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The Public Policy
Can Freedom Come Back?
The economic crisis may be temporary, but the resulting expansion of government could prove permanent.
Our nation's leadership likes to compare recent economic declines to the Great Depression. So, just for kicks, here is another comparison.
Pundits and policymakers assure us that government will cede control back to the private sector once the crisis abates. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in February said it "may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring." In March, Peter Beinart, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, similarly predicted that the inevitable nationalization of Citigroup would be temporary.
"Over time, when we come out of this, the natural free market instincts of the American people, which are in now abeyance, will return," Beinart said.
We can hope so, but history is replete with examples to the contrary. In the 1930s, politicians planned to sunset unprecedented government expansions (parts of Social Security, for example) at a later date. The Depression ended, and government kept and even expanded its power. Look for the same to happen today.
It's easier to surrender freedoms in a panic, grow the size of government, and nationalize banks than to gain freedoms back, reduce the size of government, and privatize banks again. In few instances does government relinquish power back to the private sector. The current administration certainly has no plans along those lines.
That's why the temptation to curb freedom during economic turmoil must be resisted. Power-hungry politicians, both Republican and Democratic, eagerly offer solutions, which conveniently put the citizenry more and more under the thumb of Big Brother. Americans can't let fear or anger do their thinking for them.
Case in point: a bill sponsored by Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida that would create an Executive Compensation Commission to determine salary levels for corporate recipients of bailout funds. The bill, much maligned by conservatives, passed the House April Fools Day (a sweet irony) and is awaiting consideration in the Senate.
The measure is appealing in one way -- it punishes industries foolish enough to think the government handouts wouldn't have strings attached, and maybe sends a warning to other companies planning to go hat in hand to Uncle Sam.
More in line with the reason lawmakers filed the bill in the first place, however, is that it capitalizes on outrage over use of taxpayer funds to pay million-dollar bonuses to the CEOs of imploding companies. That visceral reaction, of course, ignores the real possibility the law would allow government to meddle with compensation levels for all employees, not just the top brass. Once government has salary-setting power, it's no easy task getting it back into the private sphere.
The economy is grabbing most of the headlines nowadays, but consider the many other ways the left seizes freedoms and doesn't give them back. Energy policy is a good example. The southeastern United States has been mired in a record-breaking drought for three years (and it's all because of global warming, don't you know). But plentiful rainfall this winter and spring has eased the dry spell. The AP reports that only about one-third of the South faces moderate or worse drought conditions.
Meanwhile, state and local governments last year passed drought management proposals that curbed private property rights. In North Carolina, lawmakers approved a bill that gives the governor broader authority to regulate local water sources. The new law allows local governments to lay water lines across private property without first obtaining a right-of-way. More than one supporter of the expanded powers claimed, essentially, that something had to be done or rain would never fall again
Well, it did, thanks to the providence of God, not government regulatory powers. But the freedoms taken last year aren't coming back, even though the impending catastrophe is not so catastrophic after all.
History might remember our current economic plight in a similar light. Extracting the federal government from banks would be like extracting a tooth with a butter knife -- probably impossible, definitely painful.
About the Author
David N. Bass is an investigative reporter and associate editor with the John Locke Foundation and the CarolinaJournal.com. Follow him on Twitter@davidnbass.
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Melvin| 4.13.09 @ 8:39AM
A former Soviet KJB Officer once made the remark to a enterprising news reporter that after the fall of Communism how was it the the Soviet Union was able to control with an iron grip millions upon million of people.
The KGB Officer replied with a smile, "It was simple really, we kept our people ignorant. An ignorant man doesn't question the State he fears it's authority and obeys it without question. An educated man questions the State and therefore is a threat to the State."
It is of no real surprise that our government run education system only produces obedient and docile citizens who as a natural default immediately fall in line with the views of the State. The State propaganda network says, "Capitalism is bad and steals from the masses." Almost immediately ACORN a State sponsored enterprise organizes and shows up with protesters at private residences of AIG representatives.
The State under the guise of Homeland Security now glean and collect information of those Americans questions the State's policies on abortion, taxes, and the increasing power of the State.
For all I know the State monitors American Spectator and notes posts of dissent and follows the ISP back to it's source.
Does the State collect information and file away this information on private American citizens all in the name of Homeland Security? If I or you said, "no" then we would be absolute fools wouldn't we.
Is this the analysis of some white, male, homophobic, hate filled Right Wing Conspirator, in which the State like to label us. No just some old retired Marine in , who for twenty years with my fellow brothers and sisters fought and died for our freedoms.
My ancestry is Russian and German, and I have relatives in the former Soviet Union who lived through Socialist Communism. I am not espousing a conspiracy, I'm just sounding the alarm.
Deborah| 4.13.09 @ 8:53AM
Thanks for your post, Melvin, and thanks for your service. I believe in the old Boy Scout slogan, "Be Prepared." When we have Marxists in our government, a compliant (Pravda) press, and the only teaching of our history is of a negative nature...we must be on guard on many fronts. Our children's future is at stake. Freedom is waning. It's up to us to get it back.
Melvin| 4.13.09 @ 9:14AM
No, Dave, despite your analysis of Conservatives, this has nothing to do with them, but it has entirely to with Americanism and what it stands for.
The power of the State doesn't differentiate between Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, or Republican.
The State is the political Party, it is the, "1" there is no room for anyone else. Even with Liberal Socialism and all it's machinations of equality to the masses, there is one fact that must be kept in mind. There is truly no equality in the masses in spite of the political rhetoric that sounds so appealing.
There is always an elite Dave, even with the Liberal Democrats they have their millionaires, they have their evil corporations that they sit on the boards of and or own outright. So this whole equality thing is a complete misnomer that is being sold to the gullible and naive.
But the one thing that binds us all together is, we are Americans and we have done more good in the world than we have done bad. We have freed those unable to free themselves from tyranny and death, we have fed those who have suffered from natural calamities, we have healed those that have become sick.
Americans have been generous to the world through charity and our desire to spread freedom, that is and what we always stood for.
Have we made misstep's along the way, sure we have any society does, are we perfect or infallible? No, we are neither, but we are human, and we are Americans and as long as we stand in the way of those who wish to enslave, then that is a good reason for our society to fight for our own freedom.
I don't wish to force you to change your mind, I wish you the freedom to change your mind and one day as you grow older as we all do through knowledge and wisdom.
Anthony| 4.13.09 @ 9:44AM
Maybe freedom will come back, but if it does, it will require both a consistent and unapologetic defense and a political party/movement that is committed to it. Let's face it, nothing has so discredited capitalism, individual rights and small government so much as the Babbits and Rockefeller Republicans of the conservative movement these past 20 years. Reagan was real enough; no one since has been.
Crusader| 4.13.09 @ 10:44AM
The freedom ship has sailed (or sunk). Once it's gone it ain't coming back.
Peter McGrath| 4.13.09 @ 11:56AM
The obvious, short term strategy does not involve whining, defeatism, or fatalistic acceptance of the Left's most recent power-grab.
It involves throwing the bums out (Democrats AND RINO's) in the next election cycle. Get off your butts, people, start agitating. Write your Congressman and Senator. Blog. Write your local newspaper. Get your friends and acquaintances riled up over this blatant assault on America's core values.
We are NOT Europe, nor European. We are STILL a Free People, and the Lilliputian - limp wrist - nanny statist-liberal - unionist pukes who would deign to enslave us must be cast off and consigned to the ash heap of history.
Let's GO!!
baseballguy2001| 4.14.09 @ 12:12AM
I think it might do us a bit of good and remind ourselves who started this govt expansion/loss of freedom business. How about G.W. Bush's signature on a number of freedom taking bills to make them law. Campaign Finance, NCLB, or more recently, the energy bill that outlaws, yes, outlaws incandescent light bulbs. How about the "temporary" and "limited" govt actions on Fannie and Freddie? How about last Octobers 700B bailout bill that gave the feds control of the banks? It's true, the current administration is trying to expand the govt in huge ways, they are learning from the previous one.
Michele San Pietro| 4.14.09 @ 4:23AM
I hope the freedom confiscated by Obama will come back as soon as possible. To achieve such a crucial goal, Americans have to act like Americans again after a very long time.
Hank Rearden| 4.14.09 @ 2:18PM
Baseballguy2001:
You're absolutely right!!! I would also argue that those actions were in part responsible for the decline of the Republican party. Their base simply didn't show up. Combine that with the rise of Obama (praise be upon him) and it was a recipe for disaster.
baseballguy2001| 4.14.09 @ 10:00PM
Hank -- I think those actions were the cause of the decline of the Republican Party. I'm going to a Tea Party tomorrow night that protests the bailouts. I really hope the Republicans are listening. If they just jump and down and yell Obama! Socialism! The Democrats will be in power for a long time. Two names come to my mind when I think of the wasted Bush years. Terri Schiavo and Harriet Meirs. After both of those debacles, I voted Libertarian in 2006. The Republicans need to offer something authentic that the country can believe in.
Richard Baker| 5.2.09 @ 10:12AM
Isn't it amazing the Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and the extraordinary actions of Roosevelt/Truman in WWII are heinous but a blatant attempt in peacetime to subvert the Constitution and Communize the US is heroic?