Baseline Thoughts - Liberty and the Constitution

The most important book of 2009 was "Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto," by Mark Levin. It is a must read for anyone who wants a plain language foundation for understanding the historical and philosophical factors that explain the current political mood in America.

I’ve thrown together the following table as fodder for reflection.

Liberty values …	Tyranny (or the statist) values …
The individual over the collective or state.	The collective or the state over the individual.
Individual freedom in commerce.	State control of commerce.
Individual opportunity for the creation wealth.	State control over the distribution of wealth.
Individual freedom of religion.	State freedom from religion.
Individual ownership of property.	State regulation of property.
Individual accountability to the collective (personal responsibility).	Collective responsibility for the individual (personal  entitlement)
Restrictions on government power to protect individual rights.	Restrictions on individual rights to protect government power.
Supremacy of smaller (more localized) divisions of government.	Supremacy of larger (more nationalized or globalized) aggregations of government.

When Patrick Henry declared “Give me liberty, or give me death,” he meant it.

The words ‘liberty’ and ‘libertarian’ are much misunderstood today. Libertarian values do not grant a license to the individual to do anything he or she wishes to do. Libertarians value civil order in the society as necessary to the free exercise of individual rights and commerce. The individual is accountable to society for the continued maintenance of the civil order. The priorities of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are anything but libertarian. They seek at every turn to break down civil order. A more apt name for this organization would be the American Entitlement Organization.

Libertarians are also not anarchists when it comes to government. Libertarians recognize the need for minimal government, properly restrained from trampling individual rights, as necessary for maintaining civil order and protecting sovereignty. Libertarians recognize the Constitution of the United States as the greatest governing framework ever conceived by mankind. Libertarians are also deeply concerned at this time about ongoing abuses against our Constitution in domestic and foreign affairs.

The Founding Fathers were very wise in the national governing framework they gave us. Separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial branches places firewalls between the statist and his worst impulses. The way the Constitution grants legitimacy to the national government only insofar as the individual state’s agree to it (“federalism”) simultaneously limits the statist’s ability to implement top-down control and provides for a bottom-up laboratory for democracy. All in all, the document is an excellent libertarian framework for protecting the minority against the tyranny of the majority.

The Bill of Rights (1st through 10th Amendments) was a masterstroke. They are protecting us still.

I believe future historians will look back at 2009 as a very good year for the 1st Amendment. Despite one party control of the executive and legislative branches, despite effective control over most of the popular media by the same party’s fellow travelers, despite the tendency for the American people to give a new administration the benefit of the doubt, the agenda of this party has been slowed and held in check – by nothing but the freedoms of assembly, petition, and speech protected by the First Amendment. The TEA party movement is a perfectly beautiful expression of the First Amendment. Ironically, and old media (AM radio) and a new media (the Internet) have been key factors in the continued relevance of the First Amendment. We must stay vigilant in 2010 – the statists already have anti-constitutional legislation in the pipeline for further regulating both (‘Fairness Doctrine’ for radio and ‘Net Neutrality’ for the Internet).

I believe 2010 will be a good year for the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Amendment 9 – Construction of the Constitution - “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. “ Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People - 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.” In other words, the national government is strictly limited by the language in the document, the states and people are not.