“We get the government we deserve.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville
“… government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish …”
—Abraham Lincoln
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”
—Thomas Jefferson
I have received a number of responses to a series of columns I’ve penned of late, all of them criticizing, in one way or another, my view of the role of government generally and of the state of America’s government in particular. Several of these responses have suggested that any government that acts to deny freedom to those it governs is immoral. Pondering these criticisms has motivated me to offer this “apologia.” It may not satisfy everyone, but I’m pleased to say, it satisfies me.
Among the criticisms I have received, the most intense have asked me to ponder how much better off our country would be if we had not amassed the extraordinary amount of indebtedness we currently maintain. A corollary of that concern is the thought that most of the indebtedness that flows from our massive entitlement programs is doubly burdensome since those programs tend to increase reliance on safety nets and decrease personal responsibility and individual morality.
The thought that a government should be concerned with the morality of its society is hardly novel. More interesting is the proposition that a society’s government can, in and of itself, be a source of that society’s immorality. But America’s government is fashioned to be the result of a democratic republic wherein, to paraphrase Lincoln, the will of the people dictates the actions its government takes. Seen in that light, the better question might be to what extent our current government represents our collective view of morality.
I have never regarded morality as a singular driving force in human affairs. Rather, I consider immorality to be endemic to the human condition. How else can we explain its presence in every page of the history of mankind (Cain’s killing of Abel being perhaps the earliest example, if you take a literal view of the Bible)? But it also cannot be denied that we have the ability to appreciate morality (to know, inherently, right from wrong) and to strive for it in our actions and in our communities. Simply stated, we are complex creatures, capable, on the one hand, of horrendous acts and thoughts and, on the other, of great efforts and amazing accomplishments.
The impulse to be governed (the need for government) seems to be an outgrowth of the collective recognition of the penchant for immoral conduct. The simple hunter-gatherer tribes of the post-stone age had little need for governing bodies. They lived hand to mouth because it was all they knew. Morality was at best an after-thought, basic survival being the primary motivation in the social orders that existed. As populations increased and societies became more complex, with individuals focusing on more than surviving from day to day, organization (establishing rules of conduct and identifying acceptable modes of living and relating with one another) became a necessity. And, to instill that organization, governments were required.
The concept of government is thus neither an inherent evil nor a manifold blessing. The needs of the society, and the will of the majority in that society, best determine what level of government involvement in the lives of the members of the community is necessary.
We might thus consider a continuum of possible forms and roles of government, with any society’s place on that continuum determining what that form and role might be. Morality is a factor to the extent that the society wants it to be. But it is always in conflict with the immoral or amoral impulses that are also part of our nature.
As an example, if the society is overwhelmed with hatred for a specific group of individuals, things like the Third Reich can develop. If it is inherently selfish, disregard for the have-nots among it can be dominant. If it is overwhelmingly altruistic, a socialist model might emerge.
America’s society has drifted from relative comfort with immorality (slavery being the prime example) to relative identification with morality (the “war on poverty” perhaps representing such a point). In terms of political identities, conservatives tend to regard morality in ways that most benefit themselves. (“Greed is good,” they proclaim, thereby excusing their efforts to increase their own wealth at the expense of others.) Liberals view morality by focusing on the needs of the less fortunate. (“From each according to his ability to each according to his need,” as Karl Marx put it, attempting thereby to deny individuals their inherent selfishness.)
That continuum, from pure selfishness to pure selflessness, could be a way to address the role and form a government should have in a society. But, of course, it’s a moving line, constantly shifting because of countless variables that are almost impossible to control or even ascertain at any given moment, let alone at any future point in time.
America today is torn between the conservative and liberal views of morality, with the conservative view currently dominant, if only marginally. Obamacare is a conservative response (for-profit insurance policies guaranteed to all) to a liberal perception (adequate health care should be available for everyone in the society) of a moral deficit in our country. It’s probably as flawed as the roll-out of the website suggests, but it is also probably the best our government could produce in its conflicted state. In that sense, it epitomizes the country at this point in its evolution: still striving for greatness, yet finding it ever harder to achieve.
Freedom, in this context, is a highly subjective concept. “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose,” is a bitter way to describe the feeling some might have for the ideal. A better line might be “one man’s freedom is another’s enslavement.” I cherish my freedom (such as it is), but I’m not sure I would feel all that sanguine about it—or even be aware of it—if I had been born out of wedlock, had grown up impoverished, had never had an understanding of my potential to develop into a meaningful member of society, and had been subjected to prejudice and injustice for most of my life.
In the end, we probably do get the government we deserve. And those who claim that the country is now in decline may well be right, although the same thought might have been voiced at the height of the Great Depression or in the midst of the Civil War or at a dozen other times in our nation’s history.
I don’t claim to have all the answers or even to see the problems all that clearly. I’m really an agnostic on most policy issues, seeking only real solutions that solve real problems. Morality? Freedom? I only know that my sense of morality is abused by political perspectives that demand absolute adherence to a single, rigid ideology and that in a truly moral society, freedom can never be absolute.