Mike Maharrey
Over the last month or so, I’ve realized I’ve been thinking about government and my rights all wrong.
Like most people who believe in the founding principles, I’ve always thought government was instituted to first and foremost protect my rights. After all, it says so right in the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
This is foundational Lockean philosophy that serves as the bedrock of the American constitutional system.
It sounds great in theory, but that’s not how it works in real life. For all the talk about government protecting my rights, it spends the vast majority of its time and energy violating them.
Ultimately, government is about power. People who have power rarely use it for the benefit of others. They generally use it to achieve their own ends. That might sound cynical, but again, we have to live in the real world. And even people who seek power with good intentions often get caught up in the euphoria of authority. Lord Acton observed, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Knowing this, we shouldn’t count on government to do anything. We should strive for it to do as little as possible.
This is where I realize my thinking went off the rails. By believing government was supposed to protect my rights, I was always looking for ways to empower government to act. Instead, I should have been looking for ways to restrain it.
In fact, this is the constitutional system. The Constitution protects our rights by limiting government action. The Bill of Rights further restricts government action. It doesn’t give us rights. And it doesn’t empower the federal government to act in some way to protect our rights. It forbids government action.
This may seem like semantics, but I’m more and more convinced we need to change the way we think about government. We need to shift our expectations. Government is not our friend. We need to stop hoping it will protect our rights and focus instead on limiting its powers as much as possible.
FOR FURTHER READING
Another Case Shows the Supreme Court Doesn’t Protect Liberty
You’re Trusting This Guy to Protect Your Liberty?
Why the Tenth Amendment Should Trump Trump if You Want Liberty
And for a more in-depth look at what the Constitution says and mean, and how it was intended to create a government limited powers, get a copy of Constitution – Owners Manual: The Real Constitution the Politicians Don’t Want You to Know About. You can find more information and links for ordering at ConstitutionOwnersManual.com.