- Ron Paul is frequently, and correctly, praised as the
lone constitutionalist in Congress. But he is truly the exception that
proves the rule: our government is no longer bound by anything resembling
the written limitations of the Constitution.
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- I used to share the minarchist view. A small, limited
government seemed possible and pragmatic. Even that's changed since
September
11th. Instead of rethinking the foreign policy that contributed to the
attacks, the government piled on more of the same. Instead of firing the
chiefs of the FAA, CIA, and FBI, those agencies get more funding. The
attacks
on September 11th have given the federal government an excuse to shear
all but the ghostly forms of any remaining constitutionally guaranteed
liberties from a sheep-like people. Torture, constant surveillance, seizure
upon suspicion, suspension of habeas corpus, abolishment of Posse
Comitatus,
and warrant-less searches of your person and property are either in effect
or under serious debate. Imagine, torture in the United States! The United
States has become a police state, all with our precious, written
Constitution
still moldering under glass in Washington, D.C.
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- In the span of less than 100 years communism peaked and
collapsed in the Soviet Union. Communism failed because it was based on
severely flawed assumptions about people, and what motivates them. I think
itís time to admit that the idea of a Constitutionally limited
government
has failed as well. It, too, is based on flawed assumptions about people.
Perhaps not as spectacularly wrong as communism, but wrong, nonetheless.
Since it has taken over 200 years to produce our American
"Stalinism-lite",
and it has not yet collapsed, perhaps we can say constitutionally limited
republicanism is at least three times better than communism. Or, to
paraphrase
Churchill the worst government yet invented, but better than all the rest
tried so far.
-
- We can always feel better about our revolutionaries than
the Russians do about the Bolsheviks; ours didn't purges millions after
winning the war. Our patriots fought for individual, God given rights,
instead of aetheistic utopian groups rights. Still, the men who founded
our current Republic by writing and ratifying the Constitution understood
the dangerous path they were taking. Students of antiquity, they tried
to avoid following the Roman path of Kingdom, then Republic, then Empire,
by writing everything down. It turns out in practice that the "social
contract" cannot bind the politician or the entrenched bureaucrat,
any more than the Soviet Union could make the New Soviet Man. In hindsight
we can see that a piece of paper is no match for the linguistic gymnastics
of our permanent caste of lawyer kings.
-
- When things do change in this country, it will not be
because the bureaucrats, professional liars, and assorted utopians come
to work one day and say "Gee, we failed in our job. The private market
would be so much better at this." It will be because the people have
finally figured out that Ben Franklin was right all along, liberty
canít
be traded for security, and it looks like Rothbard, Spooner, and Patrick
Henry were right about the Constitution.
-
- It's time for we the people to let go of our sentimental
attachment to the Constitution; our politicians broke their allegiance
to it long ago. Like communism, it may sound like a good idea on paper,
but it hasnít worked in practice. It just took longer to fail.
Iíve
made the journey from skeptical Republican to minarchist Libertarian to
anarcho-capitalist in a few short years. Thankfully, I had the Internet
to help me stand on the libertarian shoulders of free-market and freedom
minder thinkers. Forget the Constitution. It didnít work. It's time
to start thinking about a government-free future.
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-
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- John Keller owns an Internet consulting firm
specializing
in small businesses.
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- Copyright © 2001 LewRockwell.com
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