The Dangers Of Centralized Control

From Campaign For Liberty:

The Dangers of Centralized Control


By Pat McGeehan

Published 09/01/10



Printer-friendly version



Liberty can only be maintained when government is properly restrained. This concept is fairly simple. It has taken centuries, but government power has concentrated -- albeit slowly -- into the hands of a select few. And thus, it comes as no surprise that many Americans cannot conceive of the notion that our very own government can become destructive to the citizens it once existed to serve. The centralization of this power is growing at an exponential rate, and, as of now, will only become more "important." Thus, it is fitting that we examine the threats an environment like this creates.



When it comes to America, the federal government is of a different sort. After all, how often can people walk across the street and knock on their congressman's door to ask "Hey, why did you vote yes last week on that house resolution?" The hypothetical is laughable -- many Americans hardly recognize their representatives' name, let alone have access to their ear. But ignorance is not the focus of my point-centralized control is.



Stronger community reliance offsets the central authority and it serves as the best "check" on distant power. The federal government equals centralized control, and left unchecked its only service is to render liberty obsolete. Freedom is inversely proportional to the size of our central government, and can be expressed mathematically. When centralized government incrementally increases, liberty decreases. If freedom is the root of America, then conversely the federal government is the root of its oppression.



Centralized control provides this oppression a venue on a massive scale, so that when this nationalized entity acts (and it currently does at an exponential rate), it touches the lives of every American.



Alexis de Tocqueville, a renowned Frenchman who visited the United States in the 1830s, was astounded by not just the degree of freedom in our nation, but by the exceptionality of our Republic. He recognized this exceptionality quite readily and in his famed book Democracy in America, Tocqueville wrote of the character of centralized authority (alluding to the absence of it in America at the time):





It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life, and if it so monopolizes movement and life that when it languishes everything languishes around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep, and that when it dies the state itself must perish.





Unchecked centralized control creates these conditions. The very disposition of centralized authority renders its force supreme, so when it uses said force its ripples are not of an isolated nature. And just as Jefferson calculated that "liberty yields and government gains ground", so too is there a more specific power movement towards the center; that is, a more consolidated federal government. This movement of centralized government began at a creeping pace, but over time-as previously mentioned, has continued to escalate.



Red flags about centralized control appeared prior to the adoption of the Constitution, and nearly prevented its ratification. In fact, the fear of an all-powerful central government led some revolutionary-era leaders to take the course of only the simple improvement of the Articles of Confederation, our Constitution's predecessor.



By this time though, several things had occurred which forced the hand of some of the more cautious leaders to act. One event in 1787 caused a major shift in attitude. Shays' Rebellion began as a small revolt and actually remained that way, but due to the weak and impotent response by the Confederation government, shockwaves of discourse were sent throughout the then-slightly unified states.



This period begins the age of our truly united yet still-sovereign states. Actually, our American ancestors referred to our country as "These States United" or they would say "The United States are"-notice the difference in the last phrase, using the verb "are" and not "is".



The diverse states relinquished finite powers to better unite their resources-mainly for their common defense-both foreign and domestic (Shays' Rebellion). However, it was widely assumed the individual state legislatures would retain nearly ALL affairs not explicitly stated in the new constitution. This view point can be seen quite clearly through the writings of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay over and over again throughout the Federalist Papers.



However, even this explicit assumption of enumerated powers was still not good enough. The anti-federalists pushed hard for a separate Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment was securely in place:





"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."





The framework was brilliant and never has such a deliberate, yet delicate balance between local and central control existed within a written government document. The states have long served as the best check on the federal government, even more so than the separation of powers in Washington. After all, if a government has its own authority to interpret the extent of its very own powers -- i.e. the Supreme Court -- how can this entity long remain a limited government?



Though States' Rights are the subject of a different discussion and cannot be adequately examined here, the bottom line is this: the balance is gone. Today, the states are merely slaves to the master and the 10th Amendment has little more teeth than a new born puppy. The situation is sad, but we are not the first democratic civilization to endure the undoing of a federal structure.



In the study of relative free societies, it is typical to look at the unfolding of ancient Greece and Rome, two nations of democratic origins, both of which followed similar timelines with the same results, the degradation and collapse of liberty. Greece is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, for this was the cradle of western civilization. It was here where mathematics and science established their beginnings, along with the arts in philosophy, medicine, and commerce. When we think of Greece in the old, we think of architecture such as the Parthenon, the philosophies of Plato and Socrates, and the applied mathematics of Pythagorean.



Through logic, the Greeks assessed that decisions were largely a community-based function, and as such their towns or cities existed in a manner much like the early states in this country. Since local democracies give voice to everyone involved, individual worth was established which tends to give way to self-reliance and original thought. Thus a culture of freedom was nurtured and an environment enabling all of the aforementioned leaps in human thought was cultivated.



But what is less studied is the thirty year civil war between the Greek city states, effectively ending localized democratic institutions on the Greek peninsula. The Peloponnesian War brought to a close the era we commonly think of as classical Greece and opened up a totalitarian state under Phillip II and Alexander the Great.



Next let's look at Rome, a much more popular source of analogy.



The Roman State began as a republic, comprising elected officials in a Senate. While their structure was much less formalized on city-states, they none-the-less maintained a diverse group of decision-makers-that is until centralized control escalated, and by the time it was realized, Julius Caesar had already crossed the Rubicon River and defeated Pompey in the first Roman civil war -- thus ending any real sense of "Republicanism" and beginning the era of the Roman Empire.



What other free civilization began with more benign, decentralized control, withered a massive civil war, and began its course towards a more and more powerful consolidated authority?



It is not far-fetched for this state of bankrupt affairs could come to fruition in this country -- thinking otherwise is fully discarding the precious lessons of the past. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: "The natural order of things is for Liberty to yield and government to gain ground".



We must understand that no matter how well-intentioned our government leaders -- from the president on down to members of congress taken as a whole -- it is not their intentions that matter, for American freedom and our fundamental way of life are above any one leader or administration, no matter how popular. I cannot emphasize this point enough: without regard to the soundness of their purpose, to preserve freedom one must ignore intentions and instead center on the constitution. This is often extremely difficult to move past, and history is littered with dozens of societies that have fallen victim to good intentions, that is, the persuasion by our leaders that more progress can take place for the greater good if only they had their hands untied. But remember, the Constitution is intended to chain their hands, not free them. Through this concept, we are liberated -- without it, we can never hope to remain so.



It is not without hope, but rather due to it, that we move on. The Founders knew that no matter how direct they could write or how obvious their intent was conveyed, after all work was complete, the document known as the constitution, along with all the enumerated tools of restraint listed within, would only be what it is-a piece of paper. But they were not shortsighted and Jefferson (along with others) took this into account. I suspect this is why, in perhaps one of his better known statements, he wrote:



"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical ... It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."



This might be described as vigilance today. In other words, to keep what our ancestors gave, we must conquer our own apathy. Yes, it takes hard work and sometimes pure courage to preserve American freedom-but we owe this to them! We do not owe them the promise of an unfettered and unchanged constitutional document, but rather the promise of vigilant efforts against the foes of American freedom, both foreign and domestic. Just as they sacrificed, so must we. If you are one of the many Americans in our common country that cherishes freedom, we must strive to stay involved, to sometimes resist popular opinion, and, yes, even experience discomfort. After all, true liberty requires sacrifice.







Copyright © 2010 Campaign for Liberty