Bushwacking the Constitution
I’ve always been a great fan of the Constitution of the United States. It’s a glorious document. It’s extremely well thought out. It didn’t try to solve all problems. It merely set up a framework for optimal problem solving. Most powers, virtually all except foreign affairs, were devolved to the state level.
There was separation of powers and most particularly the actual functions or powers of government were clearly delineated. The Founding Fathers drew a line in the sand and said to government: here is the limits to which you may go and no further.
On the whole that document stayed true to form. Around the beginning of the last century the socialists in America, who called themselves “progressives” got through various “reforms”. The reforms were meant to consolidate power in Washington, destroy the rights of individual states to control their own affairs, and attack the wealthy. All these measures plague America to this day.
Another reform they pushed through was an odd one. They forced prohibition on the states through a federal amendment. It was a spectacular failure of course. Historian James Morone, in his book Hellfire Nation wrote that “Prohibition is American government’s overlooked growth spurt.” He notes: “In the fifteen years before the Franklin Roosevelt administration, Americans embarked on an extraordinary public project. Government officials tried to stamp out a major industry and an everyday form of leisure. Reformers used the state to redeem the citizens and their society. Did the New Dealers ever try anything quite as ambitious?”
He’s right of course. Prohibition was a major source of the rise of the Nanny state in the US. It was passed because it tapped into the thinking of the Progressives and what is wrongly called the Religious Right. In fact the leader of the Religious was William Jennings Bryan who himself was also the leading Progressive of the time. The American Religious Right was, in fact, born on the Religious Left.
Other than prohibition and the income tax the Constitution remained relatively true to it’s libertarian foundation. The courts have done their best to reverse that and they’ve often been applauded by conservatives when they did.
Now the US is facing a cultural crisis. Will the ideal of equal liberty for all apply to gay couples or not? Over time we would, no doubt, see different solutions tried in different states. Vermont passed a civil union bill through the legislature. Other states are debating the issue. In Massachusetts the state Supreme Court ruled that laws forbidding gay marriage violate the state constitution. (Whether or not that is true I don’t know as I’ve not read the Massachusetts constitution and I can bet you that neither have the critics of the Court.)
Religious fanatics are very upset. And they are returning to their Progressive roots to express that anger. They now want to amend the US constitution to ban gay marriage. In other words they want marriage issues taken away from the States and handed over to the federal government. The most intimate and private relationship that people have, their marriage, is now going to be under direct federal control. That’s in keeping with the Left Progressive tradition of centralisation of power.
At no point in history has the US constitution been used to single out one group of people for special disdain. Even the well known, but poorly understood, clause regarding slaves as 3/5th of a person doesn't do that. That was merely a clause that limited the power of slave states after the Constitution was written. It was an antislavery amendment not a denigration of those who were enslaved.
George Bush is the first American president to advocate turning the Constitution into a document of hate. He wants it to specifically strip states of the right to regulate marriages within their own borders and he wants to do it because he doesn’t think that gay relationships are as good as what he has with his wife.
As awful as his bigotry against gay couples may be what is far worse and far more dangerous is making marriage a federal institution. This is a major inversion in US constitutional theory. It establishes as precedent federal regulation of the most intimate aspects of human life. Bush’s drive to amend the constitution is revolutionary. It is radical. It is a frontal attack on the founding doctrines of the United States.
When you realise this fact, and you understand that the Constitution has never before been used to target one group of citizens it becomes apparent how far from the doctrines of the Founding Fathers that Bush has drifted. In fact he is violating basic conservative views of government as well. Bush is not a conservative. Nor is he a liberal in either the Leftist sense or the classical sense. He’s an authoritarian.
Bush was facing a problem with conservatives. True conservatives didn’t want the Bush economic policies. His high spending policies are anathema to conservatives. They know those policies, and the deficits that his massive welfare spending creates, will harm the economy. And there is a lot of resentment toward Bush from conservatives. In fact he was facing something of a rebellion from conservatives and if they stayed home on election day he’d have a hard time winning.
Bush is pushing the centralisation of marriage as an issue partly as a diversionary tactic. He wants conservatives to stop noticing how he’s destroying the economy. So he picked an issue he was sure would inflame the bigoted heart that has always stood at the centre of conservative thinking. By diverting conservative outrage from his policies to gay couples instead Bush is hoping to keep them in the camp just long enough to secure a second term for himself. Bush is outraged alright but it’s not about gay couples. He outraged at the thought that he might be denied power for a second term. His attack is self-serving and it’s a frontal assault on the Constitution and on some very basic principles that conservatives used to claim they held.
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
Previous (Going into reverse and hating it) - Next (The Passion around the Passion)
Nannies to Right of Us, Nannies to the Left of Us.
Welcome Home: the journeys of David Mamet and George McGovern.
Dominion Post in needless panic
Does Liberalism Have a Heart?
The moral problems of state power in regards to war.
Kiwi health: spend more, care less
Hurricanes and hot air: the sequel
Morality and Consistency: Why Left and Right both threaten freedom.
Ageing, population and the welfare state.
The bankruptcy of conservatism.
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Institute for Liberal Values, Friday September 3rd 2010. |
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