During the Bush years, we occasionally heard that liberals who had long been skeptical of federalism and limited government were gaining new appreciation for these concepts. My suspicion was that this "new apprecitation" would last only as long as the Republicans controlled the government. So, it's not surprising to read this:
Amanda Shanor, president of the [American Constituion] society's chapter at Yale Law School, said many liberal students were submitting their résumés to the transition team. After long thinking that government was controlled by conservatives and must be curbed, she said, the students "feel like government now can be potentially a huge force for social justice."
Note to Yale liberal students, and others joining the Obama Administration: any new power that you win for Obama will eventually be used, and abused, by future Republican administrations. (And for that matter, you might not ultimately be so thrilled with how Obama or future Democratic president use the power, either; it's a categorical mistake to think the fundamental problem with abusive government is who is in power, rather than the existence of the power itself, combined with human nature.)
In fairness, I should point out that conservatives are notorious for talking a great limited government game while out of power, and, once appointed to any position of governmental authority, spending every waking moment trying to increase their fiefdom. Especially irksome are conservatives who advocate limited government when in opposition, become cabinet secretaries who lobby heavily to expand their departments' budgets, and later spend their "retirement" on the conservative rubber chicken circuit bemoaning "big government."
As a default Republican every time one ascends to the Presidency I am hopeful for a restrained government but usually disappointed.
Then we got Nixon and the sudden realization that an imperial president was not always the best for the country. Since then we have had big government Democrats and big government Republicans. My fear is much of the country thinks one man can solve all their problems.
Are you concerned that Obama will try to claim new powers for the executive, or merely that he will exercise executive powers that have long been recognized, e.g. working with congress to pass legislation that expands government programs?
There's a difference. I understand the conservative preference for "smaller government", but expanding the size of the federal government is not the same thing as expanding executive power.
Now it's certainly rather short sighted to be against large government when "your part" is in opposition, but for it when it is in power, but I don't know if it's logically incoherent. Consistent libertarians have to disagree with the polices of both major political parties, or better yet all potential uses of government power. I don't think many of the liberals who criticized Bush ever claimed to be against all uses government power, just many of the ones that Bush was using. My guess is that people who were against widespread warrantless domestic spying are still against it, they might just not be against universal health care.
David Bernstein says "Any new power ... will eventually be ... abused by future Republican administrations." Well, apropos of nationalized health care, somehow, I'm just not worried that any future Republican administration would dare f*ck with a program that assures that pregnant women, babies, toddlers, youth, teenagers, adults, and seniors all have the health care they need, like the citizens of Canada, Germany, France, Taiwan, and every other industrialized nation in the world.
The current Republican administration tried to f*ck with Social Security. The public reacted with disdain, and the current bear market emphasizes how right the public was. I expect national health care to be as popular as Social Security, and woe any the clueless future administration that tries to do to it what this one tried to do to Social Security.
It's funny -- just yesterday morning I was thinking the opposite to myself: I've never understood the libertarian objection to being taxed a quarter to pay for food stamps while having no problem with a president who claims unlimited and unreviewable power to imprison and detain.
I think I have my view because we have a lot of examples of governments using "criminal and national security" powers to imprison and punish citizens for dissent, resistance, or "disloyalty." This actually does happen, all over the world, and all throughout history. Many of us either have personally experienced governmental uses and misuses of such power, or have close family members or friends who have. So when a government claims broad powers to detain for criminal or national security purposes, I am generally opposed.
In contrast, I'm not aware of any evidence of governments actually "controlling" their citizens' "day to day lives" through taxation to pay for poverty relief programs, food safety laws, minimum wage laws, or the other things that seem to offend libertarians so greatly. So if the government proposes to raise my taxes by a quarter to keep people from starving, I am okay with it.
Maybe that is because the taxation will affect all of us, while very few American citizens will be enemy combatants on foreign soil. The overwhelming majority of Americans are in no way threatened with unreviewable imprisonment.
I think that is part of it. I have no problem with the federal government being the size it is in some areas like defense, but think most entitlements should be reduced (which puts me in a small minority of americans who think this) and that universal health care provided by the federal government is a bad idea. Neither of these have much to do directly with things like a unitary executive or government wiretaps.
And you can still be a federalist who wants a smaller federal governmen and is fine with the size of their state and local governments, which is probably how I would describe myself.
Will the Canadians be as happy when they can't come to the US for treatment outside their system? One out of three Canadian doctors have sent a patient here for treatment.
You're not sure any future administration would alter a program that "assures all those things you list. That may be so, but I certainly hope a future adinistration would alter a program that leads to poor care, rationalized care, waiting lines, and all the other evils that result from nationalized care. Your mistake is that you assume the assurances of the results will lead to the results themselves. It is a system build on hopes and dreams.
First, I don't remember the public acting with disdain. Even so, how does the bear market emphasize how right the public was? Right about what? If anything, I think the current market conditions and their causes should make people see that government intervention, whether by indirect actions like the ones that caused the housing crash and related failures, or the direct actions causing them, is a terrible thing.
Unfortunately, though, you are not accurately describing the breadth of the power the Bush Administration has claimed. They have not said that their power to detain is limited to enemy combatants on foreign soil. They claim the power to detain anyone they choose to say is an enemy combatant, even if detained on American soil.
My key concern is not the power itself, but the unreviewability of it. A power to detain "enemy combatants" doesn't worry me. Enemy combatants should be detained, at the very least.
But the unreviewable power to determine who is an enemy combatant does concern me. Like I said before, there is ample evidence that the power to designate people as "enemies" does in fact get abused. And when that power gets abused, the consequences are much greater than a 39% top bracket income tax.
That is great and all, but who really cares about the details? My point was simply that people don't care about things that they don't think will affect them. Most people care more about their personal budgets and what is in their checking account than they care about whether a "terrorist" that they've never met is held indefinitely. That's all I'm saying.
You're right. No liberals want the government to control our lives. Because how much money I get to keep in my paycheck, what doctor I get to see, not forbidden to own to own a gun, being forced to join a union, being forbidden to buy products I am want, etc. has no impact at all on my day to day life.
First, noone is claiming that conservatives are guiltless. I believe people here are against the government interventions no matter who commits them. It just so happens that the liberals have congress and the presidency, so we are wary of their brands of interventionalism.
Additionally, the "social justice" that you claim our forefather bled for are a far cry from the types of "social justice" being advocated today.
All in all, your comments seem very incoherent and the connections you make in them do not necessarily follow.
Libertarians very much object to both
Actually, I do not have to wait for a doctor and my family gets fine care. Why do want to risk my family losing that in some risky scheme?
This is a silly argument. Both Dems (as you accurately state) and Republicans (drugs, sex, etc) want to control individual's day to day lives.
Bill Bennett?
So even if government could solve all of our problems (or certain particular problems), you would still be against it? My understanding is that the founding ideology that government should be limited was based on some deeply held, but rational belief that big government would cause real practical reductions in utility.
My point was that rational opposition to "big government" is an empirical belief that big government leads to certain unpleasant results, not a normative belief that big government is bad in a similar sense that murder is bad. You might even believe that there is a necessary and inherent connection between big government ans social bads, but I don't think that gets you to government being a normative bad in itself.
Could you articulate an argument for why big government is bad without reference to any other social bads or goods (such as reduced privacy, freedom, prosperity, etc)?
Also, let's not forget that limited government is not particularly popular with anyone but libertarians. The major government programs by spending—the military, Social Security, Medicare, public education (counting state and local expenditures)—are all wildly popular. Republicans and Democrats both want to decrease regulation of some things, but they also want to increase regulation of others (consider varying positions on the environment vs. your sex life). Or they're both pro-regulation, and just like different regulations. Republicans like mandatory secret ballot union elections and "right to work" laws banning certain types of union-management contracts; Democrats want card check.
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it
Both will provide us with some form of regulatory overload. Enjoy!
I know some Puritans who would beg to differ -- and some Anti-Federalists who would say that this would have been nice, but isn't accurate.
You left out the other major government expense: interest on the debt. That is pretty popular as well, at least since most people want the federal government to be able to get more debt if it needs it and would not like the consequences of the government not paying interest anymore.
Some of us actually do want to reduce large portions of the federal government, I just realize that I am in the minority on this issue. I even think all presidential appointments should be rejected by the Senate or automatically confirmed within a set period of time (say nine months), even though I voted against Obama.
Go read Hayek, then come back and say that with a straight face on a mostly-libertarian site.
An answer to the reverse position, big government is "good", with the same constraints, would be nice to see as well.
Hayek certainly believed that there was a necessary connection between government expansion and bad results, but where does he state that regardless of this connection government was bad. I think your misinterpreting my statement was something much more controversial than it is. Even Hayek's title, "the road to serfdom," implies that it is the results of big government that are bad, not the government expansion itself.
Hayek proposed an empirical argument that big government would lead to bad results, not the normative assertion that big government is bad regardless of its results.
Jesus, is that really want you thought my point was?! I've really got to work on my writing.
The logic behind your attempt to link the two doesn't follow.
The ones who are against big government for utility reasons are the consequentalist libertarians; for instance, Milton Friedman, who preferred a free society with limited government because of the positive results it had (prosperity, etc). In fact, Friedman used to be a supporter of Keynes and the New Deal programs as well, until about the 1950's when he switched over based on utilitarian grounds.
Kirk points out Hayek,who is more of a deontologist, and views liberty as an end in itself, therefore; there is generally less utilitarian arguments made from this camp, even though they are occasionally made. The Austrian School tended to be more deontologist than the Chicago School.
Since libertarians view liberty (and that entails privacy, and the other social goods you referenced) as a natural birthright, that would be the main reason as to why they oppose big government; they view government in general as a hampering on liberty. What other reasons are you trying to get?
I think the problem with your argument is the unconstrained notion of "normative." An example:
Conservatives tend to be skeptical of global warming, because if it's real, and controllable, it is very difficult to defend a decision to do nothing about it. Surprisingly few conservatives are "honest" in this regard. Instead of saying, "Yes, this is a problem - a big one, too - but my notion of freedom is such that I prefer to live in a society that elevates that freedom over the resolution of collective action problems such as cleaning up the environment," they call for more studies. I actually have a lot of sympathy for this view, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
A principled opposition to "big government", then, would be that its very nature imperils freedom - even if it provides a lot of benefits. It would be comforting, and politically convenient (for conservatives like me) if big government programs always failed, leaving a trail of destruction. But, most of them - just like the decidedly imperfect markets for which they substitute - are a mixed bag. But they are always nibbling away at freedom, and often at privacy, too. For those who prize those things above others (such as equal access to health care, or environmental protection, etc.), that cost may be too high. I think that's David's counterpoint.
As far as cutting government programs, those arguing that certain programs are 'popular' should consider saying 'entrenched' instead. The real reason we can't cancel Social Security tomorrow, in spite of its obvious impending collapse, is that a hundred million people or more have spent their working lives paying serious money into the system. For them, it's a real and substantial economic loss to turn around and say 'sorry, no more'. Which leads to the second-order political problem where any phaseout scheme would inevitably leave half the workforce feeling (justifiably) that they're paying for the other half's retirement while getting nothing for themselves. This applies to most entitlement programs, or if you prefer, "How do you ask someone to be the last man to have his income redistributed for a mistake?"
This points up the key difference between the conservative (or libertarian) view of big government and the liberal view.
I don't think a standard liberal view really has a position on whether big government, in and of itself, is good or bad. The liberal view is more that poverty, discrimination, accidental poisonings, and things like that are bad, so if we need big government to avoid them, we'll have big government.
So it's not that big government is "good." It's that big government isn't necessarily bad, or if it is, the badness is outweighed by the goodness of food stamps, safety inspections, anti-discrimination laws, etc.
I think most liberals would agree that if big government does not actually reduce poverty, provide increased safety, or prevent discrimination and other harms, then big government would be bad.
To follow up on Prof. Kerr's point, it's rather odd to use the Constitution as an example of libertarianism in action. While there has always been a libertarian tradition in the US, the whole point of the Constitution was to increase the power of the federal government over what it had been before.
Worse yet from your perspective, the states at that time had essentially no limits on their powers. This completely undercuts your generalized use of the Constitution as evidence in favor of limited government. The limits, whatever they were, applied only to the federal government. As Prof. Kerr's comment suggests, the New England states regulated their citizens' private lives far, far more than we do today. In certain ways, the Southern states did also.
An answer to the reverse position, big government is "good", with the same constraints, would be nice to see as well.
Jesus, is that really want you thought my point was?! I've really got to work on my writing.
No. I would just like to hear an answer to both the "good" and "bad". Guess I have to work on my writing as well.
It's been repeatedly established that, for less than Americans are paying now for a hodgepodge system of partial coverage by insurance, we could provide health care for all. And most Americans favor nationalized health care.
How has that been established? Why is it cheaper for us to pay our medical bills through our taxes? A nationalized health care system means managed care, which means rationing. There is no way those Americans who are now fully insured are going to be better off with such a system. They will get less medicine. Less medicine means long waits for MRI scans and other procedures. In some cases it means no treatment for prostate cancer. In these wonderful nationalized systems (eg. UK) older men are told to "live with it." You can see managed care in action with the Kaiser system in California. Most people think that nationalized medicine means they get what they now get for "free." They are in for a rude awaking.
Most libertarians seem to me to make pro forma objections to torture and other abusive policies, but continue to support the party and candidates who implement those policies. Apparently, washing one's hands is more psychologically satisfying than Pilate or Lady MacBeth would lead us to believe.
Actually, it is.
Which is to say that they believe that government is an appropriate tool to modify society. Which is to say that power is a means to an end. Which is to say that liberty, something which precludes certain government configurations, is to take a back seat to convenience of control of others' lives.
Fair enough, the difference between a belief in an inherent connection between larger government and loss of freedom, and a belief that larger government as a bad in itself is a pretty fine distinction without a lot of practical implications.
I stand by the position that there is a difference: there are counterfactuals regarding big government that Hayek couldn't deny, that Kant could deny regarding murder. But there's probably no actual empirical evidence that could be presented to Hayek that would cause him to believe that government expansion would be overall good making limited government the practical equivalent to a moral imperative.
I was responding to your comment, not the post. But given that you mention it, I think the difficulty with the post itself is that charges of being result-oriented really only work if you can find someone who has in fact changed positions. There is no sign that this particular law student did so, however, or even that what she said is inconsistent with a position that you note "some liberals" may have had. As I recall, the idea behind liberal federalism was that you could get big government and liberal policies at the state level more easily than at at the federal level given GOP control of the federal government. That's not actually inconsistent with what this law student said: She could be of the view that big government and liberal reform is always desirable, and that the only question is where it can be achieved.
"Most libertarians seem to me to make pro forma objections to torture and other abusive policies, but continue to support the party and candidates who implement those policies"
Where is this coming from? The libertarians I know with generally don't support the party (I'm guessing you're referring to the Republicans) that implements these policies; they either don't even vote, or grudgingly vote for the LP.
Too many baby-daddy's out there who don't financially support their kids, much less know them.
And hy should we pay for the healthcare of overweight smokers?
These day-dreams that people can re-make society are YLS pipedreams. Anyone who spends anytime in the poor parts of this country knows that some people are hopeless and the only solutions would be unconstitutional ones.
And I certainly don't feel that voting Libertarian and rendering my democratic expression meaningless is a more "moral" or correct result.
In some situations, yes. But it depends on what sort of intrusion into "liberty" and what degree of "control of others' lives" is involved.
If you are talking about the liberty to refuse to hire people based on their skin color, then yes, most liberals believe that it is okay to intrude upon that liberty, or exercise that degree of control, to prevent such discrimination.
Liberals don't place as high value on the liberty to choose whom to employ as liberatarians do, so they are okay with compromising that liberty to further certain goals.
But I hope you aren't claiming that conservatives or libertarians don't make the liberty-cost versus societal-benefit tradeoff.
And yet, Social Security really has reduced poverty among the elderly. The Clean Air Act really has reduced air pollution and the accompanying health effects. OSHA really has led to safer workplaces. The various anti-discrimination laws really have reduced discrimination in public accommodations and employment.
Presumably the intended beneficiaries are the children. Obviously every social policy has tradeoffs, but most people can't control who their parents are.
I think most liberals would agree that if big government does not actually reduce poverty, provide increased safety, or prevent discrimination and other harms, then we are not spending enough and the government is not yet big enough.
In some situations, sure. But the fact remains that the liberal view is tied to the perceived (or hoped) outcome of the policy being considered, rather than a belief that "big government is good."
nationalized health care system means managed care, which means rationing. There is no way those Americans who are now fully insured are going to be better off with such a system. They will get less medicine. Less medicine means long waits for MRI scans and other procedures. In some cases it means no treatment for prostate cancer. In these wonderful nationalized systems (eg. UK) older men are told to "live with it." You can see managed care in action with the Kaiser system in California.
1. So you think that people with Kaiser insurance are not "fully insured"? And if so, why do you hold "fully insured" out as an example of what's good about the American system, and hold Kaiser out as an example of what's bad?
2. You say "managed care" means "rationing." What do you think insurance is?? Any insurance policy, to the extent that it adjusts claims at all, is engaging in "managing" and "rationing" care. If you think any health insurance in the U.S. pays 100% for every health-related service, then you are living in a dream world. Indeed, all comprehensive insurance policies even require pre-approval for many types of care. That's rationing. And in many cases, rationing in the US is worse than in Canada because the answer here is: claim denied. You just can't get the care at all.
3. The UK is every conservative's boogey-man. Yes, the UK system sucks. Nobody want's the UK's system. I want Canada's system, or France's, or Sweden's. The key difference is that in the UK, doctors are employed by the state, vs in Canada, the state only provides the insurance, and doctors are privately employed. So please don't raise the UK as an example -- instead, talk about Canada or Sweden, where people love their care and pay far less for it.
4. I am fully insured. I have just about the most expensive and comprehensive plan you can buy. My son recently had to wait over 2 months for a pediatric GI appointment. My wife had to wait 6 weeks to get an appointment with a specialist last year, and then had to wait over 2 hours each time she went to see him. Once she waited 4 hours. I went to the dentist last year and walked out after waiting 2 hours in the waiting room. We had to go to the emergency room twice last year, and waited over 4 hours each time. So anybody who says that Americans who are "fully insured" don't wait in lines or experience rationed care is 100% uninformed.
Yes, I am "fully insured" and would love to see a system like they have in Canada, where people may wait almost as long as my family has to, but they get a much better deal for their money (paying about half as much) and they don't have to worry about losing insurance if they lose their job (or if, god forbid, they decide to start a small business-- why is it you libertarians want to maintain disincentives to creating small businesses?)
In honor of the feat, I say we ignore the question of whether government is effective at doing anything, but instead argue about whether liberals are evil or stupid.
I say both!
(of course it goes without saying, we ignore the OP's false dichotomy between "big government Democrats" and "small government Republicans.")
Wait, he just is taking it to another level! I get it!
Well, your statement wasn'tbut ratherDid you not mean to put the "big" in there?
I must have since I am sure that an advocate of limited government would have been more offended by that than by any statements by some law student.
This quote highlights what I believe to be the true driving force behind a lot of what passes for libertarianism in public discourse.
In a lot of these policy considerations, we all have to weigh the cost of the policy's infringement on liberty against the benefit the policy would provide. And while a lot of libertarians claim to be against liberal programs because of the liberty side of the equation, I really don't think that is true.
The liberty infringement of an additional dollar in taxes simply isn't significant. And if someone really cared about liberty, he or she would have been up in arms immediately when it became apparent that the Bush Administration was claiming an unfettered right to wiretap Americans in violation of FISA and imprison Americans in violation of federal statutes. But people around here were not up in arms; for the most part, most people defended such policies.
So I don't think opposition to most liberal programs truly comes from the liberty-cost side of the equation. I think opposition comes from the benefit side of the equation. For these people, relieving the poverty of "children of irresponsible parents" simply isn't a significant benefit.
In other words, a lot of "libertarianism" seen in the public discourse is really just selfishness with a "principled" face.
About half of US healthcare (that is, people covered) is currently provided by govt. Curiously, govt pays about the same to cover their part of the population as the private system does.
Together, they pay about 15% of GDP. If you believe that govt can cover everyone for, say 10%, you get to explain how govt is going to cover the people that it doesn't cover today for half as much as it spends on the people that it does cover.
To put it another way, if you think that the US govt can provide quality healthcare for a lot less, why isn't it doing so? Why not demonstrate that it can, open up the system (at cost), and watch folks abandon private healthcare for govt healthcare?
Mostly from the self-described libertarians who post and comment here.
Yes, I do think that's a value judgment libertarians ought to make. But even if they don't make it, they could do a number of additional things: demand that Republican candidates denounce torture; refuse to contribute to the party as long as a majority supports torture; support primary challenges to office holders who do support torture.
It's really not that much different in kind (maybe in degree) from what we face on the Dem side. Though there are Dems who oppose torture (at least verbally), we have our own renegades and we need to demand that they stop it. Now.
As for the actual post, I didn't accuse the particular student of hypocrisy, and in fact, didn't direct my comment to Ms. Shanor at all. I said that I had suspected that any general liberal suspicion of big government or fondness of federalism would last only as long as Republicans controlled the government, and that her comment, reflecting the views of her classmates, is consistent with that suspicion. Of course liberals like Big Gov't if it will serve liberal ends. But during the Bush years, one occasionally heard some liberals suggest that they had learned their lesson, and that it's good to be an advocate of limited gov't even when your side is in power, to prevent the other side from abusing that power when they get into office.
"I think most liberals would agree that if big government does not actually reduce poverty, provide increased safety, or prevent discrimination and other harms, then we are not spending enough and the government is not yet big enough."
I don't think so. Obama throughout the campaign stressed "common sense regulations." Now, one may disagree with him about what is common sense, but the statement certainly applies there are regulations that are not common sense.
Speaking only for this liberal, failed social policies do not lead me to believe the government needs to be bigger. Just that the policy failed. For example, I'm from Chicago. Had I been here early in the century, as a liberal, I would have been all for the subsidized federal housing that ended up becoming a blight on the city in the 20th century. Hindsite showed that the concerntration of thousands of poor people, later only poor minorities, cost society far more than the benefit of providing housing to the poor. And the answer to that understanding in hindsight isn't bigger or smaller government. It's more effective government, at least, for the liberal, in the belief that poverty is everyone's problem, not just the poor's.
"Of course liberals like Big Gov't if it will serve liberal ends. But during the Bush years, one occasionally heard some liberals suggest that they had learned their lesson, and that it's good to be an advocate of limited gov't even when your side is in power, to prevent the other side from abusing that power when they get into office."
To reiterate my comment above, you're mixing apples and oranges. This isn't an issue of liberals supposedly liking "Big Gov't if it will serve liberal ends," but not liking it when the GOP is in power. You['re conflating opposition to torture, wiretapping, etc. to policy choices favoring food stamps? The logic doesn't follow. Being against one and for the other (in either direction) does not constitute hypocrisy.
Maybe some do. I don't. I have a job and insurance. Even when I didn't have a job, I had insurance. I seek out quality doctors for myself and my family, and by golly, I'm willing to pay for it, my health being so important and all. So your plan has zero chance of making my situation better, and a very slim chance of leaving it unchanged. Much more likely is that rather than bringing folks in the predicament you describe up to my level, I'll be brought down to theirs. Will that really make you feel better about our government?
At least some of the needling directed at libertarians who support the Republicans is justified in my view. Witness all the posts here during the election season rationalizing why not to vote libertarian. The only political calculation along those lines that makes sense imo is how to get gridlock. The less the politicians "accompllsh," the safer our wallets are.
I concur with your opinion. People look out for their own economic self interest, which should not be a surprise to anyone. Some (but certainly not all) of those who "have theirs" just don't want to lose what they have to the government, regardless of how the the government spends its money or whether the government is using the money prudently. The "smaller government" position, if carried out successfully, allows them to keep more of what they have, and they hide behind the "smaller government" facade primarily to promote their own economic self interest.
But there are principled "small government" people whose primary motive is not their own economic self interest.
And there are "big government" advocates whose motive is primarily financial as well, whose own financial well being improves as the scope and size of government increases. They pursue "big government" to promote their own economic interests.
But not all "big government" advocates pursue big government for their own economic benefit.
My beef is with those, all across the political spectrum, who refuse to acknowledge that those who hold views similar to their own views frequently are promoting their own self interests while simultaneously proclaiming at the top of their voices that "Society will be better off if we just do XXX" (where doing "XXX" just happens to benefit their own pocketbook).
Particularly irksome are those people who fail to acknowledge this point and who also point to hypocrites in the other part of the political spectrum as a way of "proving" that their own position must be correct.
Exposing hypocrisy is important, because such exposure helps demonstrate that many people (regardless of their professed political philosophy) care mostly about their own financial well being instead of caring about other lofty goals (such as ascertaining the optimal health care system). But exposing hypocrisy your political opponent does not, by itself, prove that your own professed method for advancing society is the optimal one.
Reasoned discussion and debate, which requires more work than posting a snark, is far more helpful.
It should first and foremost be remembered that the Constitution actually ended (some would say illegally ended) the much more limited government established under the Articles of Confederation.
Also, one would wonder what David Bernstein thinks about Alexander Hamilton. This founder clearly had a very different conception about the proper role of the Federal government than does Bernstein.
Another point. To the extent that the Constitution limits the powers of the Federal government (and I am rather certain that Bernstein has very different views than Alexander Hamilton or John Marshall on that point), it should not necessarily be taken as a statement about the Founders views on the role of government in general. Instead, it should be taken as an attempt to reserve powers to the state government, who did not seem to have very many limitations on their powers imposed by the Constitution.
Indeed, it seems that the main limitation on the powers of state government came as the result of the Civil War and the eventual decision of the Supreme Court to incorporate most of the Bill of Rights to limit the powers of the states.
Anyway, one thing seems incredibly clear. The Founding ideology was not libertarianism or anything close to libertarianism. If you doubt this, read Hamilton's Report on Manufacturer's here.
Congratulations on being lucky enough to not need much medical care. Come back and see us when you actually need some serious medical care. Just like there are (very few) atheists in foxholes, there are (very few) happy consumers of American healthcare -- just happy people who have never had to use their plans yet.
You honestly think Hamilton was representative of founding thought in general, rather than a glaring exception?
Last time I checked, Hamilton was a more influential than average among the Founders. Indeed, he was the most prolific contributor to the Federalist Papers.
It's meaningless if you don't control for how easily the subjects are satisfied - the English are generally satisfied with their dental health, after all.
False. Americans, in polls, say they favor "universal" health care. However, the majority do not favor "rationing" of health care services. That suggests they like the idea of everyone having insurance as long as no one has to pay for any of it, or something equally illogical. They give the answer because they don't understand what "universal" beyond the superficial.
So in this case, "long" means, what, five minutes?
You read about ignorance of history, but its always bracing when its thrown in your face.
As for eyesay, all I have to say is "Oh, Yeah!" Let's nationalize the internets, then we'll have social justice coming out our ears!
"So you think that people with Kaiser insurance are not "fully insured"? And if so, why do you hold "fully insured" out as an example of what's good about the American system, and hold Kaiser out as an example of what's bad?"
Kaiser has incentive to withhold services from its clients because the doctors share in the profits. If they can lower costs they make more money. I was once in Kaiser for a short time and left because I got (in my opinion) incompetent treatment. I have collected Kaiser horror stories for over 20 years. For example, just recently I know of a patient who was told his hernia would heal-- they don't.
"You say "managed care" means "rationing." What do you think insurance is?? Any insurance policy, to the extent that it adjusts claims at all, is engaging in "managing" and "rationing" care."
You're playing word games. Managed care plans try to withhold services. It takes me 3 days to get a MRI scan. My friend in a managed care plan waited 3 months. He needed knee surgery and had suffer in the meantime.
I am fully insured. I have just about the most expensive and comprehensive plan you can buy. My son recently had to wait over 2 months for a pediatric GI appointment.
Get another doctor. If your plan allows you to pick an off net doctor and you don't have a gatekeeper, then you should be able to get an appoint much sooner than that. I have also run into that kind of thing here in the East Bay, and that's why I go to San Francisco, and the Peninsula where on the whole I get appoints fairly quickly and don't have to wait. For some reason people are loath to dump a poorly preforming doctor. Get over that.
"My wife had to wait 6 weeks to get an appointment with a specialist last year, and then had to wait over 2 hours each time she went to see him."
Do you live in New York City? I used to have to suffer through that crap with NY doctors. I virtually never have to wait more than 20 minutes for any of my appointments.
"Yes, I am "fully insured" and would love to see a system like they have in Canada,..."
Do you have any direct experience with the Canadian system as a long term resident of Canada? Or do you just read articles in the Nation Magazine and Mother Jones.
Well, okay...but isn't it just as likely to think that she's referring less to institutional change and more to policy changes, executed by both the Obama administration and Congress?
Even in one of Bernstein's fairer posts, you can count on him to reach for the most uncharitable interpretation.
As far as the comments about the Constitution and the states, state court opinions in the early 19th century also talk about there being certain things that are beyond government power, that any government that would do such things would inherently be a despotism. Modern libertarian? No. A belief in absolute limits on government? Yes. Consider that even though it was widely believed that if you didn't belong to a particular sect, you would go to hell, yet there was a widespread belief that government could not engage in religious compulsion. I can't think of a much better reason for government to "regulate" someone's life than to avoid his suffering in the eternal bowels of hell.
You're making a fundamental historical error when you try to impute the attitudes of even the early 19th C back to 1788. Moreover, it depends on which states you mean. Finally, remember that the loudest yelps for liberty came from the drivers of Negros -- we needn't take such rhetoric at face value.
Would anyone care to make a wager that when Obama uses the phrase “common sense regulations,” whether it will be used in his administration to justify enacting new regulations or to justify repealing existing ones?
So, is this the extent of your evidence of a consensus view or ideology among the Founders on a limited government? How many of these state court justices who wrote these opinions were even Founders? I certainly hope you have much more evidence than this for your view.
I have had to use our healthcare plan for my family several times in recent years, including a three night hospital stay for my wife when she gave birth to our child and regular treatment for a continuing ailment for her and an emergency room visit for our toddler a few months back. With no real waits for either the emergency room or the delivery room. I am still quite pleased with the overall cost and quality of the care we have received and will fight tooth and nail anyone who tries to take that away from us.
Other family members and friends have had medical experiences recently including overnight hospital stays and the biggest complaint any of them had was when they did not get private rooms, a problem I doubt will improve under a socialized system. My only real complaint is that it is a hassle dealing and communicating with so many different provicders and an insuracnce company. But so far I have never had anything that could not be resolved with a couple of phone calls and again I doubt this will be improved by having some federal worker who can not be fired take over our account.
1. Hamilton was da man. Period. He kicked so much butt America had to import more butt in the late 1700s just for him to kick.
2. As pointed out by Welker, supra, Hamilton wasn't just the most prolific write of the Federalist papers (our preeminent guide to interpreting the Constitution), he was the Federalist papers. He wrote the majority of them, and solicited John Jay and Madison to write the reminder. Think of him ass the primary author and editor to "The Annotated Guide of the Constitution."
3. Hamilton was da man. If at first you don't succeed, remember- you're not Alexander Hamilton.
4. During the Presidency of Washington, Hamilton was responsible for the vast majority of our nation's policies. He was the shadow president. His remarkable intellect make him a slam-dunk as the greatest founder never to be President (take that, Franklin!).
5. To answer your psecific question- was Hamilton a glaring exception, or representative? Well, he had some problems when it came to being elected (foreign-born, born poor, ran his mouth, publically acknowledged affair as opposed to secret Hemmings-delight), but he was considered the preeminent voice in the party that held the Presidency for the first twelve years our country existed (yes, Washington was a Federalist)... in addition to helping get that darn Constitution passed.
6. Hamilton came to America from the West Indies to chew bubblegum and kick butt- and he was all out of bubblegum.
I said:
My son recently had to wait over 2 months for a pediatric GI appointment.
You replied:
Get another doctor. If your plan allows you to pick an off net doctor and you don't have a gatekeeper, then you should be able to get an appoint much sooner than that. I have also run into that kind of thing here in the East Bay, and that's why I go to San Francisco, and the Peninsula where on the whole I get appoints fairly quickly and don't have to wait.
No family, huh? That correlates with your view on this subject.
I, too, have an easy time finding doctors for anything I need, because doctors for adult males and their common complaints (back surgeons, cardiologists, urologists) are ridiculously easy to find.
There are 9 pediatric gastroenteroligists in San Francisco, all of whom must be scheduled through one of two specialty clinics: UCSF or CPMC. Both of those organizations have two month waiting lists for new patients.
The U.S. system prioritizes specialty care for us relatively healthy adult males while making it ridiculously hard to find care for those who really need it. Sounds like rationing to me, but in a totally screwed up way.
Managed care plans try to withhold services. It takes me 3 days to get a MRI scan. My friend in a managed care plan waited 3 months. He needed knee surgery and had suffer in the meantime.
So is your friend in America? If so, what was your point again about how we don't have to wait for care in America?
" "What I want to do is make sure we have jobs for these workers and we have first-class American automobile companies -- and we're not going to do it with the barnacles of unionism wrapped around their necks."
- Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), All Things Considered, Dec. 10, 2008"
We can get rid of that union-provided health care as well! Pottersville, here we come. By the way, spare me the straw man argument, as Mr. DeMint is just expressing out loud what is motivating Corker, Shelby, et al. Back to the 1850's.
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2005/2005scc35 /2005scc35.html
From the Court's opinion (bold added):
The demand for health care is constantly increasing, and one of the
tools used by governments to control this increase has been the management
of waiting lists…. and that waiting lists are a more or
less implicit form of rationing .... Waiting lists are therefore real and intentional. The witnesses also commented on the consequences of waiting
times.
….it is inevitable that some patients will die if they have to wait for an
operation. …. Clearly, not everyone on a waiting list is in danger of dying before being treated. [But] There was no dispute that there is a waiting list for cardiovascular surgery for life-threatening problems….
The same applies to other health problems…. the one-year delay commonly incurred by patients requiring ligament reconstruction surgery increases the risk that their injuries will become irreparable…. 95 percent of patients in Canada wait well over a year, and many two years, for knee replacements. While a knee replacement may seem trivial compared to the risk of death for wait-listed coronary surgery patients….the harm suffered by patients awaiting replacement knees and hips is significant.
Although, Canada's system is still a helluva lot cheaper than ours, so maybe "I want Canada's system and an extra three grand a year" might work.
Anyway, I think the answer for the liberal side is "I want France's system, or Germany's." Which is a lot more relevant anyway, since I don't think anyone influential is recommending that we follow Canada's or Britain's model.
Exactly. It was quite entertaining to hear McCain talk about how great it would be to push everyone to private non-group health insurance, when he had the chance to make that move for thirty years but instead chose to remain on the Big Government Health Insurance Plan (BiGHIP).
Almost as entertaining as hearing Giuliani and other cancer survivors on the campaign trail, who have also depended on BiGHIP for years, talk about how bad government-paid health care is.
Throughout the campaign Obama blamed fictional "deregulation" for whatever ailed the country.
I have two words to illustrate my point -- public schools. Want two more? -- head start.
"So is your friend in America? If so, what was your point again about how we don't have to wait for care in America?"
My friend is in managed care-- that's why he had to wait three months. Being in America is not the problem, it's being in managed care. I think you are deliberately being difficult and dense
Last time I checked, Hamilton was indeed libertarian by modern standards, though he was the most pro-government of the founding fathers
You keep using that word libertarian. I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Ummm... not to really get into too big of an argument here, but since "libertarian" is a relatively new philosophy, I don't think any founders would consider themselves even vaguely libertarian. I am sure all believed in a healthy police power of the state to regulate morals (local state at the least) and tax (whether it was the local state or the federal government).
Hamilton, more than most, sought to have a United States government as a powerful entity that was far beyond the scope of the individual states. Saying he was a "libertarian" by modern standards is a meaningless statement, similar to arguing that Genghis Khan the Ming Dynasty was libertarian- by modern standards. Not only is the statement arguable factually incorrect, it is so meanigless as to be useless.
Second, government isn't providing the health coverage at all; private insurers are.
As I suspected from the beginning, the "T" covers someone who qualifies for HIB, but is not an annuitant. Only for some strange reason, Medicare included people on renal care as part of the "T" classification. In other words, the person on the other end didn't understand her job. This is what happens when you hire the American underclass into government benefit systems. Just wait for universal health care and you will spend all your free time on the phone trying to fix errors.
That has nothing to do with McCain's point - McCain wanted to encourage people to get individual health plans, yet his own actions showed that individual plans are less desirable than group plans.
Also, you are right that Giuliani and the others were saved by health care provided by private doctors and hospitals, managed by private insurance companies, and overseen by the government (which chooses the insurers, oversees the plan, negotiates the price, etc.). But as I understand it, most of the health plans on the table right now follow exactly this model.
(By the way, can you identify any liberals who are unaware that health insurance from an employer is a form of compensation?)
Steve H,
Your quote highlights what I believe to be the true driving force behind a lot of what passes for liberalism in public discourse. Specifically, the assumption that the speaker knows better than the peon how the peon's life should be run.
Liberals want to give a man a fish, because that is nice. When the conservative chooses to NOT give him the fish, but instead teach the man to fish, the liberal cries, "you are not doing this out of a desire to instill personal responsibility and individualism, but rather out of your selfish greed and desire to horde fish for your fat cat Wall Street friends!"
See, libertarianism relies on the assumption that the common man has the capacity to take care of himself. If you stop coddling the man, and treating him as a perpetual child (via the nanny state), the man will grow up and take care of himself. Sure, help those who truly need help (children, handicapped, etc). But err on the side of harshness, or else you will end up with a nation of whining babies.
Prime example: Bill Clinton made it more difficult to get welfare. You apparently believe that the conservatives' embrace of that reform is a result of selfishness. But what happened as a result of the reform? A bunch of lazy people abusing the welfare system went out and got jobs - and ended up more independent from the government, and better off as a result. It turns out that the great society dreams of LBJ had the unfortunate side effect of encouraging the very behavior LBJ sought to cure.
Unwed pregnant mothers a problem? Liberal solution: Let's give those women free cash, to ease their suffering. Real world result: we get more unwed pregnant women, because liberal policies have now largely eliminated the natural incentive towards good behavior.
And even so how would universal health care get you into a specialist faster? Will the government cure all the people ahead on the list so you can get in faster? Maybe the government can wave their magic wand and make more specialists appear. Whether health care is private or public there's rationing one way or the other people just have different ideas on what's more "fair".
Out of curiosity has anyone here ever been on MediCal or any other similar state or federal run program? My girlfriend and I had a MediCal pregnancy (being we were 22 and 23 at the time) and it was absolute hell. Due to both the lack of doctors and the fact we didn't find out she was pregnant until 12 weeks (which makes it a preexisting condition)no doctor even accepted her until her 8th month. The hodgepodge of help we received before that was random, undirected, and incompetent. Specifically she ended up being tested for AIDS more times (6) then she even received sonograms (4). She still thanks me to this day that we have private insurance and will never have to suffer thru that dehumanizing experience ever again.
This, of course, is very similar to GWBush's 'compassionate conservatism.' I would not defend GWBush at all. There are all some, in the 'corporatist' camp, who want to restrict the liberty of individuals 'for our (the corporatist's) own good'.
- C.S. Lewis, ftw
Ah, to go back to those halcyon days.
"It was, in fact, liberals who inaugurated the "Imperial Presidency" via Roosevelt and then Truman (remember the Steel Seizure cases), and at the time it was conservatives who called for limits on Executive power, in wartime and otherwise. So liberals initiated the power, and it was later used by Bush for things liberals now deem awful."
Instead of apples and oranges, we now have apples and ... bananas. Sure, sourthern Democrats were the racist members of Congress in the '60s, and Lincoln was a Republican. But we're talking about modern notions of liberalism and conservativism here.
Or not. Fine blame me, a 2008 liberal for Truman's seizure of the steel mills. If you think that remotely compares to torture, I'm not really sure there's much more to say. When you say "liberals initiated the power, and it was later used by Bush for things liberals now deem awful" you're being a little fast and loose with the term "power."
I don't think that's an accurate description of libertarianism, at least not the kind I see around here and in the public discourse.
I will readily agree that there has been and can be a legitimate debate between which approaches to poverty are more effective. And there can be a legitimate debate about how much amending the new welfare law helped the situation, versus the improved economy in the late 1990s. And we can certainly debate whether or how many women actually were choosing to have unprotected sex because they knew that welfare payments would increase if they got pregnant.
But I don't see that as a libertarian vs big government debate. I don't see too many alleged libertarians saying that they would be okay with getting taxed more highly to teach the children of irresponsible parents to fish (so to speak). I certainly don't get that sense from the post (Nunzio at 12:54) to which I was responding.
Is being taxed to pay for fishing lessons any less of an infringement on liberty than being taxed to pay for fish stamps?
Libertarianism would have been considered license by the Founders in the "excessive freedom; lack of due restraint" meaning.
How many times have I said this about Republicans giving Bush power?
The fact is that we are in a big mess because the Republicans have been doing for 8 years what the Democrats will probably do for the next 8....
The fact is-- very few of us tend to be rigorously opposed to big government regardless of who is in power, and those of us who are tend still to be somewhat inconsistent about it. I think we need to acknowledge that we are well passed the point where our government is either "democratic" or "republican."
"Libertarian" and "small government" are not the same thing. The Founders favored small government but thought that morals were important, hence were not libertarian.
Libertarianism would have been considered license by the Founders in the "excessive freedom; lack of due restraint" meaning.
Bob from Ohio,
The mistake you are making is the same one David M. Nieporent makes- projecting current attitudes and beliefs back into the past. It is funny, isn't it, that when we look into the past for validation we always seem to find? When David looks back, he finds that the Founders were all 'more libertarian' (even Hamilton) than we are today. David, of course, tends to the libertarian side. When you look back, you find Founders concerned with small government and morals. Your previous posts have shown you to be concerned with small government and morals. Evil Statist Leftist Lib Dems(tm) who look back see Founders who owned slaves and repressed women, because that's what they want to see.
None of these views is really correct. It's hard for us to imagine a time where, for instance, there wasn't electric light, and no anti-biotics, and child-mortality rates were shockingly high (therefore, less precious snowflake legislation). Heck, it's hard for me to imagine the mindset of people who lived before ATMs. You had to budget for your weekend and withdrawl on a Friday? Really????
This is a long way of saying that the Founder were people of their time. And that's a very difficult mindset to understand. If you find that, sacre bleu, the Founders seem to mirror your own beliefs...
you're not doing it right.
I have dealt with people who have no idea of what they are doing who work both in and out of government. No one will disagree that it is a bad idea for government to hire someone who has no idea what they are doing. But the fact that the government employee did not know what they were doing does not make government managed health care a bad choice, any more than the existence of an incompetent medical professional in private practice makes non-government managed health care a bad choice.
If we leave matters to the "marketplace", service is provided by companies whose primary allegiance is to the "bottom line". The insurance companies involved have a primary allegiance to the "bottom line." That can create significant coverage problems. (I am one of the lucky ones. I had a tumor removed from my head at a relatively young age, with excellent insurance coverage because of my wife's COBRA rights under her Fed government health insurance.) Insurance companies, and direct health care providers, will have an economic incentive to minimize medical costs, at the expense of the health of their "customers." Here in SoCal, there have been some well publicized horror stories showing what can happen.
Watchdogs from the government can mitigate the problem, but they do not eliminate the economic incentives to maximize profits. Such incentives can and do result in an "underclass" of citizens who get crappy health care. The existence of the underclass creates a related set of problems, such as overall increases in health care costs, the difference between an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure. Or just having people in the underclass go untreated and die.
People who favor government managed health care systems believe that a government managed health care system avoids the "underclass" problem. But if you have the program administered by people in the government who do not know what they are doing, you create a different set of problems, which can also result in coverage problems, death, horror stories, etc. So if you are convinced that the government will never be able to properly manage the system (a notion to which I do not subscribe), I can understand why you do not want a government managed health care system.
And under either system, there are finite resources, and difficult decisions will need to be made on the extent and nature of coverage. So both systems require making difficult decisions. Unless we want to spend unlimited resources on our medical problems, lines must be drawn regarding the nature and scope of coverage.
While I have my own thoughts on which system is likely to be better in the long run, formed as the result of having numerous serious medical problems which have been successfully dealth with, I feel less competent than most to pass judgment on which system is better.
But I do have a suggestion. Instead of spending time convincing yourself that the system you prefer is the better system by posting here on the VC, why don't you spend time coming up with ideas to help improve the system you prefer (or, God forbid, to help improve the system you don't prefer). Neither system is perfect. Both can be improved. And I suspect that either system, with proper checks and balances and good management, can do a pretty decent job, regardless of which one may do "better" over the long run. So instead of thinking how you can discredit your philosophical opponents here on VC and discredit the system you do not prefer, spend some time thinking about how to make things better, and then talk to people who help make decisions in the health care industry about your ideas.
Now please excuse me while I go talk to my doctor.
I wasn't talking about slavery, per se. I was talking about the disconnect between rhetoric and action. If you'd prefer, we can use the current Republican Administration's advocacy of small government as the example.
The point is, finding examples of small government rhetoric in a few court decisions is not very probative. What's probative is an overall assessment of the extent to which the government in 1788 regulated people's lives and morals. It was a lot, especially in New England. And it was a lot more if we don't limit ourselves to white males.
Dan, You know what they say about assumptions? Hospitalized with rare neurological condition, check. Invasive testing for ideopathic vitamin deficiency, check. Orthopeadic surgery, check. Emergency surgery for spouse many states away from home, check. Childbirth, check. Bi-monthly (at least) visits to the pediatrician, check. Trust me, I've used it.
The people don't use healthcare won't have a problem with your plan, since they won't be affected by it. It's only the people who actually use the healthcare system who will be royally screwed when the people who brought us the DMV and the TSA manage the queue at your local cardiologist's office.
Or did I miss something?
If you'd like to argue that any of the Founders argued for a government less limited that what was then customary, knock yourself out. All else is sophistry.
DMN just couldn't help himself. Everyone wants a little of the Hamilton- remmber, Hamilton isn't dead; he's just waiting.
Paid for by the Committee to Elect Alexander Hamilton 2012
Your assertion that I was not following the thread is false. And I think rude. I would suggest you try a different approach to communicating.
The point is this, to the extent we want to understand the views of the Founders on the extent and limits of government, we have to realize that limits in the Constitution are on the Federal government, not the states. Thus, limitations in the Constitution do not necessarily reflect the view of the Founders regarding the proper scope of government.
Your response was to point out a few state court decisions in the 19th century that you assert show that there was a tradition of limited government. Basically, this is a concession that the limits in the Constitution that affected the Federal government but not the states is not
Then I asked, is this ALL the evidence you have. And, your answer, aside from the rudeness, apparently is YES. This is all the evidence you have.
My question is why should we take this as reliable evidence of the views of the Founders on government in general? You mention State court decisions that supposedly reference certain traditions. Right. So, you are trying to use cases as evidence of traditions in order establish your point regarding the ideology of the Founders, are you not?
Anyway, whether or not you think I am interpreting your intent correctly or not, please do try to refrain from being rude in further responses. I don't appreciate it or find it persuasive.
Let me amend this before someone tries to go on the attack. You have to realize that most of the limits in the Constitution are on the Federal government, not the states.
Okay. If you think that the government promoting manufacturing and the power of the Federal government is pro-libertarian.
I played a little loose with my language, jumping between 'conservative' and 'libertarian' too much. So, as to your question, I say that it is less of an infringement on liberty - but barely. By entering into a society, we obviously give up some personal liberty. Taxing to provide fishing lessons is not wealth redistribution, but handing out fish is.
But a libertarian wouldn't want the government (particularly the feds) setting up fishing schools. The point is that when the government stops handing out fish, people will either learn to fish themselves, learn to barter for the fish by utilizing their special skills, or turn to private charity for free fish.
When the government gets into the business, it cannot easily cut people off from the fish - certainly not as easily as a church can kick a lewd person out of their soup line. When the government is doing the work, there is little to no incentive for the leach to do anything to either contribute to society, or even behave in a non-disruptive manner.
Big government, by its very nature, erodes individual autonomy, and with it go notions of personal responsibility, self-reliance, and liberty.
I think your skepticism concerning determining how the different and conflicting views of the Founders would apply to modern situations that did not exist during their time is warranted. Surely, the Founders were creatures of a particular time and place.
This is precisely the point I am making. Let us say that the state governments did not exist. What limits would the Founders have put on government? This is obviously a speculative endeavor that cannot be answered with certainty.
However, nonetheless, I do not think that we can take some of the principles articulated by the Founders and ask whether they are consistent or inconsistent with modern ideologies. I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that the ideologies of the Founders were inconsistent with modern libertarianism. If the Founders were to write a Constitution for a single nation without any states, that the limits they would put on government would be much less than Bernstein thinks should be put on government.
To say this is not the same thing as saying that we could determine with precision exactly what Constitutional limits they would put on government.
One more point. I think you are making an excellent point.
Bernstein is trying to reframe the debate into one of big government versus small government. But this abstract idea is not what the Founders were about.
Now, it would be correct to say the Founders were for "limited government." But that simply is not very meaningful. Both because the limits they thought wise varied based on state and continued to evolve and were typically in response to particular problems. (i.e. the Yazoo land scandal).
Bernstein thinks there is a tension in the view of liberals who supposedly gained a "new appreciation" for the idea of limited government and their views now that "their side" is in power.
But, I think that is just silly. Everyone agrees that the government's power should be limited. No one thinks that there should be no limits whatsoever. It is not hypocritical to think that government's power should be more limited in context X and less limited in context Y. The only sort of person who would see things this way is someone who was obsessed with overall limits, which in my view, is a much less meaningful way to see the world. In my view, we should be purposeful and specific both in the limits we impose as well as in the powers we grant.
What we disagree with is what those limits are. Some people think those limits should be maximized. I would say that the Constitutions of the States, while limiting the power of the states in different ways and to different degrees, certainly did not minimize those powers either.
The bottom-line is this. The idea that we should have not merely a limited government, but a minimal one is more a modern libertarian idea that would be foreign to the founders. The founders believed in limited government yes, (and so do modern day liberals and modern day conservatives -- no one believes in government with no limits to its powers) but clearly not in the same way that libertarians advocate.
I think you are entirely correct, and made your points eloquently (and with fewer typos) than I probably would. I think the distinction you draw is a useful one that is often lost- when people today look at the halcyon days of the founders when all men were real men, women were real women, and the Federal Government could fill a DC-sized bathtub, they overlook the nature of the Federal government. The Constitution was specifically created to make a *more* powerful Federal government, contrary to the previous Articles of Confederation. In addition, it was formed against the backdrop of incredibly powerful state governments, that had amazing abilities to as states qua sovereigns to do whatever the heck they wanted. So the argument was really not so much about limited government, but about whether you had a small central government functioning as an intermediary between powerful sovereign states (anti-Federalists) or a powerful central sovereign above the states (my boy, Hamilton!). This debate contined for some time, culminating in a decisive victory for the Federalist point of view by the end of the Civil War. It's hard to imagine a world were people considered themselves Virginians before they thought of themselves as Americans.
Anyway, I'm going to duck out on this one. I have found that DB has engaged in a peculiar project which I call "Everything you know is wrong, and the Right is always Right." Between his Ronald Reagan "I have no idea what State's Right's mean in Mississipi" defense and his wonderfully perverse misuse of what progressivism in the 1920s means (not to mention Lochner, and FDR, and, oh my.... please, I'll stop now), I have found his historical analysis to be unpersuasive. So I try to avoid his comment threads or my head will explode from sheer frustration. I couldn't avoid it when Hamilton came up, though- it's like my Bat Signal.
But it's his party!
You're ignoring the quote that spurred the thread: That does indeed suggest a "I'm in favor of limited gov't when the other side is in power, but not when my side is in power" mentality.
amazing. and frankly, compelling.
The liberal view isn't that "big government" is not that size, or the lack thereof, is good or bad in itself. Some forms of big government are good, and some are bad.
Granted, even the Federalists did believe in a much smaller and less powerful national government than we support today. But both the Federalists and anti-Federalists both acquiesced to state governments with nearly unlimited police powers—hardly libertarianism.
I'm late to the thread and don't have time to read it all, so if I'm repeating, I apologize.
I disagree that the quote necessarily "suggests a 'I'm in favor of limited gov't when the other side is in power, but not when my side is in power' mentality." It could be a non-ideological belief that conservatives have illegally abused power. Of course there are partisans on each side who will inevitably make that claim about the other, but it's not a comment about the proper size of government.
"I disagree that the quote necessarily "suggests a 'I'm in favor of limited gov't when the other side is in power, but not when my side is in power' mentality.""
I disagree as well. I think the quote is more along the lines of "Twentysomethings only remember the last few years" or "The purpose of new generations is to forget Clintony/Nixony stuff." It's true as far as it goes, but it's a remarkably shallow perspective for someone in Shanor's position.
It is possible for a government to act as a "force for social justice," as well as to address issues such as health care and etc, without asserting extraconstitutional powers.
Likewise, it has been possible for government to address the threat of terrorism while abiding with constitutional and statutory limitations, and with international commitments. The outgoing administration just chose not to.
Bernstein is transferring the arguments that many libertarians have been (rightly) making against the Bush Administration towards the Democrats.*
I happen to be sympathetic to the arguments. However, there is the simple fact that the rhetoric and the practice of the Republicans has been at odds with eachother, just like it has with the Democrats, IMO.
* I suspect the mechanism is similar to the way self-incriminations are often behind strings of accusations at others but on a different scale. Just as we tend to relate to others assuming that they are like us, we assume our political opponents approach things in the same way to our allies.
"It is possible for a government to act as a "force for social justice,""
It is also possible to play tennis with a Stradivarius or to shave with a chainsaw.
Now you're being silly. You might as well suggest playing ping pong with nunchucks.
I think government, to the extent it works, acts as a force for social justice. For example, the rule of law is a great force for social justice. Certainly a society where the weak are not simply preyed upon by the strong is more just than a total anarchy....
The problems in my estimation boil down to two questions:
1) Will more government be helpful in pushing for more social justice without pushing back our liberty?
and
2) What kind of social justice do we want?
I think that conservatives, libertarians, right-wingers, communist, and the like answer both those questions differently.
Sometimes acknowledging commonality can go a long way towards building the sort of common ground we need in order to move our society in a better direction (long-term towards less government, more liberty, etc, but making sure we have government programs where they work and are necessary, and not where they are counterproductive).
"I think government, to the extent it works, acts as a force for social justice."
I'd say as a force against criminal injustice.
"For example, the rule of law is a great force for social justice. Certainly a society where the weak are not simply preyed upon by the strong is more just than a total anarchy...."
So you contend that an institution that enjoys a monopoly of coercive force is not strong? Is there no concern with its predatory potential? actual?
It is also unclear that the rule of too many laws furthers justice, social or otherwise.
"1) Will more government be helpful in pushing for more social justice without pushing back our liberty?"
Liberty and justice are often at odds. I'd be more concerned with whether more government actually does push social justice anywhere but onto the back burner. I'm willing to trade a modicum of liberty for less criminal injustice. Social justice I'm inclined to leave to societies, free from the monopoly of force burden.
Power to the people, right on!
"Sometimes acknowledging commonality can go a long way towards building the sort of common ground we need in order to move our society in a better direction (long-term towards less government, more liberty, etc, but making sure we have government programs where they work and are necessary, and not where they are counterproductive)."
Agreed.
"Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance --
these may be cured by reform or revolution.
But men do not live only by fighting evils.
They live by positive goals, individual and collective,
a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible."
- Isaiah Berlin
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