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 A Tea Party we should all attend
by Tom Campbell
April 15, 2010
The angry rhetoric, excessive volume and highly partisan approach make the tea much too strong for our taste, but the current Tea Party movement does have a flavor worth considering: the erosion of state and personal rights.
This nation almost didn’t get off the ground because of arguments over how much power the national government would have vis-à-vis the states. The social contract finally reached concluded that the federal government would primarily provide military protection and ensure fair commerce laws between the several states; and all powers not specifically granted the federal government would be granted to the states. The founders would barely recognize their original intent today.
The recently passed health care legislation is a prime example. Without wading into whether the bill passed by Congress was good or bad you cannot escape the fact this legislation usurped the rights of states and individuals to make such decisions. There was much debate over approaches, but there was no debate over whether solutions should come from the federal government, state government or any government. Washington now becomes intimately involved with our personal lives and our health care from birth to death.
Robert Higgs, a senior fellow for the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, recently wrote, “What of any consequence remains beyond the state's reach in the United States today? Not wages, working conditions or labor management relations; not health care; not money, banking or financial services; not personal privacy; not transportation or communication; not education or scientific research; not farming or food supply; not nutrition or food quality; not marriage or divorce; not child care; not provision for retirement; not recreation; not insurance of any kind; not smoking or drinking; not gambling; not political campaign funding or publicity; not real-estate development, home construction, or housing finance; not international travel, trade or finance; not 1,000 other areas and aspects of economic and social life.”
Where once we sought Divine providence or maybe the help of our neighbor, today we automatically turn to government and assume they are supposed to provide help. Not even religion is sacred; government has gotten into the business of telling us what is or isn’t permissible regarding our respective faith practices. Not many years ago anything not specifically identified as a responsibility of federal government was prohibited, now anything not specifically prohibited is fair game for regulation or control by government. The State of North Carolina has unfortunately taken lessons from their uncle in Washington.
Maybe we do need a tea party, but not the kind currently brewing. We the people would do well to sit calmly and civilly reason together over a pot of tea to review our social contract with government. If we are aware of what is happening and consciously make the decision that government’s role will be dominant that is one decision. My concern is that our freedoms have eroded without such awareness. It would serve us to examine what the founders of this nation initially envisioned as respective roles between national and state government, to take stock of where we are today and determine whether we are comfortable with the role of government in our lives, finally deciding what, if any, changes we would make. This discussion would be one tea party worth attending. |
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