If you haven't figured it out by reading the previous chapters, I'm a constitutionalist. Rather than buying into the modern Liberal philosophy that says the Constitution was written by a bunch of 200-year-old white men who wore powdered wigs and bizarre wool clothing so it has no bearing on modern society, I believe those founding fathers were a smart bunch of fellows. Certainly they were better educated than 80 percent of Americans today. They were well versed on history, philosophy, religion, and had terrific insights on human nature.
We're a republic, not a democracy. We were founded to be a tolerant society, not a libertine anarchy. Freedom is the preeminent value of America.
We live in a time where people are demanding majority rule over a representative republic, and consequently have made it their mission to destroy all opposition to insure their majority by silencing their opponents. There are things public figures dare not say in public - those things may not get them put in jail, but they'll certainly be driven out of their jobs and forcibly banished to a life in hiding from the persecutors. Expressing any thoughts opposing or even questioning gay marriage, climate change, or abortion continues to cost high profile people their jobs. All at the same time as those on the left openly fantasize about assassinating George W. Bush and openly expressing their wish that Dick Cheney die from his heart condition.
The Federal Government must only be permitted those enumerated powers granted it by the Constitution. That means that nearly the entire alphabet soup of federal agencies should not exist. No department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection, Education, Communication, Public Broadcasting, Social Security, Health and Human Services, and so on ...
The Federal Government may provide the standing army, and is first and foremost responsible for our country's security. They may oversee the building and maintenance of our interstate highway system. They may act as arbiters to help resolve disputes between states. They may help America establish and maintain trading relationships with other countries.
For better efficiency and less corruption, the Federal Government should contract the building and maintenance of the interstate highway system to private contractors. In a perfect world, the projects may be bid on by any company with the ability to complete them in line with the parameters required. American business should create a trade organization that takes the lead in negotiating trade agreements with foreign countries, with the agreements only required to fit withing the guidelines set by congress. A partnership between the private trade organization and the State Department should be forged, which would produce much less corrupt and more equitable trade policies than those created by the current government bureaucracy.
Citizen education and welfare is solely and specifically left to the states. If Massachusetts and California want to create a generous welfare system that takes 70 percent of wages away from earners to give to the non-productive residents, they have the freedom to do so. Conversely, if Texas and the Dakotas choose to take no income taxes and provide much lower benefits to their poor residents, they also have that freedom.
Liberals argue that such a system would overload the welfare systems of the most generous (or in their parlance, "fairest") states, which they claim is "unfair". But if the productive flock to the low-tax, low-regulation states and the non-productive flock to the high-tax, high welfare states, each state legislature and governor can blame nobody but themselves.
Liberals also argue that without federal oversight, states with the worst schools will sink lower. If anyone can give me a single example of a federally-imposed education policy that produced a measurable improvement in student performance, perhaps you can soften my bad attitude toward federal tyranny in education. I'm pretty certain that there are no such examples.
What if a handful of states do everything right and are able to entice many companies to locate there? What if their well-educated citizens become the best employees for those companies and are able to help those companies dominate the marketplace? It seems to me it would result in a few states becoming leaders, with the most prosperous citizens in the country.
Wouldn't it make sense that the states that don't perform very well in comparison might ask themselves, "what are they doing to be so successful?", and eventually decide to emulate them? As the most extremely liberal states fail, isn't it more likely that their unproductive citizens might begin to decide to try their luck finding a good job in a successful state? Who says we need a federal government to impose mediocrity on the country as a whole and call it "fair"?
Government exists to keep order, protect us from those who wish to do us harm, and sometimes provide things that are more difficult for individuals to do on their own. Freedom is the most important American value. Fairness tends to be found only in the eye of the beholder.
We now have a government that openly declares their primary value to be "fairness", and has yet to acknowledge any interest in freedom. Obama and Company define "fairness" as those things that benefit only them - that fails any reasonable test of the word.
Freedom!
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