Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Calling James Madison

Following up on my dismay at the inability of our leaders in Washington to restore fiscal sanity to our federal government, I found a prescient blog post by American Thinker's Ed Kaitz in reaction to Joe Biden and others on the Left relegating tea party activists' role in the national debate to those of terrorists. Kaitz reminds those on the Left of the three evils of government the father of our U.S. Constitution, James Madison, warned against in establishing our constitutional republic:

[Madison] argued at the end of his brilliant Federalist #10 that there were three "wicked projects" that -- in the hands an unscrupulous political faction -- could potentially inflame our Republic with a most devastating plague: "a rage for paper money, [an] abolition of debts, [and] an equal division of property."
In other words, deficit spending, bailouts, and welfare state socialism -- the three pillars of the modern Democratic Party -- were, to Madison, the likeliest and most "wicked" threats to America's self-preservation.

Kaitz lays the failure to avoid the evils Madison, whose views borrowed heavily from philosopher John Locke, at the doorstep of the Democratic Party. I disagree with him because the problem of deficit spending, bailouts and welfare state socialism has been a bipartisan effort in Washington. Yes, Republicans are more likely to rail about those three evils in their stump speeches while campaigning for office, but once elected, their actions speak louder than their words. They have a Faustian bargain with the Democrats. Allow us to expand our military industrial complex and you can have your permanent welfare state; we'll haggle with you over the level of taxation, but we will always agree to borrow whatever is necessary to let both of us have our cake and eat it too.

8 comments:

marksmall2001 said...

There are no substantive differences between the major parties. My netbook malfunctions as I try to write more. I'll write more on my blog, 3leftturnsmake a right.com. It all boils down to who gets the sugar: both sides.

Downtown Indy said...

I find it ludicrous that the AAA rating of the US is predicated on the solid belief that rather than default on its debt the government will never hesitate to take more money from its citizens.

No mere person with the ratio of income to debt or the history of increasing debt without effort to reduce it could ever obtain a respectable FICO credit score.

By extension, I should be able to maintain a perfect FICO score by having no reluctance to rob a bank so that I can pay my debts.

Marycatherine Barton said...

The AI post last week about how we no longer have any one in Washngton that can protect us from pepetual New World Order serfdom, or words to tht effect reminded me to purchase a copy of COUNTY SHERIFF; AMERICA'S LAST HOPE by Richard Mack, and one for mine, John Layton, alhough the new world order minions in Indana and Marion County have tried to take much of his helpful power from him. All can get ahold of the great Sheriff Richad Mack, at his website.

Gary R. Welsh said...

The only reason they aren't downgrading our credit is because Europe's credit is even worse and on the brink and they're fearful of triggering a worldwide economic collapse, which is probably unavoidable.

timb said...

Uh, AI, there was only one party arguing for the "abolition of the the public debt," and it wasn't mine.

As if misunderstanding that Republicans who voted for spending in the budget they passed in April of this year only to threaten economic ruin if they didn't get to renegotiate 90 days later, isn't funny enough, the post actually contains the words "prescient" and "American thinker" were actually used in the same sentence!

The only prescient thing one can say about American thinker is that you may find Americans there, but you will not find thinkers (unless thinking is now defined as digging up Madison's corpse and mis-representing what he said almost 220 years later).

Gary R. Welsh said...

Explain to me how I'm misrepresenting Madison, timb? You scoff at the American Thinker, but I bet you find the Daily Kos drivel intellectually stimulating.

timb said...

Uh, Gary, I said the American Thinker was mis-representing Madison, a man who favored central government and paying government debt, to grandstanding over partisan bs.

The only thing I was making fun of you for was misusing the word "prescient."

Gary R. Welsh said...

We have come full circle, timb. People will learn that harsh reality soon enough.