Happy Independence Day!
For all Americans, this is the day to remember our independence. We can think about it as strictly historical, but we can also think about how it applies to us today.
(And for our British readers, this is your day too. It's the day on which you can thank your lucky stars that you don't have to take responsibility for a bunch of Yanks who don't even speak the language. Many of you of course don't wait until July 4th to do that; I suspect there are plenty of you who often say a little prayer of thanksgiving for colonial independence.)
The Founding Fathers of this country were aware that the powerful tend to arrogate power to themselves. They thought that democracy would tend to ameliorate that tendency and, to date, it's probably the best idea anyone's had, even if it didn't originate with Jefferson, Madison, etc. Of course they feared the unwashed rabble more than they did the educated elite class of which they were all members. Much of the next two-hundred years or so of American history was an exercise in wresting power from eastern elites and shifting it toward less educated, less wealthy, more sexually and racially diverse strata of society.
But today, it's hard to argue that the democratic spirit is very vigorous in this country. Our democracy consists of a two-party political system that often seems to be a contest to see which can better serve elite interests. Time and again, on issue after issue, polls reflect that popular sentiments, and those of political and economic elites are in conflict. Stated another way, elected officials kowtow to monied interests and only rarely consider those of everyday Americans.
As one large example, Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann argue persuasively that, for American policy makers, the great disaster of our military withdrawal from Viet Nam was that it constituted an unprecedented outbreak of democracy. As seldom seen before or since, political power in this country was forced to bend to the will of the people. Thus George W. Bush's indifference to popular resistance to the U.S. invasion of Iraq constituted a salutary (in elite eyes) return to the status quo antebellum.
From healthcare to "free trade" to foreign wars, and countless other issues, the political class simply goes its own way secure in the knowledge that, while the electorate may change parties, it can little affect policy.
The United States Constitution perceives that governmental power and individual freedom conflict. The one increases at the expense of the other. The tendency of power to coalesce about the already-powerful means that, among other things, governments tend to grow stronger and their power further reaching. As that happens, a reduction of individual liberty must also take place.
And that is precisely what's happening, particularly coincident with family breakdown. Over the past 40 years or so, there has been an enormous increase in out of wedlock childbearing, and a radical dislocation of fathers from their children and from the mothers of those children. And government bureaucrats have leapt into the breach.
For example, we've seen a massive increase in child support-related issues, and with every child support order, comes a court and a judge, and federal and state bureaucracies to enforce same. That of course means unprecedented inquiry by those arms of government into every aspect of the obligor's finances and employment. The OCSE itself admits that state courts set child support orders too high, which results in default. Prison is the government's answer to failure to pay. Would Thomas Jefferson be surprised?
More divorces have meant more allegations of physical and sexual abuse by parents. That allows courts and law enforcement authorities to step in and examine medical records, question friends, neighbors and relatives. The spectacle of the police questioning small children, without their parents present, about the intricacies of sexual behavior is now commonplace.
Child welfare agencies look into homes with children. Are the parents doing an appropriate job? No one would argue that these governmental bodies are unnecessary. On the contrary, some children need protection from their parents. But just as surely, father absence and the rise of single-parent families has increased poverty and lessened parental oversight of children.
That means the legitimate need for CPS has increased too. And where there's a legitimate need for governmental intervention into families, as surely and night follows day, those same agencies will overstep their rightful bounds. As many children's advocates have warned, CPS typically bears no consequences for taking a child from good parents, only for leaving a child with bad ones. In short, governments abet family breakups and increase their power with each one.
CPS agencies routinely fail to notify absent fathers that they are about to take children from single mothers. They prefer foster care to father care. That's an exercise of naked governmental power over fathers and their children. Less family breakdown would mean less CPS intervention and less foster care.
The rise of single-parent families has gone hand in hand with the rise of daycare centers. Those substitute parents are rightly regulated by the state; few would argue that they shouldn't be. But again the regulation of daycare centers substitutes governmental decision-making for that of parents. Two-parent families have less need of daycare than do single-parent families.
Every day we see governments second-guessing parental decision-making, sometimes correctly and sometimes not. But whether for good or ill, it is the substitution of government for parents. In Canada and India, children have sued their fathers because they disagreed with their parental decisions. The Canadian court ruled that the father's grounding of his daughter for disobedience was excessive.
In New Zealand, Parliament passed legislation making it a criminal offense for a parent to "smack" a child, i.e. give light, appropriate corporal punishment. Polls show that few in that country agree with the law, but again, political elites are indifferent.
I could go on almost indefinitely, but will spare you all. Suffice it to say that the principles stated in our Declaration of Independence have real applicability today. It may be that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi count as great improvements over mad King George, but the process of power gathering ever-greater power to itself is ongoing, as must be resistance to it.
Just some thoughts on Independence Day.
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