Libertarians on Twitter

Someone tweeted to the effect that government protection of public safety is tyranny. I responded, initiating a couple of days of sporadic back-and-forths with tweeters who called themselves libertarians. The context was the defiance of restrictions on public gatherings, which was happening in various ways in California, Texas, and Michigan.

First, I mentioned that promoting safety is an object for which the Declaration of Independence (=Thomas Jefferson) says people organize their governments. Tweeter said it wasn't in the Declaration, so I gave him the link and told him where to find it. Properly chastened, he noted that it isn't law. So I gave him law. Multiple quotes from the Massachusetts Constitution (drafted by John Adams). My point, of course, was that protection of public safety was clearly part of the police powers of government according to the political philosophy of the founders and the form of government they established.

At this point others joined in. State law didn't matter. States couldn't ignore the Constitution. They seemed to think that States' powers are granted by the Constitution (or at least to be found in federal statute). So I pointed out that the federal government didn't create the States or give them their powers. States already existed and had their powers before the Constitution was adopted. But they reminded me that the States were bound by the First and Second Amendments. I noted offhand that it was a Supreme Court interpretation, not an explicit text, which found that those Amendments applied to the States.

Someone suggested that I didn't know the purpose of the Second Amendment, so I quoted its opening words, "A well regulated Militia." Apparently some tweeters don't believe what the Constitution says, because they continued to "like" the tweet that said I didn't know the purpose of the Amendment. Here we encounter the belief — never expressed directly but apparently behind their viewpoint — that the right to bear arms was intended to enable the people to overthrow a tyrannical government. Actually, as I learned by looking more closely at Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, one of Congress's powers is to call forth the Militia, organized by the States, to "suppress insurrection." The discussion petered out after I called that to their attention.

Meanwhile, though, there were some further tweets from me about the difference between poor judgment in the exercise of lawful powers, and tyranny; about the availability of remedies other than insurrection, such as court cases and elections; about the difference between their ideology verging on anarchism and the founders' belief in government providing for ordered liberty. Early on, I told two of them, "I'll take Jefferson and Adams over you any day of the week and twice on Sunday."

Somebody said he had never consented to the Constitution. To which the basic answer is, if you don't like it you're free to leave, but if you don't leave, you have no right to overthrow what the rest of us consent to.

There was also the person who complained that he needed to be free to earn a living to support his family. First I mentioned the bailouts enacted by Congress. I could also have mentioned unemployment insurance and food pantries. I.e., there is no need for his family to starve. But instead, I went full on sarcastic and reminded him that for decades people have been saying you need to prepare to survive on your own. If he's still unprepared to go into the forest and shoot a deer, he has been pathetically irresponsible.

At the end a tweeter from California "followed" me. I checked out his tweets and found him pretty balanced, so I decided to follow back. I also commented that unfortunately "nobody" understands or cares about Federalism, limited government, or separation of powers any more; and the gun nuts only know one word of the First Amendment, "assemble" and two words of the Second, "bear arms."

A New Birth of Federalism

The response around the United States to the coronavirus pandemic has given prominence to the governors and to differences between States. Perhaps this could be an occasion for people to become more aware of federalism as one of the basic elements of our polity, and maybe even to think about it.

When I was in school, I learned about our founding: the revolutionary war, the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention, the ratification of the Constitution, and our history under the Constitution. Central to this study was the work of the Constitutional Convention. The delegates recognized the need for a stronger federal government than that established by the Articles of Confederation, but they knew that they must prevent the central government from becoming a monarchy. To prevent a monarchy or a tyranny from arising, they developed three principles for the federal government: limited government, separation of powers, and federalism. Limited government meant that the federal government's authority would be limited to the areas specified ("enumerated") in the text of the Constitution. Separation of powers meant that the powers of the federal government would be divided among three branches of government — legislative, executive, and judicial — each independent of the others and each having only some portion of the overall authority of the government. And federalism meant that the States, having held sovereign power before the adoption of the Constitution, retained full governmental sovereign power except for the enumerated powers granted to the federal government.

I suppose that this was widely taught to members of my generation in history and civics classes. Every "boomer" should have learned it. Unfortunately, I fear the lesson has been lost or forgotten over the decades with the result that now most people look to the federal government to solve all major problems, and tend to consider the president responsible for everything that the federal government does. There are several factors for this development. The first goes back many generations. The Civil War, with its emphasis on preserving the Union, shifted people's focus from their States to the Union. Nowadays, virtually nobody would feel the kind of loyalty to his State which was commonplace in 1860, an example of which is Robert E. Lee's decision — as a Virginian — to join the army of the Confederacy. A second factor is the expanding reach of the federal government, especially as the economy became more unified — for example the Interstate Commerce Commission. There were also such things as Social Security and the establishment of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Finally, it seems to me that civics education is no longer mandatory in schools, with the result that recent generations have grown up with many people unaware of limited government with enumerated powers, separation of powers, and federalism as fundamental to our form of government. I fear that Donald Trump spoke for many in his generation and following ones when he stated that the authority of the president is total.

In all this, the prominence of governors and the recognition that it is appropriate for different states to have different rules provides a reason for a bit of hope. If influential people with wide audiences begin to speak seriously about federalism, perhaps the principle can again become on which guides political thought and action — to the benefit of liberty. It will probably require academics to make themselves heard on talk shows. If enough manage to do it, the message can become heard and discussed even among those who are inclined to look first and always to Washington.