Reagan, for all his good intentions, was wrong. Maybe the Founding really should go the way of the "just say no" campaign. Maybe the change we need is something far more radical, something that can re-make the nation from the bottom up. If that is the case, then the process should most certainly begin with the education of children. But let's not be fooled: the sort of education that Obama proposes is not the kind that ensures freedom.

I imagine many teachers showed the speech in their classrooms, and participated in the Administration's homework assignments ― "write a letter about your own goals," or maybe the original "write a letter on how you can help the president," etc. But my guess is that several millions of cynical seventh- and eight-graders heaved a sigh of annoyance and in a nasally voice griped about the establishment's preaching about the "importance of learning" and "why I should work hard and do my homework and listen to my teacher, and blah, blah, blah ― back to my XBox."

Indeed, it never occurs to the Left that their ideology can become just as old and preachy ― and just as much "the establishment," which provokes youthful rebellion ― as anything the Right does.

On one hand, give kids a clear reason for accepting the notion of education. Show them that it is good for them, and that learning really is conducive to a full, rich and deep sense of happiness ― that the trials of life may pummel them on all sides, but that they hearts will know how to stand firm. Some will still reject it in the same cynical spirit. But I predict that many more will open their minds, study like they should, and go on to live fruitful, noble, and even community-spirited lives.

On the other hand, show them that the President has now joined their teachers and principals in telling them what they absolutely must do as a matter of raw imperative and duty to the nation, and they will laugh. And there is no telling how the scathing doubt in their minds will resolve itself when they start forming the opinions of adulthood. We may hope that they turn out humane, kind and open-minded. But there is no guarantee.

More Thoughts on Government

If you ask the question, "Why is the cost of health care so high?" the most popular answer among those who support the plan to nationalize it is this: companies are greedy.

There should be no doubt about this: private companies are greedy. They do not offer health insurance to be nice or philanthropic; they do it to get rich.

That said, one should keep in mind that companies don't want to get rich by simply raising prices higher and higher on individual payers; they want to get rich by lowering the prices and improving the services, which is the way to attract more customers, and compete with other companies. In light of the dispute over nationalized healthcare, it's worth asking: why isn't this happening? Despite all of the customers covered under the major insurers, why are the prices still high?

This is best explained if we consider the vast number of existing federal regulations ― consumer advocacy laws, health and safety standards, corporate procedures, etc. There are many of them, already in place; compliance alone costs companies dearly, and makes them very inefficient. Hence, the price goes up and the care goes down. How are we then supposed to accept a state solution to a problem which the state itself created?

As far as I can tell, the assumption among those who support state-run health care (or state-run anything) is this: government is inherently good. There is something about being an offical or an administrator that makes people supremely benevolent, and omni-compitent. They are exempt from greed and stupidity, and that makes them perfectly qualified to rule over so many major aspects of our lives. Is that true?

There are some, however, who admit the opposite: yes, government officials are just as greedy as private executives of major insurance companies. But the good news is that our constitutional government has checks and balances, which is something the business world does not have. Checks and balances ensure that no single interest will ever seize control of the whole aparatus of power, nor can corruption, ambition or avarice ever go too far. This guarantees a certain objectivity of the state ― meaning that, should it provide nationalized health care, it will do so in a far more humane way than existing private insurers, who, again, simply want to get rich.

This is all true, but here's the thing that people miss: today's administrative state is not part of the Founders' Constitution. There were always administrators, of course; the President couldn't do his job without them. But un-elected agents were directly responsive to the elected officials. Today's agencies, though, drift quite off on their own. (That was one of Ralph Nader's crucades in the 1970s: bring big government back to the public interest.) If we look at the history of it, the administrative state was founded on a rejection of the Constitution.

By far the most important figure in the rejection of the Constitution was Woodrow Wilson. In his highly influential work, Constitutional Government, Wilson wrote:

The trouble with the theory [of the Constitution] is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, ... Read Morenot to Newton. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life. No living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks, and live [sic]. On the contrary, its life is dependent upon their quick cooperation, their ready response to the commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose.

That is, without a doubt, a tremendous criticism of the Constitution. But anyone reading it should realize that he gave it in the name of progress. Wilson held that all those checks and balances in the legislative process obstruct of evolution; the safety-net that would prevent tyranny had now turned into a barrier that could prevent the sort of progress that the nation might need.

Hence, while he Founders wanted the Constitution to do less; Wilson wanted it to give that up so it could do more.

That, of course, is the assumption of those who call for nationalized health care ― more government. Perhaps that's the right thing; but no one can say it follows the Founders' Constitution.

But, of course, there are still reasons for advocating limited government, which stays out of private affairs, in both business and society. There are abundant reasonf ro rejecting the whole idea of progress, on which the philosophy of big government is based. :ooking at history, one finds that most of our modern ills ― whether poverty or racism or sexism or militarism or whatever ― are because of progressivism. Indeed, even antebellum slavery and westward expansion were progressive ideas. (Cf. Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone Speech," and Fredrick Jackson Turner's "Signifigance of the Frontier.") So instead of demanding more progress, I say we return, or go back to the first princples embodied in our Founding.

To speak of government specifically, though, here's the thing: an administrative agency ― say, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, OSHA, Health and Human Services, and (everyone's favorite) the Internal Revenue Service, among many others ― does not consist of democratically elected officials. They are appointed, or hired for their expertise; their power therefore does not fall into the framework of the Constitution's checks and balances. Congress funds and oversees them, and the president appoints their top-level executives; but on a day-to-day basis, they operate quite apart from the constitutional government ― with no constitutional checks on their power at all.

That is precisely what a national health care system would be. Again, perhaps that's a good thing; but we should never think that it is somehow in accordance with the Founders' Constitution.