For many Americans, it is an article of faith that a vast and powerful federal government equals a great and strong nation. Actually, it’s the exact opposite. The more powerful the federal government, the weaker the nation. Contrariwise, the smaller and weaker the federal government, the more powerful the nation.
Part of the problem here is that many Americans have been taught to believe that the federal government and the nation are one and the same thing. They aren’t. They are two completely separate and distinct entities.
A good confirmation of this phenomenon is the Bill of Rights. Many Americans believe that it gives Americans their rights. Actually, the Bill of Rights protects the nation — that is, the American people — from the federal government, which confirms that we are dealing with two separate and distinct entities.
The Constitution called the federal government into existence. The type of government it established was what we call a limited-government republic. It was a very small government whose powers were extremely limited — that is, limited to the few powers that were enumerated in the Constitution itself.
That was how the Framers and our American ancestors wanted it. They wanted a small, weak federal government — one with very few powers.
One of the most important features of this new government was its lack of a vast, permanent military establishment. That was the last thing the Framers and our American ancestors wanted. They knew that a vast-permanent military establishment would convert the federal government into a powerful government. They didn’t want that. They felt that such a powerful government would constitute a grave threat to the freedom and well-being of the nation. Thus, they fiercely opposed what they called “standing armies.” That’s why throughout the 19th century, America had a relatively small, basic army.
This unusual governmental structure brought into existence the most unique economic and political system in the history of man. By the time the 1880s arrived, the United States was a land of no income taxation or IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, Federal Reserve, paper money, (minimal) immigration control, gun control, drug war, minimum-wage laws, occupational licensure, (minimal) economic regulations, national-security state, Pentagon, CIA, NSA, torture, indefinite detention, compulsory school-attendance laws, (minimal) public (i.e., government) schooling systems, war on terrorism, foreign wars, foreign aid, foreign interventions, and state-sponsored assassinations.
The result of this unique governmental structure and economic and political system was the most powerful nation in history. The American people were characterized by a strong sense of independence, toughness, self-reliance, and can-do. They put their faith in themselves, in others, in free markets, in voluntary charity, in their families, and in God. They were fearless. No one dared to attack and invade the United States because to do so would be like swallowing a porcupine. The American people were simply too strong, precisely because their government was so small and weak.
It’s worth noting that this one-of-a-kind-system brought into existence the most prosperous and the most charitable nation in the history of mankind. From 1880-1910, real wage rates increased by 50 percent. When people were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of weath, the result was the greatest amount of voluntary charity that mankind had ever seen. One man — John D. Rockefeller — actually gave away $500 million in his lifetime.
In the 20th century, everything changed. The federal government was converted into a welfare state, whose purpose was to provide for people and to take care of them. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education grants, farm subsidies, FDIC, and other welfare-state programs ensured that people were taken care of by the federal government.
The money that was used to do this was forcibly extracted from those who were producing wealth. That’s why the income tax and IRS were brought into existence. Moreover, the nation’s monetary system was converted from a gold-coin/silver-coin standard to a paper-money standard managed by the newly created Federal Reserve System, which enabled the federal government to extract more income and wealth from people through monetary debasement (i.e., inflation).
The federal government became the manager, controller, and regulator of the nation’s economy. The best example of this phenomenon was the minimum-wage, whose ostensible purpose was to have the federal government protect the poor working man from the rapaciousness of employers. Another example was the drug war, by which the federal government wielded the power to punish people who ingested, possessed, or sold substances that the federal government hadn’t approved.
The biggest transformation was to a national-security state, which entailed a vast, permanent military-intelligence establishment consisting of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. Combined with a new policy of foreign wars, foreign interventions, foreign coups, state-sponsored assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, and war on terrorism, America became a land of perpetual war in the quest for perpetual peace.
Today’s Americans get their sense of toughness vicariously through the vast power of the federal government. Thus, when the federal government threatens or uses military force or economic sanctions or embargoes against other nations, Americans feel like they too are being “tough.” One of their favorite pronouns is “we”— as in “We showed those Iraqis how tough we are when we attacked, invaded, occupied, and ‘liberated’ their country.”
What people failed to notice was that in the process of converting the federal government into an all-powerful, omnipotent government with the power to take care of the citizenry and to keep the citizenry “safe,” the result was a very weak nation — that is, a nation of little serfs who are hopelessly dependent on the federal dole and scared to death of everything, including their own shadows. Imagine the irony: Americans have the most powerful government in history and are the most frightened people in the world.
Look at what the dole has done to people. Huge universities capitulating in the face of possibly having their dole taken away from them. Huge law firms doing the same thing when faced with the possibility of losing market share in the vast federal system.
Look at the seniors. Hopelessly dependent on the Social Security dole, many of them are convinced that they would die in the streets without their dole. That’s what the dole has done. It has weakened people and caused them to place their faith in Caesar, the IRS, and the coercive apparatus of income taxation and the fraudulent apparatus of the Federal Reserve System.
Most Americans are also scared to death that the illegal immigrants, Russians, Reds, Chinese, terrorists, Muslims, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, North Vietnam, and Venezuela are coming to get them. They readily buy into the nonsense that these scary boogeymen are already here “invading” America and ready to take them away. That’s why they have accepted and even supported the brutal treatment of immigrants, no questions asked, even though such treatment involves the further destruction of the rights and liberties of the American people. Liberty no longer matters. What matters is to be kept “safe” from the boogeymen.
Our American ancestors hated and rejected everything today’s Americans stand for. If they were suddenly brought back to life, there is no doubt that there would be a civil war for the future direction of our nation. Today’s Americans wouldn’t stand a chance. They are much too weak.
Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.
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