Wes Riddle’s Horse Sense #370

Ideology of Liberty

In the late campaign, many stupid things were said on all sides. I suppose that’s normal in American politics, but some undeserving things were accorded the mantle of common wisdom by the media and political analysts. For instance, that we’re too polarized as a nation and ergo, that’s why civility is lacking and Congress can’t lead itself out of a wet paper bag; and we’re too divided according to ideology, so thinking is to blame and a new way of thinking must transcend the old. If only politicians were less ideological the story goes, then they should be more practical in problem solving. If political parties adhered less to certain ideologies, then they should rise above petty little selfish interests and begin to govern effectively for the common good. The critique is like eye candy of rainbows floating on water, where light passes through the prism of a pretty oil slick. It belies the dunce of democratic majorities and special interest lackeys, who lack an understanding of political philosophy, political science and language, whilst they mouth words and feel quite smart.

The reason is polarization can have many causes, not the least of which is the concentration of power in Washington. Some people have asked why I ran for U.S. Congress before, and not for a county or state position first. My answer is grounded in the unfortunate reality that Austin can do almost nothing when the federal government has arrogated to itself power to make every decision and the authority to enforce every decision beyond checks and balances or separation of powers; in spite of the text of the Constitution, and the Original Intent of the Founders; and notwithstanding the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, or quaint federalist constructs in American political tradition involving dual sovereignty. Today we face the political prospect of restoring constitutional government and decentralizing power from within at the source of power or not at all.

The impressive police and military might of the present empire will not be assailed from without, nor confronted or avoided from within without a corresponding political change. There is hope for change from where power lies, however, if and when the people effect their representation; that is, if and when they will elect representatives grounded in the ideas and ideology of Liberty. This means they will get busy, informed and serious about voting for men and women who are committed to free markets and free minds, and to the government that governs least, i.e., according to the strictures of the Constitution. This means they will themselves respect again the historic, textual, ideational reality of the Constitution—and that instrument as the organic law of the Land. It means they will not stand down their effort after this election, as no patriot ever stands down completely knowing the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

The situation in Washington today is a huge and daunting challenge, an American equivalent to bringing down the Soviet Union. It cannot be done with improvised explosives, but rather only with ideas. Now if the people are too far-gone as it were, the fact the political system may still open to change is of little consequence and no avail. We vote and hope there will be enough people like us to make any difference. Else we settle for the placid answers and easy solutions so many politicians parrot and spout; and follow those rainbows floating on water, to the pots of fool’s gold nested firmly at the bottom of seas of tyranny and oppression.

And if this sounds like a riddle, how ever we should elect politicians to restore lost Liberty, then it is because we have lost a basic American tenet and popular understanding about the workings and nature of power and power’s cousin, politics: namely, that individuals and communities empowered by freedom can do just about anything, but there are serious limitations to what politics can accomplish and also what politicians plausibly and legitimately may promise under the Constitution. We need our politicians to do and to try to do less than what they are doing now, but it takes men and women of character and intelligence, and statesmen to do the less, and to discern and accomplish what is needed well. P.J. O’Rourke said recently, “I wish I had better news for you, but the barbarians are at the gates. We are besieged by…worshippers of big government.”

The quote is an oblique reference to the historic sack of Rome, but also metaphorically to the loss of Western Civilization occurring today. By implication, it foreshadows the onset of darkness and new Dark Ages. The barbarian perpetrators are those who have lost faith in themselves and the people, and the American Republic. They attribute instead all power, omniscience, glory and honor to national state planning and central government. After the last election, you might call it a bipartisan consensus. It seems we are all socialists now.

The truth is that we have become far too comfortable with state regulation of speech and expression, of business and the economy, of schools, churches, boy scouts, factories, airlines, fraternities, state and local government entities. As Mark Steyn describes it, we’re conditioned to the idea of regulating freedom in the interest of social harmony so-called, indeed to such a degree that we use the legal system to circumscribe debate and criminalize vigilance. The great world historian Arnold Toynbee wrote, “Civilizations die from suicide, not murder” and it is clear Americans have a most peculiar death wish on many levels. For those who choose to wriggle in their death grip and pray without ceasing for supernatural intervention unto the end, we ought also to cry out “No” as often as we can—being altogether less socially harmonious and cooperative with our own destruction, and parting ways with errors in common wisdom repeated so often that you start to believe it. ‘Do not go gentle into that Good Night!’ The worst ideology of all is the one that says resistance is futile. We ought to stop sending the oligarchs to Washington and elect true representatives who believe in Liberty. The door to freedom is not yet closed, even as darkness falls.
_____________________
Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. Email: wes@wesriddle.com.