Go Get ‘Em, Fred!

Well, it’s finally official (and I don’t mean my non-abandonment of this blog). Fred Dalton Thompson finally stopped pussy-footing around and decided to officially run for President. Go get ‘em, Fred.

Personally, I don’t know enough about Fred to have much of an informed opinion one way or the other. I like his Arthur Branch character on “Law and Order” and I suspect that a good deal of the character’s believability comes from Fred, but I also keep in mind that what I’m seeing on TV isn’t Fred. It’s Fred’s interpretation of what the writers and directors have put in front of him.

The media hype seems to be trying to position Fred as being the next Reagan. Aside from both men having had modest success in Hollywood and both seeing themselves as being political conservatives, I don’t see much commonality. But what I do appreciate about Fred is that he really seems to “get” the whole idea of federalism. And that seems to be at the root of many of his more “controversial” stands. I don’t have an inside source, a psychic link or anything, so what follows is me spouting off on the issue. If we’re on the same sheet of music, great. If we’re not, I hope we get there some day.

One of the great fallacies that seems to come out of our public classrooms today is that states are somehow offspring of the national government. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The national government is the offspring of the original 13 states. Consider, for example, the Declaration of Independence (the actual declaration part - the rest is mostly propaganda for the masses with some nice ideas thrown in for spice).

That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.[emphasis mine]

Note the constant usage of the plural. After Britain’s agreement that the colonies were no longer subjects of the Crown, we have thirteen independent countries sitting on the Atlantic seaboard, not one. They are “states” only in the sense of being political entities, not in the sense of being subordinate units of a larger entity. This is probably where the confusion sets in: the same word is being used to mean two different things. These countries recognized that their common interests far outweighed their differences and that it would be in their best interest to form a political union of some sort rather than having to face the world on their own. Not that there weren’t a few hitches along the way. There was that argument between Connecticut and Pennsylvania over some land in what is now Ohio that had some folks talking war (which would have been really interesting for people in New York). It was eventually worked out, but the idea soon caught on that a functioning national government of some sort was required.

So, between May and September 1787, these thirteen countries managed to hammer out a framework for a national government that was more or less palatable to all of them and, following some really heated arguments over just how palatable, the Constitution was eventually ratified. In order to create that national government, the thirteen countries had to give up some of the political powers they had won through the Revolutionary War. The powers that those thirteen countries gave to the national government alone (called “delegated powers” for all you budding political scientists out there) were those powers that the framers believed were necessary for the national government to deal with national problems and issues. The remaining powers (called “reserved powers”), the thirteen countries (OK, “states” might be appropriate at this point) kept for themselves.

The idea was that the national government should deal with national problems and the states would deal with everything else. And that’s how it went, at least until someone started mucking around with the idea. Who did it, what they did, when they did it and why they did it is the stuff of which doctoral disserations are made. And since this isn’t one of those, we’ll just have to settle for the fact that it happened. “What happened?”, you might well ask. The answer is simple enough: somewhere along the line, someone got the idea that almost every problem was a national problem and the states, instead of being somewhat equal partners in this federal venture, were relegated to the position of being employees. Not even mid- or lower-management in a lot of cases.

I understand the rationale of the people who like this situtation. First, it provides at least a modicum of consistency throughout the country. This would generally be considered a “good thing” by those who like consistency; not so good from the individualistic side. Second, you only have to convince 270 people (218 Representatives, 51 Senators and 1 President) to solve a problem. That’s about twice what you would have to convince in Texas since our state government is significantly smaller, but you’d have to repeat the process for every state in order to achieve consistency. I guess from a more cynical standpoint, it’s cheaper to bribe (OK, “influence”) 270 people than a few thousand.

But you solve the problem at the expense of the liberties that are maintained by the constant bickering of the states and the national government. See, the Founding Fathers had the right idea. If you want to preserve liberties from the encroachments of a powerful government, you divide the power to abridge those liberties among competing groups. Since the groups compete, they’ll seldom agree and even then it will only be on important things (which is what you want in the first place).

So, Fred, I hope you’re remembering the second question: is it the national government’s problem? For those who may have missed it, the first question would have been “is it a problem in the first place?” If the answer is “no” to either question, that’s why they invented the veto. Go get ‘em!

This entry was posted on Sunday, 9 September 2007 at 18:03 and is filed under News and Politics, History, Whatever. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.