Politics may be rough and tumble, but that is no excuse for outright lawlessness in the pursuit of power. In our constitutional form of government, it is not “whatever it takes” but “whatever is allowed” when it comes to what powers can be exercised by governments, politicians and bureaucrats.
An unhealthy proportion of the body politic seems to think there are no restraints on the amount of power that a politician, a bureaucrat or a government may accumulate. The current crop of progressives in Washington D.C. and Maine seem to think that they can do whatever they want because they’re more virtuous than you and won an election.
An example of the former is a Maine State Senator telling her constituent that, if you don’t like progressive taxes, it’s time to move to Massachusetts. An example of the latter was the savaging of Brett Kavanaugh as he was going through the confirmation process before a Senate committee.
Progressives went after Justice Kavanaugh with personal attacks based on events more than three decades old, accusations rooted in the uncorroborated recollection of a victim who had a memory of a dastardly event that may or may not have happened, and that couldn’t be backed with any evidence.
Progressives on the committee suspended the rules of evidence and the presumption of innocence. Hand in glove with the mainstream media, they charged, tried and convicted an innocent man in front of his family, friends, associates and the rest of the world. The good senators and the Fourth Estate should hang their heads in shame for having tried so desperately to ruin a good man, all because they were afraid of losing control of the Supreme Court.
The irony in progressive theory is that the more they try to help, the worse things get for those they purport to help. The only people who prosper in the progressive world are the political class and their friends. The elites’ problem with power is that, like any potent drug, the more they have, the more they want. And the more power they get, the more likely they are to abuse it.
Progressives, misunderstanding human nature, have decided that power can only be entrusted to themselves and those who have been professionally trained to understand and implement the supply and distribution of the economy and our society without being corrupted.
The application of these politics and policies has reduced our government to mechanisms intended to control, rather than uplift, the American people. In other words, we’re feeding people fish instead of encouraging them to learn how to fish.
The progressives have proved that the Founders were wise to fashion the Constitution in a manner that limited and controlled the acquisition of individual or institutional governmental power. It is time for this crowd to come to terms with their fallacious view of the world around them. Their theory of a “living” constitution has no constitutionally legitimate basis to modify the Founders’ written words. This is progressivism’s inconvenient truth.
Governmental power, in anyone’s hands, must have severe limits and external controls if it is not to abuse the American people and their liberty. It is time to return government to its legitimate role as protector of the American people’s rights to life, liberty and property.