“In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state...” – Aristotle
"This is so true that.... to say that the object of the law is to make justice prevail is to use an expression that is not strictly exact. One should say: The object of the law is to prevent injustice from prevailing. In fact, it is not justice, but injustice, that has an existence of its own. The first results from the absence of the second." – Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1848)
Stand in a public forum and say “Patriot Act” and you’re bound to arouse a great deal of animus. Talk about the government taking one man’s property and turning it over to wealthy developers and people shake their heads in disbelief or recoil in horror. Turn their attention to the fact that certain cities declare themselves “safe havens” for illegal immigrants and Americans feel a mixture of anger and betrayal.
It is interesting to me that you are concerned about this. Maybe "interesting" is a bit vague. Perhaps then it is, refreshing yet ironic, that you’re concerned. People tend to look at events with complete tunnel vision. In that sense it is like attempting to view a Monet from a distance of six inches. At that distance all you will see is a random collection of inscrutable dots. But stand back and suddenly those dots begin to take shape and form something more significant. In like manner, when you look not only at the individual issues that cause your concern but the whole of the American canvas you begin to see that the groundwork for the corruption and tyranny that you fear was laid before we were borne and further pillared by “we the people.” We are merely experiencing the consequences of our own Faustian Deal.
Every time the people demanded that the government do more for the public good the government got bigger and more powerful. And as government authority grows, liberty shrinks. But we accepted and welcomed that growth and power because we reasoned that it served the interests of social justice. But every year and every decade brought new errors to be redressed, new wrongs to be righted. And when we could not achieve our desires through the political processes we demanded that the courts impose the proper solutions. To what end? Well the government got bigger and more powerful. And as government authority grows, liberty shrinks. But once again we welcomed that growth and power because we reasoned that it served the interests of social justice. Perhaps former Communist, Stephen Spender had it right, “When men have decided to pursue a course of action everything which seems to support this seems vivid and real; everything which stands against it becomes abstraction…..Your opponents are just tiresome, unreasonable, unnecessary theses, whose lives are so many false statements which you would like to strike out with a lead bullet as you would put the stroke of a lead pencil through a bungled paragraph.” – The God That Failed
Through it all, the people we ridiculed and maligned, those “Conservatives”, insisted that it was not the job of government to do the things we demanded no matter how just, no matter how benevolent, no matter how seemingly “progressive.” They insisted that what we were demanding was unconstitutional. Government that is best, governs least was the logic. They warned that we were leading the country on a dangerous path and that the benevolence we demand will be the tyranny we fear. But we yawned and smiled. This was a foolish and well-known slippery-slope argument. They warned us against Judicial Activism and threats to the Rule of Law. But they were just reactionaries opposed to social progress. “Right-winged extremists” was the epithet of choice. We never considered the fact that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. For as C.S. Lewis said, “If you’re on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
So today we are discussing the idea that the government has too much power, abuses its discretion and ignores the will of the people. But remember something: Liberty is never lost all at once in a free and open society. No single President, Congress or judicial decision, can do enough harm to the fabric of liberty and freedom to make it disappear overnight. But each demand that is met establishes a basis for the next Administration, the next Congress or the next judicial decision to successfully breach the walls of liberty, and always in the interests of the public good and social justice. Error built upon error makes for a strong foundation. So liberty is lost steadily and incrementally not at the hands of an all-powerful dictator but at the request of "we the people." We bid salvation from Mephistopheles and he took pleasure in granting our wishes.
Year by year, bit by bit the seemingly impregnable walls of liberty are eroded by a stream of well-intended, egalitarian pursuits.
“Mankind is split into two hostile groups by promises that have no realisable expectations. Yet, an anti-capitalist ethic continues to develop on the basis of errors by people who condemn the wealth-generating institutions to which they themselves owe their existence. Pretending to be lovers of freedom, they condemn several property, contract, competition, advertising, profit, and even money itself. Imagining that their reason can tell them how to arrange human efforts to serve their innate wishes better, they themselves pose a grave threat to civilisation.” – Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
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