This blog is full of my informed opinions and analysis from week to week, but today I've decided to let some of my sources do all of the point-making for me. This is, if no other reason, to demonstrate I don't just pull my ideas out of thin air and hope, by use of big words, people will take them seriously. My ideas are the product of a lot of education and wise deference to wise individuals. Below I will quote just a few and explain what each tells me. You are are free to decide if I'm missing something or seeing anything that isn't there. If you do see fault in any of it, please feel free to share in the comments sections at the end.
[This is by the way a re-post of an entry from about two years ago]
Here we go.
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents." -- James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788
That first sentence should speak volumes as I see it. Power should always be distrusted, even if it seems to be your own. The rest, after sorting out the semi-antiquated language, says something equally as important. Government acts that infringe upon individual liberty should not just be stopped when it goes against the will and judgment of the people. Much rather, they should be especially stopped precisely when they are the will of the people. Madison is arguing clearly for minimal government as the only answer to the threat of tyranny.
"A pure democracy ... can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party... Hence it is that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 10
Democracy cannot be the only check on governmental power if we wish to protect the rights of life and property. The "mischiefs of faction" that Madison refers to here are things like religious intolerance and class envy. If majorities rule then minorities, which include the wealthy, the enlightened to such things as the wrongness of some common social practice such as slavery once was a common social practice, as well as people with harmless but different ways and ideas, these people will not be safe from oppression. Life and property in a pure democracy are not safe.
Once again, Madison argues for minimal government. Democracy can be a way to keep other power sources in check but it can't be allowed to simply replace those sources. People who speak of democratically elected governments as if the democratic nature of their selection gives them all the authority they need are speaking very dangerously. The limits on a government speak far more in favor of its legitimacy by modern liberal (i.e. classical liberal) standards than do the number of people who voted for it. To suggest being democratically elected alone grants great authority is to suggest rights to life and property are trivial, rather than critically important as they are.
“Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” -- Robert A Heinlein
I believe Heinlein's point here is that we make the mistake of defining people by their causes, when we should define them by the means they're willing to use to advance them. Many modern American conservatives fall very clearly into that second group "who have no such desire" to see people "controlled". I in fact aggressively oppose trying to control people. My experience as a teacher tells me that attempting to control people is counterproductive. And my convictions about individual rights tells me it's wrong. Never the less I am socially conservative in terms of what I believe is right and wrong. I support laws that prevent government from advancing causes that offend my morals, but I don't generally support laws that attempt to impose my morals on others. Not only is there no point in forcing someone to do what I think is the right, but doing so is itself morally wrong.
"Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us."
-- John Dickinson during the convention of Philadelphia
This is not a slap at reason. If it were I wouldn't quote it as something that guides me. The context was that of setting up a government, and in that context it is one more piece of many pieces of evidence that the founders of the United States wanted a minimal and limited government. Let me explain.
It is not just fine but wise to reason out what one believes and what decisions we will make, but we are faulty vessels so to speak. We can easily think ourselves out of good conclusions and into bad ones. It isn't really reason itself that fails us, but us as vessels of reason. Yet even with our faultiness it is still wise that we lean on reason in making our decisions. If we make a mistake, we endure the consequences and move on and more often than not our command of reason will serve us well with enough practice, but the use of reason in governing is a very different thing.
Bad reasoning by government doesn't just effect those who made the decision, and often may not effect the decision maker at all. Individuals can more easily limit the bad effects of their own decisions than they can those of government. Getting even the most responsive of governments to end a bad policy is nowhere near as quick and easy as an individual ending their own bad policies. One must first prove to the government that the policy is bad and if those in charge don't share in the bad consequences, well then it becomes all the more difficult.
What Dickinson was saying, I believe, is that government should base its policies and rules only on what we know works, not on theories or ideals, no matter how wonderful they may be. Following this demands a minimal and limited government, since a government that only does what it knows will work cannot be one that tries to control others. No government has ever successfully controlled its people's behavior, so at least until some evil experiment actually works, Dickinson's advice precludes trying.
Ending Note
Once again, if anyone thinks I'm missing the point of any of these quotes, please let me know, and please include some explanation. Just because I have a lot of confidently stated opinions does not mean I lack an open mind. It is by being open to the thoughts and ideas of others that I have arrived where I am.
[This is by the way a re-post of an entry from about two years ago]
Here we go.
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents." -- James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1788
That first sentence should speak volumes as I see it. Power should always be distrusted, even if it seems to be your own. The rest, after sorting out the semi-antiquated language, says something equally as important. Government acts that infringe upon individual liberty should not just be stopped when it goes against the will and judgment of the people. Much rather, they should be especially stopped precisely when they are the will of the people. Madison is arguing clearly for minimal government as the only answer to the threat of tyranny.
"A pure democracy ... can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party... Hence it is that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 10
Democracy cannot be the only check on governmental power if we wish to protect the rights of life and property. The "mischiefs of faction" that Madison refers to here are things like religious intolerance and class envy. If majorities rule then minorities, which include the wealthy, the enlightened to such things as the wrongness of some common social practice such as slavery once was a common social practice, as well as people with harmless but different ways and ideas, these people will not be safe from oppression. Life and property in a pure democracy are not safe.
Once again, Madison argues for minimal government. Democracy can be a way to keep other power sources in check but it can't be allowed to simply replace those sources. People who speak of democratically elected governments as if the democratic nature of their selection gives them all the authority they need are speaking very dangerously. The limits on a government speak far more in favor of its legitimacy by modern liberal (i.e. classical liberal) standards than do the number of people who voted for it. To suggest being democratically elected alone grants great authority is to suggest rights to life and property are trivial, rather than critically important as they are.
“Political tags -- such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth -- are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” -- Robert A Heinlein
I believe Heinlein's point here is that we make the mistake of defining people by their causes, when we should define them by the means they're willing to use to advance them. Many modern American conservatives fall very clearly into that second group "who have no such desire" to see people "controlled". I in fact aggressively oppose trying to control people. My experience as a teacher tells me that attempting to control people is counterproductive. And my convictions about individual rights tells me it's wrong. Never the less I am socially conservative in terms of what I believe is right and wrong. I support laws that prevent government from advancing causes that offend my morals, but I don't generally support laws that attempt to impose my morals on others. Not only is there no point in forcing someone to do what I think is the right, but doing so is itself morally wrong.
"Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us."
-- John Dickinson during the convention of Philadelphia
This is not a slap at reason. If it were I wouldn't quote it as something that guides me. The context was that of setting up a government, and in that context it is one more piece of many pieces of evidence that the founders of the United States wanted a minimal and limited government. Let me explain.
It is not just fine but wise to reason out what one believes and what decisions we will make, but we are faulty vessels so to speak. We can easily think ourselves out of good conclusions and into bad ones. It isn't really reason itself that fails us, but us as vessels of reason. Yet even with our faultiness it is still wise that we lean on reason in making our decisions. If we make a mistake, we endure the consequences and move on and more often than not our command of reason will serve us well with enough practice, but the use of reason in governing is a very different thing.
Bad reasoning by government doesn't just effect those who made the decision, and often may not effect the decision maker at all. Individuals can more easily limit the bad effects of their own decisions than they can those of government. Getting even the most responsive of governments to end a bad policy is nowhere near as quick and easy as an individual ending their own bad policies. One must first prove to the government that the policy is bad and if those in charge don't share in the bad consequences, well then it becomes all the more difficult.
What Dickinson was saying, I believe, is that government should base its policies and rules only on what we know works, not on theories or ideals, no matter how wonderful they may be. Following this demands a minimal and limited government, since a government that only does what it knows will work cannot be one that tries to control others. No government has ever successfully controlled its people's behavior, so at least until some evil experiment actually works, Dickinson's advice precludes trying.
Ending Note
Once again, if anyone thinks I'm missing the point of any of these quotes, please let me know, and please include some explanation. Just because I have a lot of confidently stated opinions does not mean I lack an open mind. It is by being open to the thoughts and ideas of others that I have arrived where I am.
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