Our Beggar Kings

First, they have a dream… or a delusion. This is typically accompanied by wildly inflated notions as to their talents, capabilities, leadership ability, and the value of their “ideas”. Then they ask for support from, first, friends and family, and then from “associates” who, more likely than not, have their own agenda and are looking primarily at the profit-making and power-accumulating potential of the deal. Then they do this thing called “testing the waters”, which basically means putting out a proposal and seeing how many people are interested vs. how many laugh and call them a fool. Then it comes time to get more money – referred to as “contributions” but more properly called “bribes” or at the very least “investments”. Then comes the really humiliating part, where they have to race up and down the land, glad-handing and smiling at people they would normally never associate with (or invite to a dinner party). They get to try out their rhetorical skills, coming up with a fetid brew of vapid ideas, plans, and “programs”… trotting out every “buzz word” and demagogic device they can think of, basically selling themselves for votes to people who believe that they stand to gain something from the promises made – mostly that by supporting this person they are increasing the likelihood that he will eventually find a way to take money out of other people’s pockets and put it into their own. And should all of this low and calculating activity succeed, what then? Why, the process simply continues at the same rate, but this time from a “power base” from which he can demonstrate that, indeed, putting him in office was a good idea because look at all the jobs, new wealth, prosperity, and happiness that has been created by merely putting him at the helm. Of course, what is not mentioned is that the entire economy has been played as a zero-sum game, whereby for every winner there must be at least one loser, and one can only hope the losers don’t all get together and start comparing notes.

And who, after all, are these wretched excuses for humanity who play such devious games and practice deceit on such a monumental level… and, more often than not, get away with it? Why, our very own politicians, of course! Now, the question is, how did things get this way – how did _we_ get this way – and what, if anything, can be done about it? To begin, let’s think about the “original intent” – to borrow a term from conservatives on the Supreme Court – of elective office, with an emphasis on the federal level. For one thing, no one ever imagined that there would someday be such a thing as the “career politician” – this would have seemed like an abomination to people imbued with the Protestant work ethic and with notions of self-sufficiency and individualism. Politics (and the term was rarely used) at the time was considered a form of service, and a duty which only the best-qualified and most-respected would be expected to take an interest in (but only a temporary one at that). It would be performed with, perhaps, even a bit of reluctance and always with due humility, since we had made it clear that we weren’t interested in kings or “rulers” of any sort. And mainly, it would be performed in the context of a governmental structure so limited that it can barely be conceived of today. The elected official was charged with the defense of the nation and with upholding the Constitution – which, after all, is a very brief document, albeit grand in inspiration. A person would take leave of his usual occupation and go to the capital to serve for a while, then return and become a normal citizen again – none of the present-day trappings of bogus elitism and perpetual royalty would be found.

Yes, this may be a slightly rosier-than-due picture of the situation. But if one compares the “career trajectory” of the Founding Fathers and early politicians to that of today’s public figures, one finds differences so vast that it’s amazing they can be considered comparable in any way. And yet, the Constitution certainly doesn’t forbid anyone from becoming a politician for life, and it also does not forbid – at least not explicitly enough – the growth of government into an all-encompassing entity that is involved with every aspect of the lives of citizens, and that therefore requires not only thousands of elected officials but millions of bureaucrats to keep it going. The question then becomes, does the current situation represent the long-term consequence of a fatal flaw in the founding documents or in the thinking of those who wrote them? I think in most cases issues were not spelled out more explicitly because it was simply assumed that anyone with any sense would understand what was intended, and what the intended, i.e. common-sense, limits to government power were. Surely if the founders had anticipated the deterioration in our ideas of government which has occurred over the years, they might have provided a much more explicit, and longer, document – kind of like the tax code, where nothing is left to chance. Or – they might have simply despaired of the entire process, arguing that people who have to be fed freedom with a spoon and a bib really don’t understand it, and are therefore not entitled to it… that, in the long run, their incomprehension will open wide the door to tyranny. But these men were idealists, after all, and they really did expect people to use their heads and not use the government as a club with which to assault their neighbors. On the other hand, they were realists enough to provide for a separation of powers – which only the negligence of succeeding generations has distorted beyond recognition. We now have courts making law rather than interpreting it, and legislatures rubber-stamping the most outrageous abuses by the executive branch. Our present-day Congress stands by helpless as the courts invalidate laws they worked feverishly to draw up and pass, and as presidents wage wars solely on their own initiative. So, much of the blame can be laid at the feet of legislatures, which are, in turn, full of careerists who will do anything – make any compromise – in order not to risk being voted out of office. Presidents hold power for a season, and seem to delight in doing as much damage as possible, knowing they will never be held accountable. And judges go to their graves after having accumulated more power than the founders ever dreamed of. And through it all, nary a peep is heard from the real victims, i.e. the ordinary citizens, because they have been “educated” to believe that all of this is well and good, and necessary, and a natural “evolution” of the system – good at the time, but largely outmoded – that was devised at the beginning.

So we can say, whose fault is it, and the answer is, basically, everybody’s. But as to a remedy? What started as an idea has run up on the rocks of cynicism, greed, corruption, power hunger, and, yes, outright self-destructiveness and treason. But can ideas once again be brought to bear, and constitute a cure, or at least start turning the tide? The prognosis is not good, because even when ideas consistent with the intent of the Founding Fathers are broached, they are hooted down by the media, vehemently opposed by politicians, and ignored by the bulk of the electorate. We have a few voices crying in the wilderness, but make no mistake – it is a wilderness. And it doesn’t help that so many of those original concepts have been perverted to the point where they are now part of the problem. “Democracy” – the concept behind the Constitution – is now identified with catastrophic military adventures overseas. “Freedom” can be converted into cultural degeneracy and moral anarchy, without much effort and if people are willing to ignore the consequences. And “liberty" is that thing which has been so eroded by successive wars, depressions, social movements, and other crises that most people don’t have the remotest image of what it might entail. And this is another point – what I call the “great unstated assumption”, aside from plain common sense, that seems to be implied by our founding documents and principles. It is the simple self-respect that people are presumed to have by virtue of being part of the created order. But we have outlawed any mention of, or implication of, the idea that the order of things has been “created”. Our vision has gone from reverence and awe to economics and "social justice", which is, more often than not, a way of rationalizing the politics of envy and resentment. In any case, when man is simply the result of blind, impersonal forces -- when it’s all random, all chance, all accidental -- then anything is permitted, to borrow from Dostoyevsky. So we become a demoralized – in the literal sense – people. And somehow, all the efforts of academics to substitute secular “values”, i.e. ethics with no moral foundation, don’t seem to have filled the gap. So yes, we are a different people from those for whom the Constitution was written, and it is very difficult to imagine how we can ever return to the point where we will be once again worthy of its wisdom – and of the freedom it provides. And our politicians, far from being exceptional, are sadly just like all the rest of us, but placed on high on pedestals of straw.