Our friends at the town halls have, as usual, been bloviating on their perennial enthusiasm: claiming the mandate of the Founding Fathers. And surely they're right to do so. During his presidency, Jefferson focused on repealing tyrannical taxes and curtailing the bloated, overweening federal bureaucracy of the time. With arguably his closest ally, James Madison, he helped form the original Republican party to fight the ‘big government’ machinations of Alexander Hamilton, and the two were central in the push to create the Bill of Rights. What better inspiration could you imagine?
Now, Jefferson did sanction the Louisiana Purchase, which in relative terms probably counts as one of the bigger examples of federal activism, certainly a lot bigger than a bit of health insurance reform, but let's put this to one side for a minute, shall we?
What we want is a return to the policies of Jefferson and the Founding Fathers! Cut back the federal bureaucracy! Stop big government! If memory serves, big government consisted of about a couple of hundred people in 1800, obviously horrendously oversized. So we will be wanting to sack basically everyone who works in Washington, right? Oh, and like most of the Founders Jefferson and Madison were active and persistent enemies of standing armies, so we’ll be firing every single soldier, sailor and member of the air force as well and eliminating pretty much the entire defence budget? I’m assuming also that the people advocating a return to exactly what Jefferson wanted will also already be ready to convert to deism: anti-Calvinist, anti-Trinitarian, rejecting the view that Jesus was the Messiah? Oh, and Jefferson and Madison didn’t like paper currency much, either, so it’s gold only from now on. Burn those dollar bills.
Of course not! That’s just stupid and missing the point, you pointy-eared dumbass academic! Today’s activists are following in the spirit of Jefferson, in a kind of “what would Jesus do?” kind of way. Don’t you understand? We don’t need any of this literal nonsense, even if we do maintain our constitutional beliefs are “strict constructions” of the original intent of the Founders. We're talking about applying their principles to the present day. If Jefferson were alive today, he would basically be a 1980s Reaganite. He wouldn’t mind Medicare and Medicaid, and he wouldn't mind tripling the deficit by passing enormous tax cuts for the wealthy, but he’d certainly oppose any further extension of government funding of medical assistance. That would be utter tyranny!
So what about these principles? What about the principles found in the Federalist Papers, for instance? How about Federalist 10 ... where Madison argues that “instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.” Oh.
Federalist 10 was Madison’s attack on faction, which he defined as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Sound familiar? “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it,” Madison argued, “different opinions will be formed.” Indeed, “So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.” Death panel, anyone?
Think Of the Children
53 minutes ago
