politicalcivility.com Blog

As reported by SLTrib, Sutherland hosted the AG during its monthly blogger briefing.  I know there are some out in the bloggosphere that have little love for our AG and there are times when I find myself in that category, but I have to say he’s one of the more interesting politicians I’ve listened to in a long time.  He definitely wears his emotions on his sleeve, but at least in person I didn’t get the “i’m highly polished and am pulling the wool over your eyes” kind of greasy feeling that I’ve experienced with some of the other republican leadership in the state.

Anyway, the AG gave out a website during the briefing that I think everybody should go sign up for: UTAH Amber Alert Registration Form.  By adding your cell number to the alert roster, we have that many more people ready to act any time a child is abducted and there are that many more eyeballs on the lookout.  As you all know, the first three hours are the most critical and give police the best chance of finding the child and finding the child alive.

Do your part: go register!

You may remember how GE and other fluorescent bulb makers lobbied successfully to force consumers to switch to their earth-saving bulbs.  Well, now the EPA has come out revising their recommendations for where homeowners should use the bulbs, because mercury levels in the bulbs could put your little ones at risk if they break the bulb and are exposed to the mercury in the bulb.  (There’s a story about this report on www.thebostonchannel.com)

I don’t know about you, but I get the sick feeling that energy saving bulbs, ethanol and the rest of the long list of earth saving technologies are actually going to do more damage than produce any carbon offset.  It’s what we deserve when we allow bad science and a big government approach to helping us be good stewards over our private property and natural resources.

I think Clarence Thomas (Imprimis, October 2007) hit the nail on the head with this quote:

“There may be a disconnect between my world and yours, because when my grandfather was raising me, people didn’t talk about their rights so much.  They talked about civil rights, yes, but they didn’t simply talk about rights and freedom.  They talked more about the responsibility that came with freedom–about the fact that if you were to have freedom, you had to be responsible for it. 

Then..

“What my grandfather believed was that people have their responsibilities, and that if they are left alont to fulfill their responsibilities, that is freedom.”

We’d all be better of and more free if this is how we legislated and this is how we lived!

It is always great to listen to really smart people.  Sometimes when you get into the grind at work, you forget how good it feels to stretch the mind.  I think it’s one of the things I miss most about MBA school, that being bombarded with new ideas and new concepts.

Anyway, Ed Feulner, a co-founder and current president of Heritage Foundation, spoke at Sutherland Institute today.  The guy is amazing in his ability to absorb information.  He was in AZ yesterday speaking to a group, and tomorrow he heads to Los Angeles to make another speech tomorrow, and yet he was completely up to speed on what Sutherland was engaged in and knew all those involved with the institute.

With respect to his remarks, I think the one that stuck out the most was the need for “intermediate” institutions to help foster civil society: family, church, schools, and of course my favorite, local policy organizations.  Our recent trend in Utah and across the nation is to weaken these intermediate institutions and solely rely on the state, which ultimately give us the all the bad government we deserve.  Let’s push our legislators and local elected officials to push legislation that puts decision making back in the hands of “we the people” and our intermediate institutions.

Another classic quote from Joseph Story that hits the heart of powering grabbing advocates on both sides of the isle (i.e., the “WAR” on terror or the “WAR” poverty).  

It has been often said, that necessity is the plea of tyrants, but it is equally true, that it is the plea of all public bodies invested with power, where no check exists upon its exercise.

In one sentence, Story outlines the formula for power accumulation (or governmental intervetionalism, which ultimately leads to totalitarianism):  create or magnify a crisis (necessity for fixing/intervening), make it emotional so that rational thinking is easy to marginalize, and once the public is in uproar, pass legislation that increases the size and scope of government and accumulates power to the state. 

Simple and proven strategy.  Perhaps next time we here of the next “WAR” on anything we would do well to ask if by adopting the “solution” of the advocate do I gain freedom or surrender it.

FDR made the “forgotten man” idea popular.  What most people don’t realize is that FDR used the idea incorrectly.  The father of the idea of the forgotten man was a Yale professor named William Graham Sumner.  Sumner’s forgotten man was a part of an algebra equation that goes as follows: Person A and Person B want to help Person X.  This equation describes a true charitable impulse.  The forgotten man appears when we change the equation to look like this: Person A and Person B join together to pass a law that forces Person C into co-funding their project for Person X.  In this equation the forgotten man is Person C.

Person C is the common or forgotten man, not Person X.  Person C does not take from the government or others; he only contributes and because he does not need or want the government’s help, he is soon forgotten for he cannot be purchased with a program. 

FDR twisted the concept to refer to Person X and in so doing became the first president on a large scale to essentially buy voting blocks of forgotten men.  Under this scenario the floodgates of government spending have ballooned, because special interest groups under the guise of the forgotten man are pleading for ever increasing dollars for their particular forgotten man.  A most recent example is the current SCHIP bill being debated, which now says that the vast middle class America is now a forgotten man.  Forgive my cynicism here, but the middle class is not forgotten man, though this is the forgotten man that surprisingly enough was the group of forgotten men that benefitted most from FDR’s welfare policies and not the poor. 

As we look at our current battles in the US Legislature over porkbarrel politics and earmarking, perhaps we may find our answer or counter in bringing back to the minds of voters the true concept of the forgotten man as espoused by Sumner and by adding this new forgotten man to the debate: our children and grandchildren who will be paying for our excess.

In closing let me share some comments from Amity Shlaes, a Bloomberg columnist and the author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.

“The overall lesson of this is that we can continue to respect many aspects of Roosevelt’s presidency today.  But we shouldn’t have false nostalgia about it.  After all, it was Roosevelt’s political machinations in the 1936 campaign…that gave us the ‘earmarks’ that bedevil Congress today…the new forgotten men are the grandchildren who will pay if we do not give up some of that costly nostalgia.”  (”The Legacy of the 1936 Election”, Amity Shlaes, Imprimis, September 2007, v. 36, No.9)

Personal Responsibility

There is a burden that comes with freedom, and if we wish to enjoy the blessings of liberty, we must (as Paine said), “undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” 

But what does “support” look like?  An initial thought would point to serving in the armed forces or it may take the form of being informed and participating actively in the civic process.  All of these are good answers, but only get us half way there.

The Other Half

The other half of the burden is the willingness to accept the natural consquences of the choices I make.  The willingness to accept personal responsibility.  Personal responsibility requires that as citizens we accept the fact that we are agents to ACT and not to be acted upon, and then behave accordingly. I firmly believe that in the generally wide acceptance of the princple and concept of personal responsibility is one of the key factors which has helped separate America and it’s success from other experiments in freedom.  The whole idea of the “American Dream” is rooted in the accepting of one’s circumstance and then working to improve it.

When we begin to push government to remove the natural consequences of our actions or allow government to create policy that disincentivizes individuals from taking personal responsibility, we begin down the slippery slope of oppression and tyranny.

Let us be anxious to account for our actions/decisions good and bad.  Though the bad may be painful at times, it is far less painful in the long run than having to bear the weight of an oppressive government.