December 2004

What to Do With a Government?

For the most of the 20th century, the American government, from Roosevelt to Johnson (via another Roosevelt), continued to expand the definition of the people. Starting from the end of the Gilded Age of the 19th century, when government worked of, by, and for corporations and trusts; to the height of the Great Society when government worked of, by and for the people, never before had a nation or society worked so hard to ensure that all are secure in their rights to, among other things, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The past 30 years has see a reaction to this like no other. During the Age of Normalcy in the 1920s and the Fifties, government, for the most part, stopped working for the people. During the 1920's, government became, again, a tool for corporations, culminating in the erroneous federal reaction to the Great Depression. The 1950's on the other hand, could not stop the tide that Roosevelt and Truman had started. Though two of the three branches of government were starting to disengage from the policies of the New and Fair Deals, the Supreme Court continued to push along. The beginning of the end of segregation, Brown vs. Board of Education was the result of over 20 years of appointing progressive judges. Now, all three branches and at least 1 and a half of the two parties, do not profess any belief in the progressive ideals of, what can be considered, America greatest moments to date.

As the tide of progressivism reached its peak with Johnson's Great Society, the end was nigh. Nixon's moral majority which coalesced around southern and western conservatives who would no longer support the progressive democratic party, sowed the seeds to end a century of securing the rights in the Declaration of independence for more and more Americans.

The ideological split comes from how the people consider their government. During times of progressivism, the people think of the government as not just an agent of change, but as a power to do good for the society. The government, if directed towards to right ends and provided with the right means, can accomplish more than any individual or group of individuals. Though always comprising with other groups who do not share a certain belief, the progressive government can bring about a more perfect union.

Today, this belief has been ceded to one that declares that government has no role in society, that it is not suppose to work for the people. Though this has only been a powerful political voice for about 30 years, it started with the businessmen of the 1930 reacting against Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. At the time, with 25% of the nations workforce, unemployed, these business did not have a political leg to stand on. But, with time and patience, anyone can have their time in the sun.

Many Americans now consider the 20th century progressivism dead. They proclaim that government should have no role in society. This illustrates a misunderstanding of society and government. Even if the government would to truly minimize their impact on society, and only ensure the defense of the republic, it would still have an enormous impact on society. The defense of the republic alone requires an intrusion on the personal business of Americans that neither the founding fathers could imagine nor could have the Robber Barons dreamed of exploiting. At over US$ 300 billions, over ¼ of our GDP, this is not small business. This illustrates that even accomplishing the basic requirement of government, has a large impact. And to think, or even believe, that businessmen and woman, whose job it is is to maximize returns will not do everything they can to bring have as much of this as possible is to show an even greater misunderstand of capitalism.

Those corporations and the people who run them do not fail to understand this. They may proclaim limited government in speech, but in practice, they are all for the government spending money, as long as they get their share of the pie. In and of itself, this is a very American tradition, and is very capitalistic. The Robber Barons were very adapt at this. It is a poor businessman who does not try to secure some of this funding for him or her self. So, it is in business interest to influence government to spend more on them. As such, it is not surprising that business does not want government to spend on what they cannot take part of, including public education, public health care and securing the rights of the people. Businessmen are not philosophically inclined towards abridging these rights, but they appear to have a false sense of security involving those rights.

The other faction on the of the coalition for smaller government is the Christian conservatives. But in reality, they are very strong proponents of government action, and in fact, a bigger government. They fight very hard for government to take an active interest in women's reproduction, they want government to make and enforce laws against abortion, they want government to make and enforce laws against birth control, and they want government to make and enforce laws on how to teach children. This does not begin nor end with sex education, but also, and probably more importantly, with scientific education. In no other nation that has embraced the technologies that grew from the scientific revolution and desires to continue to expand our knowledge, are the teaching of basic scientific fact under pressure. Christian conservatives do not want government to not get involved in how science is taught, if they did, they would start up and send their children to private religions schools. They want government to take a very active role in determining what all children are taught, regardless of whether it is fact or not, and regardless of how it prepares the society for the future

So, the Right wants government as much as the Left. The difference is whom do we want government working for. The American left does not condemn the desire to make money, it is not only a major component of what makes us great, but it is a cornerstone of that greatness. What it wants is that ability to make money is available to all.

In our 21st century lifestyle that we all embrace, this is not just providing for a free public education. This is also ensuring that those who can go to college go and are able expand their knowledge, meet new people beyond their neighborhood, and experience ideas and practices that would not be available to them otherwise.

It is not just providing the funds for universities, clinics and hospitals to understand the human genome and cure rare and common diseases that have plagued mankind for thousands of years. It is also ensuring that every single child born in American receives vaccinations, that those who are working to make a better world for their children are able to be healed when they or their children are sick. It is also ensuring that those who have given their lives to helping making this nation great, both in the private and public sector, are able to be secure in knowing that whatever may financially befall them, they can get treatment without having to sacrifice meals.

It is not just saying that ½ of our population has equal rights. It is providing them with the means to exercise those rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is providing women a choice of what they want to do with their lives when they want to do it.

The Great American Experiment has demonstrated that these and many other rights that the people enjoy cannot be secured without the government. Past attempts to provide education to all who deserve it; to allow just businessmen the right to heal the people, and ensure that woman are equal with men, have failed. The nearly three quarters of a century of progressivism has provided us with much of this, which we now take for granted. This does not have to be the case. One just has to look at the South after the civil war. Once the government turn its head, blacks were quickly disenfranchised and forced to revert to a serf-like existence. To say that granted rights are secure evermore is to have a naiveté that the founding fathers were trying to create a government against.

Government can act for the people, but only if we want it to and a vigilant in ensuring that the government does so. The present climate of pretending to ignore this fact, while at the same time, ensuring the government is an agent for business and a select few will not lead the Great American Experiment into future greatness. It will continue to create division amongst the people, it will turn our motto of "Out of Many, One" into "Out of One, Many." As history has shown, American's greatest moments are when it is actively securing the rights of all and ensuring that future generations will not only be able to share in our wealth and happiness, but can achieve a greatest which we only have an inkling of.