I'm rather enjoying typing up my wish list for post-federal America, but I wanted to pause for a moment to address an annoying and persistent tendency among those who excuse the multiplying outrages we are witnessing today. The tendency I speak of is conflating elections with liberty, i.e., asserting that America remains free because "the people" have spoken at the ballot box and are getting what they want. I've run into various iterations of this slogan over the years whenever I complain about governmental abuse, the most frequent one being "we are the government."
But here's the thing: the best an election can deliver is the coercive will of the majority as against the minority, since "the people" never speak with a single voice. To assert that an election cleanses a political system of all potential taint is to assert that the majority is never wrong, which is an unprincipled and insidious stance. Followed to its logical conclusion, this thinking would justify an absolute monarchy so long as the king underwent regular elections, and it would also repudiate our founding principle of sweeping individual rights as opposed to enumerated government powers.
The preservation of freedom requires not only granting the will of the majority, but also denying that will when it comes to the endeavors that are none of the majority's business. Under the (former) constitutional order, majorities in any given State had broad and presumptive power to implement their will, but that power was checked by geography. Conversely, the federal government was unchecked by geography, and therefore its power was curtailed to a very narrow range of subjects. The breakdown in American society is a direct result of reversing this formula, i.e., of curtailing the power of each State's citizens while expanding federal power until it was universal as to both geography and subject matter.
Now the will of the national majority is unleashed as a destructive, all-consuming monopoly lacking any offsetting mechanisms to curtail its excesses. Allowing this national majority to get whatever it wants is not freedom, but tyranny. The minority has no duty to surrender its inalienable rights to appease this majority, and regardless of whether the majority announced its will at the ballot box.
But here's the thing: the best an election can deliver is the coercive will of the majority as against the minority, since "the people" never speak with a single voice. To assert that an election cleanses a political system of all potential taint is to assert that the majority is never wrong, which is an unprincipled and insidious stance. Followed to its logical conclusion, this thinking would justify an absolute monarchy so long as the king underwent regular elections, and it would also repudiate our founding principle of sweeping individual rights as opposed to enumerated government powers.
The preservation of freedom requires not only granting the will of the majority, but also denying that will when it comes to the endeavors that are none of the majority's business. Under the (former) constitutional order, majorities in any given State had broad and presumptive power to implement their will, but that power was checked by geography. Conversely, the federal government was unchecked by geography, and therefore its power was curtailed to a very narrow range of subjects. The breakdown in American society is a direct result of reversing this formula, i.e., of curtailing the power of each State's citizens while expanding federal power until it was universal as to both geography and subject matter.
Now the will of the national majority is unleashed as a destructive, all-consuming monopoly lacking any offsetting mechanisms to curtail its excesses. Allowing this national majority to get whatever it wants is not freedom, but tyranny. The minority has no duty to surrender its inalienable rights to appease this majority, and regardless of whether the majority announced its will at the ballot box.
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