Today, I’m feeling succinct. I’ll not burden you with the quotes from the founders. You can look them up yourselves. I’m moving straight on to Exhibit A:

So let me get this out of the way right off the bat: whoever made this montage did a great job, but is obviously a blind partisan. They conveniently left out the part where Bush turns a blind eye to egregiously overreaching government involvement in free market economics and then brags that more Americans have achieved the American dream of home ownership during his administration than in any other.

What he chose to ignore and the Democrats in Congress chose to embrace was the social engineering of “affordable housing”. Simply put, the government pressured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to loosen the rules for giving loans so that more people could own homes. More people owning homes: sounds great, right? Wrong. More people achieving, earning, and affording homes is good. More people getting homes isn’t.

What went wrong? Well, people were approved for loans that shouldn’t have been. Why did they buy them? Well, they figured that if the government-regulated industry was approving them for the loan then they could obviously afford it. Why on earth would banks give loans to people who couldn’t afford to pay them? Because the GSEs bought up the loans, packaged them into mortgage-backed securities, and sold them to the banks on the pretense that these securities were just as reliable as they always had been.

And then this happened:

Crash and Burn

So whose fault is it? Well, let’s recap:

1. People made these loans because they thought they could afford them.
2. They thought they could afford them because brokers approved them.
3. Brokers approved them because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were willing to buy the loans under looser restrictions.
4. Banks and financial institutions bought the mortgage-backed securities because they had always been sound and they had no reason to believe that federally regulated entities would actually pass them bad paper instead of good loans.
5. The looser restrictions came about because Congress enacted legislation to pressure Fannie and Freddie to make loans to more people (remember, these are GSEs beholden to the government).
6. Fannie and Freddie then cooked the books to make this stuff look legit and good so that they could get their big bonuses.
7. Fannie and Freddie CEO’s then used those massive bonuses to make hefty contributions to their favorite senators: Dodd, Kerry, Obama, Clinton, etc.
8. The government then steps in to rescue the whole mess by printing money we don’t have to shore up home values while devaluing the dollar those values are based on. You see, if dollars are worth less then those debts don’t look so big after all… right?

I guess, if nothing else, this whole thing achieved what it was intended to: affordable housing. Houses are now worth much less than they used to be, which makes them more affordable. See, government is effective after all.

Now that government has solved affordable housing for the nation, Barack Obama wants to put it to work on affordable health care. Here’s the best part: we’re asking him to. He’s making govenment cool again… you know: like it was under Jimmy Carter. Or was it FDR? No? How about Wilson? I’m just sure it was cool at some point and then it just lost its way.

The truth is that government ruins everything it touches. Even the most strident socialist falters when I ask him to name one private institution or industry that has been improved by government involvement. Furthermore, government simply has no prerogative to be stepping into the areas of finance and ownership. We should all want the government as far from our pockets and property as possible and this is a perfect example of why.

I could go on and on about this, but I think you folks get the picture: that government is best which governs least. All of this garbage is so far out of the scope of the intended role of our government, it’s ridiculous. Forget windmills; we could solve our nation’s energy problems by harnessing the rotation of our Founding Fathers in their graves.

Fabius Cincinnatus

You can imagine my astonishment, then, when as I was recovering from Thursday night’s orgiastic celebration of entitlements I was greeted with the news of McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. I was blown clean out of the water. Now, I was not taken by surprise in quite the same way that many were, because I was already quite familiar with the Iron Lady of the North, and had been loudly touting her merits as a solid Veep choice for months. Never for a minute did I think McCain would actually pick her, though.

And then her “introductory” speech… ahhh… it was just the soothing balm I needed after Progressifest 08. She hit all the right points, with just one unfortunate (yet, I must admit, expedient) reference to the abominable Hillary, and she threw out this beautiful gem to all the true originalist federalists out there:

I signed major ethics reform. And I appointed both Democrats and independents to serve in my administration. And I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress — I told Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks,” on that bridge to nowhere.

…wait for it, here it comes: the money quote…

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we’d build it ourselves.

Mmmm…. yessssssss!!! That hit the sweet spot. With simple, down-home logic and folksy intonations, she has struck the chord of logic with a clear, ringing tone. Buried somewhere in the morass of today’s politics lie the pure and simple truths on which this nation was founded. With a rather simple turn of phrase, she plucked them out and brushed them off for us to regard and consider.

Why on earth would the Federal government be concerned with building a bridge in some remote corner of Alaska? How could that possibly be a responsibility of the national government? How could a body of representatives of the entire nation possibly have any stewardship over or cognizance of the transportation needs of the people of a remote corner of the nation?

They couldn’t, of course. It was pork. Graft. Payback for some political favor. Sarah Barracuda smelled the bacon cooking and didn’t want any part of it, despite the obvious advantages to the people of Alaska from working a federally (over) funded contract. She had the moral courage to bite the diseased hand that fed her state federal table scraps.

And she had to go up against the powerful Senator Stevens Ted Stevens to do it. (Paging Mr. Biden: You’re not the first geezer Senate-fixture she has taken on. Be afraid.)

While it seemed like a boon at first, she soon woke from the dream. She knew that by accepting the pork, she was further effacing the federal system that gives her state identity, stewardship, and prerogative. Those sweetheart contracts would have put food on some tables in the short term, and would have helped a struggling town grow in the long term, but ultimately would have further eroded her ability to address the needs of her state directly.

Is this not the very antithesis of the culture of entitlements that pervades our government and our nation today? The trend against state responsibility and state identity is a cancer in the body politic. It is eroding the very basis of our hybrid government as it was set down by our Founding Fathers. Even Hamilton would be sickened by the evaporation of local responsibility and accountability. Lost is the idea that local leaders should be accountable to their neighbors—people they know—and that federal leaders should be accountable to those local leaders for not treading on their stewardship.

Buried in dusty volumes of the federalist papers and the writings of polemics at the time of the ratification, you will find now-obscure notions of how this nation was intended to run. It took years of thoughtful study for me to discover how we came to be completely off course. Sarah Palin seems to know it instinctively.

She just might be the best thing to happen to this country in decades. It’s only VP (the most useless job in the nation), but it’s a step in the right direction… and very refreshing.

Fabius Cincinnatus

For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Fleming—sorry… Doktor Flemming: we musn’t neglect the credentials of his Piled Higher and Deeper¹— he is a noted (and particularly uncompromising and vehement) critic of originalist constitutional interpretation. Most of his ilk concede that originalism has at least a place in constitutional interpretation. Professor Fleming, on the other hand, stands among a select few who actually deprecate its inclusion among valid perspectives in jurisprudence and seem to view it with contempt.

Fleming’s contribution to the discussion, from the report given by the “live blogger” cited above, follows basically the same line as his arguments have in the past, that originalism is splintered and that this fractiousness points to the inherent weaknesses of trying to get at any original meaning. He cites forms of originalism centering on framer’s intent, ratifier’s interpretation, textual interpretation, semantic value, etc. as evidence that the elusive “original meaning” is too nebulous and that the only thing that the various breeds of originalism have in common is a rejection of a “moral” reading of the constitution.

Firstly, it disgusts me that Fleming equates the moral relativism with which non-originalists reinterpret the Constitution with a “moral reading”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The whole basis of originalism lies in the notion that there are immutable truths that govern men and society and that our Constitution was written on the basis of those principles. The effort to crystallize and apply these principles to modern circumstances is the full scope of originalism. Any other mode of interpretation must, by definition, reject at least one of two notions:

1. That there exist any such immutable principles or
2. That the Founders based our Constitution on a sound understanding of those principles.

One or both of these principles must be rejected in order for any other system of Constitutional interpretation to be even embarked upon, let alone embraced. “Moral reading” requires either moral relativism or chronological snobbery… pure and simple. No logical counterargument to this fact is even possible. Obfuscatory counterargument, on the other hand, is sometimes quite effective. Fleming has made a career of it.

This leads me to my main contention with Fleming’s argument: his fundamental misapprehension (willful or no) of the nature of originalism. His assertion that originalism is fractious and splintered is absurd when you understand what the origin and purpose of true originalism are. What he describes as different factions within originalism are in reality nothing more than methods. He mistakes the tools for the craft. Differentiating originalists as “semantic” or “original intent” is every bit as absurd as subdividing diners in a cafeteria into “spoon eaters” and “fork eaters”.

Only a legal theorist could make such a mistake. There are even many who themselves claim to be originalists who make this error because they are steeped in the culture of orgiastic theorizing and debate that leads to something so patently absurd as a Forum on ‘The New Originalism’. When originalism is founded upon a core belief in the aforementioned immutable principles that govern the human condition, a veneration for the grasp that the Founders (and, collectively, the founding citizenry) had on them, and a respect for the sanctity of the process that codified them, then the supposed “factions” of originalism become so much bluster over no matter whatever.

Thorough, deep, and respectful study of the writings of the Founders, careful textual analysis of the document they so carefully produced from much passionate deliberation, close analysis of the contextual framework in which it would have been understood by both the authors and ratifiers, and a deep skepticism for innovative interpretation will yield sound jurisprudence and an anchoring polity that can safely guide us through the morass of circumstance and perceived exception that leads nations and empires to their eventual demise (ask the Romans).

America cannot and will not continue to be the greatest nation on earth by rendering mutable the principles on which it achieved its preeminence. Our relative prosperity, freedom, justice, and influence in this world are the result of adherence to a very carefully crafted blueprint. If we question the Founders’ grasp of the principles of good government, we imperil our status. If we question the existence of those principles, we seal our fate.

Fabius Cincinnatus

Note: The title of this entry is an allusion to C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, and parallels his usage of the word “mere” in the more archaic sense of the word. As dictionary.com puts it:

2. a. pure and unmixed, as wine, a people, or a language.
b. fully as much as what is specified; completely fulfilled or developed; absolute.
1- For those of you who suppose that I’m just being childish here, understand that my derision of his credentials has a basis in a general scorn for legal theory as a course of study and professorship, rather than for the value of academic achievement (or even credentials). To borrow yet another analogy from C.S. Lewis, the study of legal theory has as much to do with sound and consistent jurisprudence as masturbation has to do with procreation. Yes, I intend all the implications of that analogy on every level. I would trust a professor of philosophy on the bench long before I would a legal theorist. I find it telling that his degree is in “Politics”. Figures.

The conference’s president, Mayor Doug Palmer of Trenton, N.J., called the new dollars “a start” but said “certainly more is necessary.”
“We’ve asked for more cops,” Palmer said after Mukasey’s speech. “That didn’t happen. So we’re looking to increase the cops funding to put more police on the street.”
He added: “We’re looking for any kinds of money that you can use.”

The obsequious way in which Mukasey’s concerns (valid, though immaterial) are parroted by the mendicant mayors to smooth the hustle really sticks in the craw. The most remarkable aspect of the story is that the author and everyone cited in the article fail to question the basic premise of the executive action being taken: that the federal government is somehow responsible for providing funding for local law enforcement.

The event described by this article defies the direst predictions of even the most strident anti-federalist critics of the new Constitution in the run-up to ratification in 1789. Indeed, it embodies the criticism leveled by Samuel Bryan in his famous reply to James Wilson’s defense of ratification. Speaking of the authority of Congress to levy excise taxes as well as imposts, Mr. Bryan said,

But to extend this to excises, and every species of internal taxation would necessarily require so many ordinances of Congress, affecting the body of the people, as would perpetually interfere with the State laws and personal concerns of the people. This alone would directly tend to annihilate the particular governments; for the people fatigued with the operations of two masters would be apt to rid themselves of the weaker.

What Bryan is saying here is that a federal government armed with sovereignty and free to tax and spend in a limitless fashion will do so, and thereby will gradually eclipse the role of lesser, provincial (read: “state”) governments. None of the Founding Fathers could have imagined a scope of central government where the amount of taxes levied by the federal government would eclipse and even triple those levied by the states, and where most of the public services rendered by the states are funded in large part through federal dollars. Imagine their horror at witnessing their precious, sovereign states squabbling over their share of federal table scraps and using them as bargaining chips for votes in Congress.

The principle of divided authority is crucial to the proper functioning of a federal system of government. The central (often called the “federal”) government is to provide only those services and assume authority in only those circumstances that encompass the welfare of the nation as a whole and cannot be administered at the local level without creating confusion and disunion. Ideally, one would not be able to trace any “federal dollars” spent in benefit of the citizens of one state or another. Any dollar spent in a fashion that could be argued to benefit one state directly should never have been spent to begin with. It is the responsibility of the states themselves to provide such services. Their different manners and extents of doing so are how they compete in the free market of citizenship. States with successful, sound governments will attract businesses and citizens.

More specifically, they will also attract like minded citizens. Americans don’t all have to agree on every aspect of how government should function (and never will). That’s what the different states are for. There are basic values that define America and form a basis for our union, but those values need not, and probably should not, extend to homogeneity. We probably need a consensus on when we go to war and what constitutes a marriage, but we don’t have to agree on how much funding schools get or even whether healthcare should be socialized.

For instance, if California wants socialized healthcare, they can try it. I may find it absurd and directly contrary to the foundational principles on which this nation was based, but I feel strongly that a state’s prerogative to chart its own course is even more integral to the founding principles. The citizens of any given state can vote in the booth and then with their feet… and so can businesses. Call it governmental capitalism: states competing for constituents and businesses. Sounds rather… efficient, doesn’t it?

So far is our current situation from the original vision of limited federal government that it almost defies explication. I could expound for hours on it, but it would just depress me. Allow Alexis de Tocqueville to sum it up for me:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

So how did we get here? Well, lately I’ve been thinking about representation.

In his Farewell Address to the Nation, George Washington warned against the careless amending of the Constitution they had so carefully crafted in convention:

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.

While it can scarce be disputed that many such “innovations” which have since been embraced and adopted have resulted in unalloyed blessings to the people of the United States (Amendments 13-15 come to mind… and were demonstrably presaged by the founders themselves), I have often reflected on where we might perhaps have overstepped the line in our alterations. Might we in our innovation have stumbled into divergence… or even aberration?

It is a fact acknowledged with some disdain in modern social sciences that the U.S. Constitution, as originally written and ratified, insulated the Executive, Judicial, and half the Legislative branch from raw popular vote. This has since, for better or for worse (and I think it’s a little of both), been amended to encompass the direct popular election of Senators and pledged Presidential delegates. The reasons for these amendments, made in the best spirit of democracy, are no doubt sound and noble. This, however, does not mean that the reasons for the original arrangements were any less sound and noble.

Despite a healthy disdain for the civic awareness and sound learning of the masses, the author of For a Course of Years is, at heart, a man of the people. Don’t let my native pessimism fool you: for all my bluster, I have an embarrassingly ingenuous faith in the collective wisdom of the common man—insofar as society as a whole chooses to be moral and upright. Ignorance in any guise is reprehensible, but benevolent ignorance in the collective is redeemingly wise and the aggregate of its polity is justice. It is manifestly evident that this was the hope on which founding fathers pinned the whole operation of the federal system when drafting the Constitution. Some few quotations, culled from hundreds, will suffice to make this point:

“It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.” —George Washington, Farewell Address to the Nation, 1976

“Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” —John Adams, Letter to Mass. Military Officers, 1798

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” —Benjamin Franklin

Enough said on this point.

Despite the feelings expressed by our Founding Fathers indicating that they shared my faith in the collective wisdom of a moral public, they chose not to invest the people with direct representation at most levels of the Federal government. The House of Representatives responds directly to the public mandate, but in the case of the Senate, the Presidency, and (by extension) those offices appointed by the President with advice and consent of the Senate, that public mandate was filtered to one extent or another. In the case of the Senators, they were to be appointed by the state legislatures. The President and Vice President were to be elected by delegates to the Electoral College who were in turn appointed by the state legislatures.

Over the course of time, by amendment and practice, these filters were gradually removed. Amendment 17 stripped state legislatures of the power to appoint senators and their mandate was transferred to the same ballot box that chose representatives. The same spirit of faith in unbridled popular mandate had by then already led the sundry states to abdicate or surrender their prerogative for choosing presidential electors to the ballot box as well, though this change has never been codified at the federal (let alone Constitutional) level.¹

It may well be impossible to know what ill consequences might have betid our nation had a continuance in a more “insulated” form of representation been its course, and it is this fact which makes the point I venture to assert here a precarious one, but I’m going to say it anyway:

Popular mandate filtered through state government seems to be a more sure way of averting the creeping gradualism of federal expansion, and actually leads to an overall system of government that is more responsive to the will of the people.

There. I said it. And having said it, I already feel better about it. For having uttered something so anti-populist, in writing no less, I will have demolished any chance of ever winning an election… which is to say that I have uttered something so profoundly true that it would inspire loathing in at least half the constituency.

Before you carry me off and lynch me for heresy, understand that this admission has been a hard one for me. I’m a man of the people too, and I live in a state whose legislature I would not entrust with anything more precious to me than my laundry. The notion that handing more power to a state legislature that I already loathe with all my being could improve the health of our federal system is a bitter pill to swallow… TRUST ME. But I still think it’s true.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s break this down and see how I arrived at this conclusion. I know it seems counterintuitive, but you can’t expect to arrive at the same conclusion as venerated geniuses without some mental gymnastics.

The state legislatures themselves being appointed by direct election, what purpose could be served by filtering the public mandate through them in elections for federal office? The answer is simple, if you think about it: checks and balances. We’ve all learned about the checks and balances between the branches of the federal government; each branch is beholden to the others in some respect and simultaneously exercises a check on their power. Might it not stand to reason that the Founders fashioned the system of electing senators and presidents with the same notion in mind?

The Constitution clearly grants overriding sovereignty to the central government and it thereby stands as the ultimate check on the power of the state governments. In short, the Federal government can take almost any power or responsibility it chooses from the states. By controlling the appointment of senators and presidential electors, the States would have a crucial check on the otherwise all-encompassing power of the central government. State legislatures, you see, are unlikely to appoint federal representation that has demonstrated an inclination toward encroaching on states’ rights.

So far I have demonstrated only that a federal system so arranged would be more respectful of the juridiction and responsibilities of state governments, yet my statement above asserts that this system leads to a system of government which is “more responsive to the people“. How so? Any time you want to understand Constitutional underpinnings and the reasoning behind them, it’s not a bad idea to consult Library of America’s Debate on the Constitution two-volume set. Both the proponents and detractors of the Constitution have interesting and insightful things to say which shed light on what could be termed “original intent”. In a show of distrust for the level of sovereignty invested in the central government through the new Constitution, James Winthrop opined:

To promote the happiness of the people it is necessary that there should be local laws; and it is necessary that those laws should be made by the representatives of those who are immediately subject to the want of them. [...] It is impossible for one code of laws to suit both Georgia and Massachusetts. They must, therefore, legislate for themselves. —James Winthrop, “Agrippa IV”, Massachusetts Gazette, Dec. 4 1787

No matter how beholden the Senate and President are to the masses at large for their direct election, they will never be as responsive to the needs of the citizens of the various states as their own local governments. The state, county, and city governments should always be primarily responsible for the well being and happiness of their citizens. How can a national body or agency hope to address the crime fighting needs of Trenton, NJ better than its own mayor and city council?

Yet, there they are: America’s mendicant mayors begging for federal table scraps because the federal government has already taxed the public to the breaking point and controls the lion’s share of the funds. Money is power, you see, and the people holding the purse strings in Washington are no longer in any way beholden to the state governments for anything. Thanks to the 16th Amendment (another of those “innovations”), there is no limit on what purses the federal government can raid, so they grow and encroach as they tax and spend… bribing the public with the public’s own money.

Fabius Cincinnatus

1—It is a fundamental misunderstanding of this (and many another) point of Constitutional Law that has lead to continuing objections from the more soft-brained liberal quarters regarding the Florida elections debacle of 2000. Ultimately, the appointment of electors is the prerogative of the state legislature to carry out in any way they please and/or tacitly approve of. Even if the results of the recounts, official or independent, had gone another way, the State of Florida would still have been free to “appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors…”

For the politically uninitiated, these credentials indicate that he is almost certainly a committed progressive (or, “flaming liberal“, in today’s history-agnostic vernacular). Indeed, Mr. Turley himself coyly implies throughout his introduction that he belongs to the “progressives and polite people” he is referring to, though he will directly admit only to being an “academic” (which, in turn, supports my long-standing theory that in contemporary academia, progressivism is not merely the norm: it is a presumption). Reading over his blog, I found ample confirmation of the appropriateness of that label, but also found plenty to convince me that he is possessed of an unusual level of intellectual honesty for a progressive. This fact makes his assertions in the article all the more interesting.

It was the juxtaposition of the word “liberal” and the phrase “NRA might be right” with naught but a colon separating them which initially caught my attention. Let’s face it: this just isn’t something you see very often. Aside from the Arch-demon Cheney, there is nothing which inspires such visceral hatred in progressives as the NRA. Behold the tirade that mere confessed membership inspires. So, this is big. I knew this would be a groundbreaking article just from the title. This article, despite its progressive condescension, should be linked off of every 2nd amendment article for the next two weeks and should be studied in social science classrooms for decades to come, because it casts things in such a stark light. Never have I found a progressive speaking with such candor, consistency, and honest self appraisal. In it, as you will see, is revealed the most basic kernel of progressive thought: the founders were Neanderthals.

Well, okay, they weren’t Neanderthals; but they were at best feudal thinkers or something about that level. But I am getting ahead of myself… or at least ahead of the article. Let’s see how we got here. After introducing the amendment in question as the “Voldemort Amendment” (which, I am told, is a Harry Potter reference indicating it is evil… I’ll take this for intentional hyperbole), Turley starts framing the progressive attitude toward it with remarkably candid language:

For more than 200 years, progressives and polite people have avoided acknowledging that following the rights of free speech, free exercise of religion and free assembly, there is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Of course, the very idea of finding a new individual right after more than two centuries is like discovering an eighth continent in constitutional law, but it is hardly the cause of celebration among civil liberties groups. Like many academics, I was happy to blissfully ignore the Second Amendment. It did not fit neatly into my socially liberal agenda.

Wow. That was refreshing! I think I could debate this guy, not succeed in changing his mind, and still not want to punch him. This is an honest confession of what any originalist or conservative has observed when attempting to debate this issue in the public forum. Progressives just don’t even want to talk about it. Have you ever tried to debate a social conservative about pornography or public decency laws? They don’t really want to talk about it. They feel dirty even discussing it in specific terms and feel the subject beneath debate. If you are arguing acceptance of such behavior in law and custom, then you are a lecher and not really worth convincing.¹

This is exactly how progressives feel about discussing gun rights. If you are one of those types, you’re not really worth talking to. Are we really talking about this? Today? In the 21st century??!! We’re much more enlightened than this. They smile at you and shake their heads… and then they ignore you the same way one would ignore the incoherent outbursts of a holocaust denier or 9/11 conspiracy theorist. The truth is that they feel just as uncomfortable talking about guns as a prude feels talking about sex toys. They feel dirty even just discussing it. They would never touch a gun, and they feel uncomfortable in the presence of one. Start talking caliber and bullet designs and you will have them squirming in their seats.

After explaining how the recent case has forced him to countenance this ugly subject, he proceeds to brush aside the standard liberal arguments against an “individual right” interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. He dismisses the standard “militia” argument by noting firstly that the National Guard is, in fact, nothing like a militia and that the right guaranteed by the amendment would have been read out of existence by a “militia only” interpretation. Secondly, he notes that:

[...] the mere reference to a purpose of the Second Amendment does not alter the fact that an individual right is created. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government. At the time, many feared the federal government and its national army. Gun ownership was viewed as a deterrent against abuse by the government, which would be less likely to mess with a well-armed populace. [Link is his!]

Can it be??!! Yes, it is so. A progressive voice has uttered the unutterable: not only did the founders intend guns to be used for defense, they even intended that they be held in reserve against the encroachments of the government. This man has read his Revolutionary period literature. He doesn’t like it, but he faithfully reports it anyway. Good man. He chases it with the coup-de-grace:

Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right — consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment.

Finally, some honesty! I grow weary of reading tract after tract of revisionist history imputing to the founders attitudes towards the ownership of arms which are absurdly anachronistic and directly contradicted by their own words and actions as recorded in all available historical documents. So then… the gun-totin’ redneck mavericks actually have original intent on their side. Whither, then, the progressive in this bewildering predicament?

Turley, it seems, is ready to hoist the white flag and concede the point, but he throws in some rather telling condescension to soften the blow:

None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that … here’s the really hard part … the NRA may have been right. This does not mean that Charlton Heston is the new Rosa Parks or that no restrictions can be placed on gun ownership. But it does appear that gun ownership was made a protected right by the Framers and, while we might not celebrate it, it is time that we recognize it.

Oooohhh…. Did you catch that first line there? That’s the money quote. The “dark ages of American culture”. Delicious! He’s conceding the point that this amendment means exactly what conservatives think it means, but that’s okay because it is an anachronistic holdover from a less enlightened age. That was so long ago, they were practically barbarians. They clearly couldn’t understand the advanced age in which we live. Back then, the people had to have guns because they didn’t have the infrastructure of modern society to provide better ways of securing them or settling their differences. Clearly the “framers”² couldn’t have seen that today such a right would be not only superfluous, but, in fact, deleterious.

Behold, the spectre of chronological snobbery. This term was invented by C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield to describe:

[...]the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also “a period,” and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.³

For its raw, ignorant hubris, chronological snobbery is of all logical fallacies the one for which I harbor the most scorn. Do we think our lives and understanding so much improved in every respect today that we are prepared to reject the wisdom and values of those who laid the foundation for our present success and prosperity? Fifty years ago weapons were plentiful and for the asking, but nobody strode onto college campuses for the purpose of playing Grim Reaper. But we’re the enlightened ones.

I must say, I like this guy. He’s honest and with this short piece he has helped me understand progressives better than I ever have before. I deprecate their presumptive enlightenment and notions of improving upon the contributions of our Founding Fathers, but nonetheless I can see better where they are coming from. I cannot but think that this conceit issues from an inattention to basic foundational history and civics in our educational systems—that the neglect of the classics of western literature and civics has led to a paucity of real understanding and appreciation for these giants of civic discourse and theory.

Fabius Cincinnatus

1—You will occasionally find one with the patience to explain to a libertarian why he feels it necessary to have laws regulating what might be regarded as private behavior, but only rarely. This protracted discussion on the validity of “victimless crime” reasoning is a discussion entirely wasted on progressives, and conservatives know it.

2—”Framers” is a nice, easy euphemism progressives use to indicate the founders, which takes us one step further from that dangerous sort of veneration that might tend toward valuing their wisdom above today’s more enlightened notions. They just framed our government, you see. They intended us to flesh it out more and make it more suitable, because they truly believed that we would stumble onto greater enlightenment than was to be had in their day. That’s why they created the Constitution as a living document. Get it?

3—Lewis, C.S. Surprised by Joy, Ch. 13

Here was ample meat for digestion, surely… but which story? And did I really feel like wallowing in the mud just for the purpose of classifying it? A virgin posting so quickly defiled? No! So I have opted instead to write about all of it.

Where does it all come from anyway, this partisan posturing? How did we end up with these political parties which none seem to appreciate but upon which our governance so completely depends? Well, as you learned in high school, one of the great innovations of the American government is the two party system. It’s a brilliant system framed by our Founding Fathers to eliminate the chaotic effects of having multiple parties and factions with shifting alliances and coalitions. It was with this in mind that they firmly established this system in our founding documents.

Right?

Our survey says… X! That’s right folks, your high school civics teacher lied to you. It’s not his fault, though. He attended a liberal arts school where his professors lied to him too. Kids haven’t studied the full text of the Constitution for a couple of decades now. If they did, they would notice something peculiar: there’s not one single mention of parties. There is no reference whatsoever to parties, factions, or caucuses. Seems an odd omission, don’t you think?

It turns out, the Founding Fathers weren’t at all keen on faction becoming a force in the government. Even the Federalists and Anti-Federalists refused to openly acknowledge the idea that they had formed any kind of formalized factions uniting on a platform that extended beyond that one issue. All spoke in negative terms of the power of faction.

Try to wrap your head around this for a moment: all the sundry party-based offices and procedures of the Congress, the concepts of “majority” and “minority”, the primary elections process… all of it is an extra-constitutional house of cards built on the same foundation as our currency: nothing. Good gracious, they even have an office called “Majority/Minority Whip”, whose job it is to encourage congressmen to vote the party line instead of their conscience! Parties aren’t even in the Constitution, but it’s their JOB, for Pete’s sake!!! How did we get here?

We didn’t listen.

He told us this would happen. Who? George Washington, of course. He warned us in his farewell address¹ to the nation of the “baneful effects of the spirit of party”. The full text of this address can be found here. Would you believe that they read this address² to the Senate every year? Of course, there usually aren’t more than five Senators in the room when they do, and those five are busy texting congressional pages. The others are out fundraising… for their party.

After discussing what a bad idea it is to have permanent alliances and formal relationships with foreign nations (Stow it, liberal: I’ll see you your NATO bashing and raise you a U.N. withdrawal… but this is a topic for another day.), Washington sets right in and starts ripping a hole in partisan politics:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

Kinda puts that “Majority Whip” position in perspective, doesn’t it? When was the last time you looked at a piece of legislation and thought “Now that’s a consistent and wholesome plan digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests!” Sure: that happens all the time. Now, how many “projects of faction” are up for vote this week? (Trick question! Congress is on vacation. Again. Instead of considering FISA.)

He continues with some stern warnings about where this will eventually take us:

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Alright, first things first: just go ahead and sweep those partisan conspiracy theories right out of your head. Be honest—as soon as you read those words, the image of your least favorite recent president popped into your head (most likely this was either Clinton or Bush, depending on your political stripes). Take it easy. I feel quite confident that what he is describing here has not yet come to pass… but could. The parties clearly have become the “potent engines” here described, and the pump is certainly primed for this kind of power usurpation, but it clearly hasn’t yet come to pass nor is it likely to within the scope of the next administration, however the election turns out.

But it most certainly has happened before. Some of the most brutal dictatorships in the history have followed exactly this path; Hitler and Mussolini marched this roadmap exactly. See if this feels familiar to you:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

Curiously enough, Washington seems to be saying that political parties are actually more dangerous in democratic governments than in more totalitarian governments. Fascinating! He’s just getting warmed up, though:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Mmmm… the spirit of revenge… that doesn’t reflect anything in the modern political landscape, does it? I’d say we’ve come to expect it and even rely upon it. Votes are traded, appointments are held hostage, and entitlements are peddled… all this is called “the balance of power”. Compromise, you see, is the veneer of retributive politics.

Pause for a moment and consider how our attitudes toward political parties have allowed them to become “potent engines” like those Washington describes. The modern political landscape has no qualms about accepting and even rewarding myriad unscrupulous tactics designed to wrest the electoral mandate in spite of the actual will of the electorate. Pandering to bloc voters, courting union endorsements, and (dare I say it?) organizing “get-out-the-vote” drives are actually praised in the political arena as valid, effective means for parties and candidates to win elections. Then there are still baser tactics, like gerrymandering, used to artificially suppress the public will in spite of the results at the ballot box.

Tactics such as these garner praise for being politically savvy, without anyone questioning whether that is a quality to be admired. Losing candidates congratulate their opponents on “running an effective campaign” as if it were something praiseworthy, when the whole intent of these tactics is to distort the outcome from what it would otherwise have been if the voters were simply left to their own devices and if candidates and their ideas were weighed on the basis of their merits alone. Indeed, candidates who fail to (or choose not to) employ these tactics are summarily dismissed for “not wanting it badly enough”.

This is, of course, to say nothing of the distortions, push polling, media collusion, back room deals, and outright vote fraud which always are a factor in every election and are considered in check if kept below the radar. “Campaigning” is a concept I find somewhat distasteful, but I am willing to accept that it is well within the realm of sound civic duty for a candidate or proxy to put great effort into informing the public and evangelizing for his political perspective. It is only natural and in the greatest tradition of our nation to attempt to affect the public opinion on an issue through thoughtful debate in open forums. Picking up homeless people en masse and taking them to the polls to vote for your candidate in exchange for a hot meal is something different entirely and speaks to a corrupt attitude that prizes victory above meaningful public mandate in a just cause.

Okay, so returning to the subject of despotic usurpation, we have already established that this hasn’t happened yet. We haven’t? Oh fine then, chew on this: the fact that two different parties control the executive and legislative branches at this moment pretty much proves it. Trust me, when this final overthrow of liberty happens, you’ll know it and I’ll be very glad my blog has been anonymous. Washington wasn’t talking about W, nor was he talking about the Clintons.

So we haven’t yet had to countenance Washington’s worst case scenario. Does that mean he was mistaken about the influence of parties? No, he has more to tell us on the subject:

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

I could seriously fluff out this posting with prime or late-breaking examples of each of these points, but there’s really no need. Your mind furnished you an example for each point as you read it. Now go back and read it again. As you do, make an effort to be intellectually honest and you will find that this time the examples come from both parties… even the one you typically side with. You’re Libertarian? Green? Sorry, no moral high ground for you, either. Your party is impotent, not altruistic. If they had the power, they’d behave similarly.³

Perhaps you are thinking, however, that despite the enumerated pitfalls of parties the benefits still outweigh them. After all, party fervor serves to animate on civic subjects, those who otherwise might be thoroughly disengaged from the political process. It can inspire patriotism, loyalty, and civic responsibility. I would argue, however that it does so only superficially and artificially: it superficially informs them and artificially involves them. True patriotism and civic involvement are inspired by good character and a broad, thorough education in civics and history. George has a further point for you to consider:

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Basically, Mr. Washington is saying here that people will always be fervent enough in causes that inspire them and will naturally be inclined to as much patriotism and loyalty as is healthy to the cause of liberty. Party and faction will only serve to fan that flame into a consuming blaze that will bring about all the calamities he has enumerated.

Whither, then, the conscientious originalist in today’s political landscape? It is a question I have pondered for years now. I have dabbled in political involvement relating to party out of an abundance of concern for the direction our nation seems to be drifting. Such involvement left me feeling unclean, however. I knew it to be wrong. I experienced a feeling similar to that of piloting a small sail boat in heavy winds: that vague notion that despite your best efforts at helmsmanship you are being carried by the wind into unsafe waters into which you had no intention of going.

Inaction seems wrong. Party politics are the problem and by extention not the solution, and therefore must be wrong. We must, however, face the reality that the parties are here to stay and have been for well nigh 200 years. The parties cannot fall, because every person in a position to tear them down owes that position to their party. And just like the mob, the only safe haven from one party’s retribution is the other party.

So, I have struck a compromise with my conflicting notions of civic responsibility and originalist principles. Every November (and the occasional February), I go to the polls and faithfully pull the lever for the lesser of two evils. I even try to convince my friends and associates to do the same, for principled and measured reasons. Occasionally, if a candidate inspires me with their integrity, awes me with their grasp of founding principles, and seems to transcend their party in direct appeal to the constituency, I will actually campaign for this person (not their party). In my life, I’ve seen only two so far.⁴ One of them was Reagan.

While I feel it crucial to remain wary of factions and their influence, and to be actively vigilant in guarding my own outlook from the “spirit of party”, I have resolved not to automatically dismiss the motives of those who run for office under the auspices of party affiliation out-of-hand. Truly, there is no way to attain an office that will have meaningful effect on the well-being of this nation without the sponsorship of a party. If I were ever to run for office myself, I would have to be severely delusional to suppose that it could be achieved without said affiliation.

This may seem an anticlimactic end to an otherwise incendiary rant, but such is the nature of conservative thought: it is inherently pragmatic. Principles must be applied in the framework of present reality, or the principles become useless: so much fluff for parlor talk and angry rumination… rubber that will never touch pavement. Washington himself would have seen it that way, as would the rest of the Founding Fathers, all of whom signed the Constitution with at least one reservation held at bay by the exigencies of expedience.

Fabius Cincinnatus

1—Actually, it was an open letter, not an address, but it always gets called that anyway.

2—Actually, I believe that the version they read is this one, with the juiciest censures of party politics conveniently redacted. Yup, that link is to the State Department: your tax dollars hard at work revising history.

3—Don’t believe me? Look to the business world. Have you noticed that the greater Apple’s market share becomes, the more like Microsoft they behave? Steve Jobs becomes more like Bill Gates every day.

4—Actually, I’ve seen three, but one was so ill-equipped to win a race as to make my support moot.

A few points at the outset:

• Please, don’t dare call this a “blog”. I prefer the expanded designation “web log”, or (better still) online journal. Everything implied by the latin “commentarius” would be most fitting, both in denotation and etymology. This journal is antithetical to the culture that permeates the “blogosphere” and other such innovations of the AOL generation. Course of Years is to “blogs” what Polaner All-Fruit is to “jelly”.
• This journal is by an originalist. This designation might perhaps also encompass the term conservative (depending on how it is defined), and certainly has a deep rooting in capitalism. What this journal does not pretend to is Republican apology (note the capital “R”). The author should not be mistaken for a Republican, nor will feedback attacking originalist or conservative ideas through ad hominem attacks on their (often) Republican messengers be given so much as a hearing in this forum. Please take your partisan beef to the appropriate butcher.
• I don’t care that my journal is not popular in the “blogosphere”. It’s not a blog and therefore not a vanity project. I feel no gratification from exhibition or exposition. Suffice it to say that I have deeper motives for wishing to express my political angst in a publicly accessible format. See the “About” page.
• Right now there is no login requirement for posting comments. I have a feeling I will regret this, but my principles dictate that liberty always be given a chance to operate before the despotic hand of government be brought to bear in protecting the public from the natural consequences of its own hedonistic anarchy.
• No, there was not a grammatical error in the preceding bullet. It’s called the subjunctive mood. Go back to school and get a classical education from a conservative establishment more interested in teaching you to reason for yourself and to express your thoughts rationally and effectively than in programming you with an ideology.

Once again, welcome! Fasten your seat belts, return your seat backs and trays to full, upright, and locked position, and prepare to be astonished. Or bored. It could go either way, really. It’s entirely possible that I will eventually bore myself with my thoughts and this will ultimately prove to be the ideal cure for political angst. If so, then this web log will truly have served its purpose.

Fabius Cincinnatus