On the Fourth of July, I feel compelled to note that big government plays a glorious role in our country’s rich history.
I don’t venture into politics often here, because my focus is on journalism and media issues. But this is an area where our media’s practiced neutrality — which Jay Rosen calls the View from Nowhere — ill serves our readers and our country.
For all of my adult life, I have heard conservative politicians who wrap themselves in the flag rail against our government, ignorant or ignoring the fact that the flag itself stands for a system of big government.
July 4 might not be the perfect day to discuss our nation’s tradition of big government, but we don’t have a holiday celebrating the Constitution, which was our ultimate embrace of big government and rejection of the chaos of small government.
You might think of Independence Day as a blow against big government. The Tea Party invokes our founders, with their talk of tax revolt and their silly tri-corner hats. Of course, they’re way off-base. The rallying cry of the American Revolution was “taxation without representation,” and all Tea Party members have representation in Congress, unless they live in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico or Pacific territories.
To an extent, it’s undeniable that the Declaration of Independence was a rebellion against taxes and the king’s big government. But read the actual Declaration, the document we celebrate today. The first several grievances our founders had against King George were that he interfered with their attempts to govern themselves. A couple of examples:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
Our founders wanted effective government and a primary reason they rebelled against British rule was that King George was not allowing their governments to operate. They wanted a powerful government, but they wanted one that represented them and respected their rights. While the Declaration offered a split view on big government, the Constitution was a clear and lasting exercise of big government.
The Articles of Confederation, which governed the United States from 1781 to 1789, were a small-government framework, vesting most power in the states rather than a central government. That was a failure, and the Constitution was an unambiguous effort to bring effective, large government to the new nation, with some enumerated powers and responsibilities and with some important checks on its power.
The Preamble envisions a broad role for government:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
For all the fuss over whether the Affordable Care Act was constitutional under the commerce clause or the taxing authority, it certainly fits under the “promote the general Welfare” clause.
But the Constitution was not just a one-time embrace of big government. Each of the presidents we celebrate on Mount Rushmore gained his place in history by exercising the power of a big government. Again and again in our country’s history, including our biggest conflicts and milestones, big government has prevailed over the forces of chaos, timidity and selfishness in conflicts and governing decisions, and our nation is better for it:
- Thomas Jefferson’s audacious acquisition to expand the nation in the Louisiana Purchase allowed us to develop into the coast-to-coast nation we are today.
- Our most severe conflict, the Civil War, was rooted in conflicts between big government (“Union” was the term used at the time) and states that wanted to go their own way.
- Teddy Roosevelt extended the federal power to preserving national treasures in the National Parks.
- Big government built our transportation infrastructure, the transcontinental railroad in the 19th Century and interstate highways and a national aviation system in the 20th Century.
- During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Congress created Social Security and other elements of a safety net to care for our elderly and poor and to protect our financial system. They were to promote the general welfare in times of economic stress.
- Government assured the enforcement of civil rights, sending federal troops into Southern states to ensure integration of schools and universities.
- The federal government extended its responsibility to promote the general welfare into environmental protection, cleaning up the smoggy skies and foul waters of the 1960s.
Big government isn’t always perfect. The westward expansion set off by the Louisiana Purchase unleashed genocide on the tribes inhabiting those lands. In the internment camps of World War II and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp of today, our government has engaged in shameful abuses of its power.
Just as the founders were wise to create a strong government and give it the power to govern effectively, they were wise to check the government’s powers in the Bill of Rights.
Big government is not a function of either party. Republicans such as Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush have exercised government’s power in new ways, just as Democrats FDR, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama have.
Since the days of Ronald Reagan at least, conservatives have been loud in their condemnation of government (except when they want to use it to regulate personal lives in areas such as abortion or sexual orientation). Liberals fight back on particular issues but have been too timid to speak out in favor of government itself.
Journalists too often simply cover the debates and the statements. Fact-checking journalists tend to fact-check specific statements, rather than broad philosophies, such as the odd conflation of patriotism and condemnation of America’s government. I wish we’d call out that lie more often. I think the Fourth of July is a good day to do that.
Go ahead and wave the flag today. But understand that it represents a long and mostly proud history of big government.
Regardless of how imperfect, inefficient and occasionally corrupt the U.S. government is, it is the one institution that even claims to operate in the interests of the People. The unfortunate alternative – corporate governance – operates strictly in the interests of its stockholders. Only big government can counter big business.
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Thank you, Steve, for sticking up for the big government that made America, well, America. I agree with you the founders, for the most part, believed in big government. As patriots who fought in the Revolution, they understood the states were totally inadequate to the task of defeating the British, let alone the forging of a great nation. But you are also right that a century and a half after the Civil War that was supposed to have settled the question once and for all, we still act like it’s open to debate. The way I figure it, any government that freed the slaves, won WWII and put a man on the Moon can’t be all bad.
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Steve, you’re clearly not afraid. Good work on this, in many ways.
One aspect of this discussion which hasn’t been mentioned here or just about anywhere else (and should have a profound effect on our thinking) is globalization.
200 years ago, oceans provided a great buffer between our country and all others which might infringe on what used to be a practically unbounded domain. As such, states and corporations of the US were both insulated from the effects of intervention and were appropriately expected to be able to ‘take care of themselves’.
Under those conditions, simple domestic policy (anti-trust, etc) was all that was needed to assure rights of individuals and the populations of individual states. With the onset of globalization, the growth of foreign influence consolidated under national governance can and has served to re-balance power towards those foriegn entites – against which only unified national industrial policies (and associated practice) will prevail. Permitting individual states and/or corporations to continue to operate independenty of one another will (has) lead to their absorption into these growing (some already gigantic) recently developed shperes of influence (as numerous individual corporations have already explicitly been, and states have responded to in a ‘race to the bottom’ competion with each other for foreign attention).
The point here is that the woiuld is a very different place than it was 200 years ago, and while you’ve clearly indicated our government’s recognition of the need for some degree of unified policy and practice even back then – today the need for unified direction has become an unrelenting imperative. Hopefully we as a nation will recognize and act on that recognition before something as drastic as 9-11, which forced the same issue with respect to once independent law enforcement agencies, takes place in the wider domain under which we compete (or not) for the resources and influence we need to remain viable and pertinent on a global scale.
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I love your rationale — the logic balanced with the historical context is exceptional. Of course some may not accept logic — critical thinking is a dying thought process, I fear.
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Don’t you think there is a big difference between wanting a better, effective government, and wanting a big government? If they wanted a big government, they wouldn’t have created three branches as a way to keep one branch from getting too big. All I really gathered from this post is its ok for us, as journalist, to leave the position of the “view from nowhere” as long as the view is a politically liberal one.
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Steven, you need to understand your history better: All three branches were notably bigger and more powerful than anything that existed under the Articles of Confederation. The checks and balances were a brilliant structure that has served the government in various sizes and continue to do so.
As for your last statement, that comes from your imagination, not from anything I’ve said. Perhaps you should read my blog post about journalists and their opinions: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/questions-and-answers-about-journalists-opinions-in-social-media/
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Well done, Steve!
You write (think) so well, whether in a hurry (Digital First) or taking the longer look, as in here.
Mark joined you in offering an example of where Big Government is needed … when matching up with big business.
I’m sure you’ll agree that big government will do well to avoid acting like it is what it isn’t, just because it can. Picking winners rather than letting the market pick the winners when it comes to technology, is a good example. Solyndra comes to mind as a recently famous example.
Our lives are better, individually and collectively, socially and physically, and we have not only become better we are growing ever better by reason of markets and trading. As Matt Ridly notes, self-reliance is poverty. Conservatives and anti-government types seldom want to hear that. And government types often oppose the same idea.
Big government is truly good when it is in the service of markets, in the way Mark sees big government’s role as to redomocratize whatever has been monopolized.
We put our nation’s future in jeopardy whenever government puts its thumb on the scale, loads the dice, or in any way tries to reduce risk or to make the results appear by its own definition more fair.
And in the world of journalism, our bailiwick, the future is not tax-supported (i.e. non-profit) entities, but market-worthy enterprises. And with that, wishing us all well!
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That’s an observance, not a holiday, Hal. Did you ever get Constitution Day off with pay?
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I’m waiting for MLK Day, and the spring solstice.
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Steve: re this: “we don’t have a holiday celebrating the Constitution.”
Sure we do:
“Constitution Day commemorates the formation and signing of the U.S. Constitution by thirty-nine brave men on September 17, 1787, recognizing all who, are born in the U.S. or by naturalization, have become citizens.”
http://www.constitutionday.com/
And I loved the pages on the website:
Welcome | The Constitution | The Amendments | Founding Fathers | The Gift Shop
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Steve – I have to say I think your view that the founders intent, and the constitution itself, is an embrace of big government is overly broad. Compared to what? Maybe with respect to the Articles of Confederation it’s a fair comparison, but I wonder what the founders would think about the role of government today. How many cabinet agencies were there in 1800 – State, War, Treasury – were there others – I don’t know… How many are there today? In 1900, combined federal, state, and local spending as % of GDP was less than 7%. Today it’s over 40%. There are more americans employed in government jobs than in manufacturing jobs in the US. Is this really what the founders had in mind? You point out that all your life, you’ve heard conservative politicians rail against the government. Maybe some of them do – but I think most are having legitimate debate about what the scope and role of government should be. We only need to look at what’s going on in Europe to see the logical progression of big government in today’s terms. I think people lose sight of the fact that government does not create wealth, and wealth creation combined with stability through rule of law and national security are the key to the health and well-being of our country. It’s a very dangerous idea to move further away from the concept of self determination and self reliance in favor of the misguided idea that government can or should try cure all that ails America and Americans. Seems like a bad idea to many Americans who love their country and their government – and wave the flag on Independence Day.
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John,
Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I think the founders’ intention was clearly stated in the preamble. They had tried chaos and they preferred the order that they correctly envisioned that a federal government could bring. That government was and remains imperfect, and I never said or suggested that government can or should try to cure all that ails America or Americans. But we have seen time and time again (the subprime mortgage crisis was one of many examples) that business without sufficient regulation can destroy wealth as certainly as it can create it.
And if government can’t create wealth, why are the defense contractors and highway construction companies so damn wealthy?
We disagree. But again, thanks for your comment.
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Cheers Steve
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