POLITICAL PARADOXES

1. In the 1960’s most of the “Imperial Powers” (such as Britain, France, etc.) “liberated” their colonies in Africa (and elsewhere). Then what happened? In almost all instances in Africa tinhorn leaders took over (often changing hands through crude coups) and became absolute kings and other kinds of dictators, while often killing untold numbers of innocents in the process. Essentially in every case, these potentates have not only enjoyed their “power,” but also continuously sopped up for their personal use much of the riches of the newly founded countries. Usually they did this in the name of “reform” and “redistribution.” PARADOX: Over the succeeding years did these same “advanced” countries learn anything from these unintended consequences?

Not a thing, apparently! Leaders in Western Europe, for example, have proceeded to build their “welfare states” to ridiculous proportions while they, politically speaking, have gotten into bed with the dictators in Africa, and with deserved guilt feelings, and egged on by the UN and others, they have poured billions of dollars of routinely misused “foreign aid” into Africa, and especially into their former colonies. This has, largely, benefited the dictators, but not the “people” themselves. America has done the same thing with its “foreign aid.” Some of the main beneficiaries in America, it seems, have been certain Hollywood types!

2. In recent years a newly vigorous and rapidly growing China, with its “market economy” (once they got rid of Mao – and even before), has obviously recognized for China economic opportunities in Africa. In equivalent value, they have progressively built a yearly trade with Africa of over 100 billions of dollars. Probably, this will only become greater! According to an article in The Atlantic (May 2010 issue, “The Next Empire?”), the Chinese have done this by “investing” in Africa, and not by following the lead of western countries and their “foreign aid.” China has used their money and respective experts to promote and to help build Africa’s cities, their roads, railroads, ports, etc. (Earlier they concentrated on agriculture, but apparently have largely screwed that up. See the article.) Reportedly the Chinese do not openly condescend to the Africans as does much of the rest of the world, but seemingly treat them as mutually valuable business partners. More specifically, they do not try, as others in the West do, to “bribe” the Africans to change their forms of government using “foreign aid” dollars – or anything else. PARADOX: If the Chinese are indeed doing these things, they are revealing an understanding of international business and human nature that the West might well follow, part of it at least – and better be doing so fast! How frustrating is it to realize that some of this kind of behavior should be part of America’s beacon to the world – its liberty! Truly, freedom is not free. And that was understood by many during the last quarter of the 18th Century, but understood to a progressively lesser extent over the succeeding two hundred years! Instead, if anything, we are now competing (!) with Western Europe to see who can build the best “Welfare State.” All of that said, apparently the China of today – according to the article in The Atlantic – has also been self-serving, to the point that their imperiousness has alienated some of the educated and important Africans. In other words, neither the approach of the West nor that of China is what it should be. Above all, Africans need the restraints of real freedom to make and correct their own mistakes they do not need bribery and alms – the Africans know how to do these things already. China’s approach versus The West’s approach? Africa needs something in between!

3. In the first 162 years of our United States’ official existence, aside from our Revolutionary War, we have had three “larger” wars – the Civil War, WWI, WWII. Ostensibly, the Civil War was fought to “save the Union”; WWI to “save the world for democracy”; and WWII to defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Togo. We have been so proud to be able to say the “we never lost a war” (until Vietnam!). Anyway, what was the terrible price of these particular wars? Sure, hundreds of thousands of lives, many egregious injuries and psychological losses. Sure, but what about the tremendous growth and stature of the central government during these wars? Oh that. That was just incidental, and even desirable! (Uh-huh!) PARADOX: For just one thing, during our Civil War we lost over 600,000 lives, and incurred huge numbers of significant injuries, etc. There are many things to be learned from that war, but today among the lesser-realized aspects, is the fact that slavery – in the 19th Century – disappeared from the rest of the “modern world” without civil war, therefore without the attendant great loss of life and limb! Brazil, for example, a country that imported more slaves (some 5 millions), and more than any other country including ours, eventually banished slavery without a civil war. That is worth thinking about. Furthermore, the dreaded “secession” was threatened by other states long before the southern states actually did it. As a matter of fact, our Constitution does not contain anything that says secession is illegal, despite Lincoln’s public claim that he could not accept the dissolution of the Union, even to outlaw slavery! (Of course, that does not make secession desirable either.) The huge devastation of both “world wars” (especially the second one for Americans, but worse for other countries on both sides in each of those wars) was indeed terrible! But many fewer people, excepting perhaps some economists and lawyers and a few others, realize how much these wars, and all other wars as well, have contributed to the growth of our central government, AND the citizens’ acceptance of that growth! This “perhaps” necessary growth of executive power (as well as the power of the other two branches of our central government,) during wars is never, but never, entirely reversed after the wars. Consider that, too. So, if one wonders how wars have contributed to the growth of our central government (and at least part of its ability to indulge in the kind of nonsense that we have experienced in Washington the past few years.), wonder no more.

4. Many citizens of the U.S., I think, believe that our “two-party system” is good for the country. PARADOX: Perhaps some aspects of the “two-party system” are indeed good for the country (forget about third and fourth parties – they have never yet really played much of a role in our country) – but it is well to consider how much the disciplined two-party system [there are all sorts of formal organizational parts] have contributed to a diminution of the so-called “vertical” part of the system of checks and balances in our “government.” That is, the “check” that the legislatures of our various states were originally supposed to have on the central government. That was a very important part of the “checks and balance” system that the framers of our government thought that they had put in place early on – not just the “horizontal” checks and balances of the central government itself (composed as it is of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches). Forget for the moment the “migration” of power from the legislature (house and senate) to both the executive and judicial branches (especially to the latter); even more important is the vertical check and balance between the States and the central government! By the way (“history”) there were in the “beginning” no real parties, even though there have been recorded many debates between the so-called Republican Party and the Federalist Party back in the late 18th Century and into the first years of the 19th century. These “parties” did not have formal structure. The formal Republican Party of today was not born until 1854! That was then the party to which Lincoln belonged, and from which he attained the White House. Out of the opposition hodgepodge developed the formal Democrat Party. And, the Democrat Party became, in the early decades of the 19th Century, much divided between the north and south by virtue of conflicting ideas concerning slavery. (Otherwise, Lincoln would not have become our President.) In any case, to understand how the parties have changed the “vertical limb” of our checks and balances system, citizens today need to recognize how large a role our two main parties do play now in each of our States, and how much more important they have become than the elected legislatures of the States. The “two-party system” is so pervasive, both in DC and throughout our country, that it has assumed a role never envisioned by our country’s framers! We even have “red” and “blue” states now. Madison, Jefferson, and even Hamilton would not recognize our present governmental situation. The framers did believe in necessary “flexibility” for our Constitution (largely through amendments) to go with the inevitable and expected evolution that society would take in the following centuries, but – let’s face it – the system the framers set up was not equal to that evolution!

5. Presently, in different locales in America, we have ongoing “battles” among Teachers’ Unions, School Boards and the rest of the citizens (who are mostly concerned about their children getting a good education!). For example, we have, finally, begun, here and there, to try “experiments” with merit pay for teachers (i.e., an individual teacher’s pay tied to better scholastic performance by -students). And sometimes this also includes parallel attempts to dispose of “tenure.” Many teachers enjoy tenure (which means effectively that they cannot be fired), while some parents maintain that tenure causes certain teachers to avoid doing their best at teaching. The Teachers’ Unions have opposed both merit pay and abolishing “tenure.” PARADOX: Even some teachers who might favor the concept of merit pay are still against actual attempts to introduce it! For example, I personally know two effective and experienced teachers who vehemently oppose merit pay because they are “sure” the wrong teachers would receive it. They state that they “know” local education politics would produce this unintended result! And no argument to the contrary is considered. These teachers are adamant in their position; they refuse even to discuss it. (They happen to be married to each other; one is a life-long Democrat and the other a life-long Republican.)

6. America’s immigration policy has a long, checkered history. While Americans universally accept the idea that immigration has in general been a boon to this country, there are instances of specific immigration policies – usually in retrospect – that are also universally condemned by Americans. More recently, many Americans have become exercised about immigrants from South America (usually through Mexico). In states that border on Mexico, and recently especially in Arizona, there has been a rising chorus of indignation at the inability of the “authorities” to halt the tide of “unregulated” immigrants through Mexico, and especially “illegal” or “undocumented” ones. Among other effects, this has led some American citizens to openly wear side arms, and loudly declare that they will take things into their own hands since “Washington” has obviously been impotent, despite much “Congressional discussion” of the matter. PARADOX: For much of the 19th Century and before, many Americans throughout the country, males especially, wore six-guns strapped to their waists. For the most part, they provided their own “justice,” especially, but not exclusively, in the West (meaning, west of the Mississippi)! There even was a largely unwritten code of honor that supposedly governed the use of such guns during that time. But especially in the 20th Century Americans pride themselves on the progressive outlawing of the open display of side arms. And some Americans have even tried to ban legal ownership of guns of any kind. In the last analysis, the 2d Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. has proved to be the most effective bar to outlawing gun ownership altogether. But the tide has shifted! Now one sees more and more instances of ordinary Americans, male and female, legally owning and carrying guns (not only in the west). And, as alluded to above, this has even begun to include many ordinary Americans obtaining permits to openly strap on hand guns! Déjà vu! (At least on TV, that is.) While I personally believe that old slogan, “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” Still, I would not want to return to the “old days” (not so long ago!) when everyone was largely held responsible for his/her own justice! “Justice” is, and should be, one of the very few responsibilities of “government,” central or local. “Government” will occasionally screw that up, too – especially these days. But otherwise, who can or could do it “half-way equitably”?
+++++++++++++++++++

What to do about all of these paradoxes, and others like them? What should be done? What could anybody do? A simile may help: It is taught in medical schools that it is usually much more desirable to know and thus to treat the underlying disease than to treat only its symptoms! Problem is, a physician doesn’t always know what is the disease, and when that is the case, he or she is required to ”treat the symptoms.”

While political problems are not medical problems the situation is nonetheless similar:

First off, the number of “symptoms” that might call attention to an underlying political problem is a number always less, much less, than the number of possible causes for that same political problem. Unfortunately, that situation thus allows politicians (as it does physicians in medicine (!) to “spin” their theories about the cause of a particular problem – political or medical. And, in the political, as in the medical arena, the “evidence” from all quarters, statistical as well as anecdotal, is brought to bear by the gurus and talking heads. Furthermore, regardless of the problem at hand, it is amazing how often is the very same “evidence” used by opposing sides (in both of these professions) to arrive at drastically different theoretical causes! However, be it a political disease or a medical disease there is really only one right answer: treat the disease and not just the symptoms!

To carry this simile further, one might contrast the very confusing (in earlier decades) history, causation and transmission of malaria with, say, the history, causation and transmission of slavery. And, even now with the cause of malaria and its transmission well known and accepted, the ramifications in America and around the world are still hotly debated. And, slavery in human affairs is also in many ways a largely a settled issue, but in America and around the world slavery is still hotly debated!

Where do these two examples, from widely different areas, intersect?

Right. Politics!

Recently, groups of U. S. citizens across our country, often calling themselves things like “Tea Party Patriots,” are up in arms about the huge spending policies of our present government. These are largely spontaneous and unconnected groups (comprised to varying extents of adherents of all political parties) call our government’s huge spending spree an unconscionable burden on future generations, and unsustainable. Of course, most of our “progressive” types, in and out of government, claim that these citizens are “uninformed,” and sometimes they even publicly call them “uneducated morons,” etc.

Of course, most of our politicians in “opposition,”(i.e., those out of political power right now) are trying to tap into this movement, and even “organize it” so as to change places with the political party that is presently in power. They, plus many “ordinary citizens” advocate a kind of “civil disobedience,” which would, in effect, roll back “excessive” government expenditures. These different kinds of “civil disobedience vary from unrealistic and sometimes violent “solutions” to simply “voting them out” (whatever that means to different people).
But almost all of these “solutions” try to treat the symptoms – not the disease! What is this “disease”?

THE LEGAL POWER TO COERCE!

Going to the taproot, it is any government’s “Power to Coerce”! That is the disease. What would differentiate, otherwise, “government” from any other human organization?

Is any other societal entity given this power to coerce? No. Legally speaking, only the various “governments” have this power – only the governments! (Otherwise, for example, why would “lobbying” be such an attractive and lucrative business?)
If this is the “disease,” what is the “treatment”? Well, it is certainly not trying to vote-in only those who would use such huge power responsibly. In the first place, those who put themselves up for election are, as a group, no smarter and no dumber and no more altruistic than those citizens, as a group, who do not put themselves up for election.

What is the proper treatment then?

In the first place, the citizens of any country should be very, very, careful about the kind of government to which they convey such power! In our country, for which many men and women risked their lives in 1776 and following years, the “framers” tried hard to put together a Constitution that would curb this power of coercion. Furthermore, they attempted to provide for flexibility, thus allowing for inevitable future change and evolution of its society. But they failed!

There has been change all right! For one thing, there has been growth; we are now some 300 millions of citizens. But the main change over some 230-plus years has been a seemingly inexorable growth of our central government and its arrogation of ever more power to coerce its citizens! And, paradoxically, much of this has happened in the name of new “rights” for its citizens! Concomitantly, there has been a progressive weakening of the power of our individual and collective States vis a vis the central government. That these things have happened demonstrates that our framers failed. They tried to set up the Constitution of our government so as to prevent exactly these things from happening – but they didn’t!
So, they failed. What should we citizens do now?

Well for one thing let us not try to treat only the “symptoms”! Let us try to treat the “disease.” This all did not happen over a short time, thus, unfortunately, we cannot realistically expect that we could reverse it all very rapidly either. But, central to any lasting attempt to reverse matters is to properly focus on what is the underlying cause: the “disease.” This is easier said than done! Why? Among other reasons, we citizens must be prepared to do this over several generations of citizens. That means we must educate our offspring to realize that there is “no free lunch,” that freedom is not free, that we do NOT have many natural “rights.” (We have the right to certain “inalienable rights,” and among them are “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Certainly this does NOT include any right to a certain kind of “insurance,” etc.) These succeeding generations must realize that it is necessary to accept their own individual responsibility, and that they must not rely in any way on the government for this and related responsibilities.
How do we do this? That’s for each citizen to figure out for him or herself, but I believe that consistent support, in word (email, etc.) and deed (money), of those institutions that honestly pledge to reverse this trend is important. Following is a list of entities that I support and which actually try to do something to reverse the trend (there are many others as well):

1. Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
2. CATO
3. George Mason University
4. Institute for Justice
5. Hillsdale College
6. REASON magazine (they also have a foundation)

To find more information concerning any of the organizations of this list, consult the Internet.

Sincerely,
Dallas B. Tuthill, M.D.