Is government to be our Provider / Parent or the Defender of our Liberty?
The contentious divide between political poles in America today turns on the answer to this question and those answers are mutually exclusive.
American doctrine recognizes the just purpose of government is to defend each person in the exercise of liberties inherent to his/her human nature;
- personal agency
- property
- association
- contract
- conscience
- expression
Under this definition of purpose, (the one on which our government is constituted) force-of-law action is constrained by the equality of each person’s rights because government intervention favoring one person or group at the expense of others is opposed by those who are infringed by the action.
When the equal defense of each person’s natural liberty defines government’s purpose then our own equal standing serves as the “brake” on government overgrowth and encroachment.
By contrast, if the purpose of government is to provide subsistence, legislate social outcomes or engineer statistical parity among protected-class “identity groups”‘ then the power of government (and those who people it) is virtually unlimited. It should not be surprising that those seeking to transform America into a totalitarian, socialist state have pursued each of these functions with such vigor! Their agenda requires re-defining the fundamental purpose of American government.
Our nation’s founders recognized that any form of “benevolence” funded by the earnings of others and exercised with the force of law could only be corrupting of both government and the public it’s supposed to serve. Permitting our government to become a “provider” of sustenance or an engineer of “fair outcomes” empowers politicians to convert inevitable human deficiencies into power for themselves.
When the role of government is redefined from defender of liberties to provider of sustenance, our equality under the law is forfeit. The prosperity-producing interdependent exchange that characterizes a free society is then gradually replaced by rancorous competition for the government’s favor. Any candid observation of contemporary American society and political discourse would have to admit this degradation is in process.
America’s founders were unambiguous in stating the purpose for which this government was instituted: to secure the natural, (inalienable, pre-Constitutional) liberties of each person.
But the monarchy from which they sought to extricate themselves saw the role of government in very different terms; an all-powerful ruler authorized by God Himself to engineer society. At its best; a monarchy presents as a benevolent and parental “provider” of sustenance, order, moral authority. At its worst; it is a tyrant which enslaves its subjects. Ironically, today’s political left (which calls itself alternately “liberal” and “progressive”) holds a view of government’s role not far removed from those of the ancient monarchs.
The equal defense of each person’s natural liberty serves as an essential barrier to the totalitarian inclinations intrinsic to any government; any entity to which the force-of-law is entrusted. If liberty is to be preserved, this barrier must not be allowed to crumble!
The equal standing of each person’s natural liberty must forever serve as the PURPOSE of our government, the MEASURE of JUSTICE and the IMMOVABLE BARRIER to totalitarian control of American society.
