The Withering State

This coming month I will write less about current political issues and more about the overarcing concerns that a few in politics have finally recognized as critical to our future. Since at least the 60s, but it goes futher back for intellectuals, there has been constant denigration of ideology. In the political realm, if someone is true to an ideology they are considered an extremist, small-minded, foolish, stubborn, unwilling to pragmatically compromise and play the political game. If a politician will not go against principles at times, it's tough to survive in Washington DC, because the State isn't concerned with principles -- the political elite who benefit from a powerful State are concerned with the expansion of power, management and control.

Many good reasons have been given for a powerful State which sometimes, according to pragmatic statists, has to push government beyond the Constitution, because if the Constitution had been obeyed all along our history, there would be no powerful State. Statists will have us believe that without a powerful, intervening State machine supported by a government which has a monopoly on coercion, we'd have no safety net and common welfare would go unattended. Under a limited governmen there would be a minimal government responsible for rights protection, border defense and settling disputes in court. If we had obeyed the Constitution all along, border issues would likely be less of a concern. For one thing it's doubtful we'd have the War on Drugs and the problems we face on the Mexican border. We would likely not have intervened in European wars and the mideast, so we most likely would not be fighting a War on Terror. This is all speculation, but no one can deny that America would be much different had we abided by a limited government from the beginning. What about the safety net under a limited government? This will be one of the main issues I address.

This next month I will try to show how a powerful State which constantly expands power will either destroy the nation or we'll live in slow decline with our standard of living falling significantly across the board. Those who benefit will be relatively few, and they will exist in the political realm which will completely manage and control the economy. We're moving toward an American form of social democracy, as we have been been since FDR, but it's really a modern fascism. It seems funny to say we're moving toward a political/economic arrangement over a period of 80 years, but if we look at Rome's decline, or Great Britain's decline, we see American history since the 20th century as it is over what seems to us as a long time, but historically is a month or so, if that. The big question now is whether Americans will allow this to happen, and, if Americans resist, can they prevent it from happening. I will start thinking about an America with a different type of "state", one that has nothing to do with a few dominating the many. The title says withering, but for now only the concept is withering.