The Raison d’etre of Government
By: George Noga – January 23, 2022
Preamble to the US Constitution
“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.“
Since the Neolithic Revolution 12,000 years ago, when humans transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherer clans to settled agricultural societies, people have banded together for security from internal and external threats to their lives, property and liberty. The Declaration of Independence proclaims all men have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and (property) pursuit of happiness. The Constitution, in its preamble above, establishes the raison d’etre for our government as being mostly about security, i.e. justice, domestic tranquility, defense and liberty. Indeed, the social contract between man and the state always has been, first and foremost, about security.
Americans expect government, above everything else, to protect their lives, property and liberty. Progressive government at all levels, national, state and local, is failing in this, the most basic role of government. The Biden Administration is failing to provide for the common defense. Its manifest weakness, on full display in Afghanistan, is an open invitation to Putin, Xi, Kim, Iran and to tyrants everywhere. Moreover, Biden is slashing (real) defense spending as progressives always do when in power. The most potent asset in our defense arsenal is our economy and Biden is weakening it.
Progressives in control of state and local governments refuse to protect citizens and property from mob violence. They defund police, decriminalize larceny, abolish bail, create sanctuary cities and refuse to prosecute serious offenses. They impose gun control to keep citizens from defending themselves and their property from mobs; instead, they prosecute those (McCloskeys, Rittenhouse) who exercise their rights.
Rather than defending Americans’ lives, property and liberty, Biden and his top advisors, all selected based on identity rather than merit, are putting us at greater risk. They are destroying the property and life savings of many Americans by the pernicious inflation they have unleashed. Their profligate spending is hastening the arrival of a debt crisis and a lost generation for our children and our children’s children.
Progressives, and those who enable them, have lost sight of the reason Americans have a government in the first place. It is not for transgender bathrooms, CRT, identity or wokeness. They are placing our lives at risk from both foreign and domestic threats. They are failing to protect our property from criminals, looting and mob violence. They are assaulting our liberty in myriad ways – using the pandemic to abolish our right to assemble, to worship and to be secure in our persons (vaccine mandates).
Ironically, the evils catalogued supra all were promulgated by a form of government most people consider to be among the best in the world and even throughout history. The root cause of our present accursedness is not a failure of government or even bad government – although we presently have both. Rather, it is due simply to immutable human nature and to our government behaving like governments always do.
Indeed, the entire sweep of human history in the 12,000 years since the Neolithic Revolution instructs us that it is foolish to believe people can control government. We can’t; but we can limit it. Dear readers, the answer lies not in better, wiser or even enlightened government. The answer lies in more liberty and less government.
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Our next post January 30th is about taxing billionaires.
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More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us
