:: Some thoughts... ::

:: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 ::

Proper Government

Alas, as dark tides return, I feel compelled to start blogging again, mainly because I think we need to rebuild what has been slowly torn asunder and what will be demolished if Barack Obama becomes President of the United States.

Now you are wondering, what in the heck is he talking about?

Well before you read too much into it and my assumptions let me explain. The beginning starts with the proper role of government.

What is the proper purpose of government? I doubt that Mr. Obama or any of his fellow travelers on the left have really thought that way. I asked my friend that, and she (very left leaning) did not really have any answer, because the left does not think of government as having a purpose other than meet specified ends. It is merely one tool among many to meet specific notions. The left is driven largely by this sense of what it would term social justice, in fact, that is a determinant by which Mr. Obama proposes to select his judges. Our founders would be rolling in their graves when they heard that remark. And that is, I guess to me what makes Mr. Obama so more fundamentally unsettling than any other President or candidate I have ever listened to. Beneath his smooth veneer is a fundamentally different conception of government than we currently have or that this country was founded on. Put simply, government's proper purpose is not social justice as a nebulous ideal, nor is it the policies of "fairness" that Mr. Obama supposes, for "fairness" is a construct of the person looking for fairness, because they are the ones defining fair. More to the point, Mr. Obama wants his government to abide by his notions of fairness which is far different than treating everyone equally.
The real purpose of government is as Thomas Jefferson put it, to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happines, but what does this mean. It means that government is not an instrument for outcomes, or favoritism, but government's primary purpose is to ensure the liberty of the people who make it up (a government of the people). That's why government in our constitution is supposed to be for the people, and by the people, for it is the peoples of this republic which goverment represents.

The philosophical perspective of this borrows a lot from the thinking of John Locke, and it was he who partially influenced others like John Stuart Mill (though Mill had strong influences from Jeremy Bentham).
I do not want to bore you with the names of old philosophers, but my main point is that their concept of government came from the idea that each man was endowed with free will, and government was an imperfect form of God on earth, and therfore government's purpose was to create an environment for the exercise of free will, contra the current state of affairs at the time of the founding of the United States, which was one primarily of despotism and divine rule (the theoeretical construct from which kings derived their authority).

Barack Obama does not see government as an instrument of liberty, but one through which favors are imparted, and "fairness" is instituted. This is in opposition to the proper purpose of government which is to secure the lives (life), property (liberty), person (liberty), and ensure equality of opportunity (meaning the government does not have favorites).
:: Nathan 8:55 PM [+] ::
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