What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear - 11-13-2010 (2)

 [Continued from “What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear — 11-13-2010 (1)". sch 8/25/24.]

I wish President Obama had better explained the economic benefits of healthcare reform. We could keep putting health care on the backs of Big Business — the cost put them at a disadvantage with foreign competitors, they employed less and less of the population. Then, too, sick people do not help the economy. Small businesses cannot compete with jobs that provide health care. 

National healthcare seems to create the governmental dependence deplored by de Tocqueville. However, the economic life of American citizens in 1840 is not comparable to today. Surely no one wants a return to an era when early death was commonplace — not any more than we want to trade places with the residents of Mumbai or Zaire. Liberty concerned de Tocqueville, and government inaction can also threaten liberty.

The Declaration of Independence contains the standards by which to judge our government. Government is to protect our equality in the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our state constitutions almost all incorporate the Declaration into their Bills of Right. Protecting those rights faces an ever increasingly technological and economic complexity of our world.

It may well be that complexity has long outstripped the power of our state governments. The New Deal recognized the failure of state governments in the face of The Great Depression. Federal dollars and their power came to the rescue. No one questioned that power during the Cold War other than conservatives like William F. Buckley Jr and Goldwater. They did not address how the states and the federal government were to work in the face of a modern economy. When Ronald Reagan came along, he had no problem using federal power to further conservative goals. 

sch

[Kind of smells like conservatives only like what they can use, regardless of ostensible ideals. To be continued in “What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear — 11-13-2010 (3)”. De Tocqueville's original chapter can be found here. sch 8/25/2024.]