On the Role of Government

 

Xerxes, my friend to my far left, has opined that he does not know clearly what the proper role of government is. He says he wants it to be “scientist, always searching for a fuller understanding. Teacher, conveying wisdom. Priest, upholding a vision of what we can be. Mother, nurturing and caring for those less able to look after themselves.” In other words, all things to all people. One thinks of Mussolini’s formulation: “Everything within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.” 

That is where current leftist thought is; current “mainstream” leftist thought.

He begins with a tale of a group of friends, who regularly meet to debate about Donald Trump.

Isn’t it odd, unnatural, that the main topic of discussion among a group of Canadian friends would be a guy who is not in our country, not some important writer or philosopher, and not in power anywhere? This speaks of obsession.

And it is clear who is obsessed, isn’t it?

“Three of us think Trump is a poo-pile of all the worst traits of humanity.”

That is literally to say that Trump is at least as bad as Hitler, as Mao or Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, or the Marquis de Sade—"the worst traits of all humanity” must be at least this bad.

This is not a rational position. This is Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I am confident, on the other hand, that Xerxes’s characterization of the one Trump supporter in the group is a straw man: “Trump is the Messiah, come back to straighten out a broken and misguided world.” 

Nobody, even his strongest supporters, thinks of Trump in that way. This is necessarily so, because people on the right do not look to government to solve their or the world’s problems. They see its role as clearly defined. There is no room in contemporary “right-wing” politics for a messianic figure or a man on a white horse.

The right has a clear understanding of the role of government. It is limited, and so their expectations of their leaders are limited. 

It is the left that follows politics as a religion or as a substitute for religion, able to create heaven on earth. Recall the ink spent on Barack Obama being a “light worker.” “Hope and Change.” Remember Kennedy “charisma.” I recall posters of Jimmy Carter in 1976 adorned with a halo and the slogan “JC will Save America.” 

Justin Trudeau arrived in Liberal Ottawa as such a man on a white horse.

Ask any actual Trump supporter, and they will inevitably say something like, “I was sceptical, or didn’t like Trump at first; but I like that he did X or says Y. That won me over. But I also wish he wouldn’t/hadn’t/wasn’t Z.” Fill in the blanks, and it works as well for Pierre Poilievre, or Maxime Bernier, or Nigel Farage, or any leader on the right of the spectrum. There are always reservations on the right.

The proper role of government is summarized in the US Declaration of Independence: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

This is the charter of liberal democracy per se. It is actually as old as Athens and the Greek city states. One might disagree with it, but one is at least obliged to address it, and say why. In the older formulation that appears in the BNA Act, as old at least as the Roman Empire, governments exist to keep the peace. We can ask governments to do more, with the general consent of the governed. Such as a “social safety net.”

No room for a Messiah here. Expecting a political Messiah or government to save you is also of course anti-Christian, and by definition following the antichrist.

Not to mention, it is fascism. It is the Fuhrer principle.

Government should NOT be better informed than the people it governs, not be scientist, or expert, because it must be with the consent of the governed. They must have all available information in order to consent. This is why we must have freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of information. Government must not know anything the people do not know.

Government must be ethical, but is not there to enforce ethics on others. 

Xerxes thinks the problem is that nobody can agree on what is right and wrong. That is false. Ethics are not complicated: they are the same everywhere, utterly unmysterious, and can be summed up in a sentence, or a choice of sentences: do unto others as you would have them do to you. Or, as Kant expressed it, all others must be treated as ends, not means. Or, act as you could wish all others to act. Each formulation amounts to the same thing, and the principle is in most cases easy to apply. 

That said, governments do not exist to enforce morality. That would be a limit on human freedom. Freedom is required for morality itself. If one acts only under compulsion, by government or by another person, one loses all ability to act morally, because one has lost freedom of choice. That is why Adam and Eve were left free to eat the apple.

Governments are there only to protect your rights from infringement by your neighbour—or from those invading from further afield. “Your right to swing your fist ends where your neighbour’s nose begins.” 

A moral government honours, and stays within, this mandate.

“I do not believe anyone has a divine right to rule over others,” Xerxes adds, waving his flag on the dungheap of liberty. 

Here he is surely pulverizing the sun-bleached skeleton of a very deceased horse. Yes, some European monarchs briefly tried to push the idea, around the time of the Reformation, but always in opposition to the religious authorities, at least in the Catholic Church; I cannot vouch for Martin Luther. It is a pagan doctrine, that of the God-King, as in Japan or ancient Egypt.

The Devil always tries to complicate; the devil loves words like “nuance.” Make the ways straight.