Whose Job Is It?

There is a tenet in law, repeatedly restated in courts, that says that the police are not responsible for your individual safety.  To make sure we are clear, the point of the courts is that if a criminal attacks you, the police can not be held accountable that 1) there are criminals on the street, 2) that one attacked you and 3) that you were hurt.  The police provide security to the society, they act as a deterrent to criminal behavior writ large, and they investigate crimes and arrest those believed responsible for crimes.  But they are not responsible for protecting you specifically and individually.

That makes some sense, whether we like it or not.  The police can’t be everywhere and they can’t prevent someone from doing violence to you, no matter where you are or what time it is.  So, to repeat, the police are not responsible for your individual security.

So who is?

I ask this simple question in light of the evil acts of some gunman in Denver and the tragedy he caused.  Simply put, who was responsible for safety and security of those in that movie theater?  The courts will provide one definitive answer: the police weren’t.

Now, an argument can be made that the answer then is to disarm everyone.  That may sound good, but the track record of that kind of behavior isn’t good.  In those societies where there is little private weapon ownership – say Western Europe – the result has been a significant increase in violent crime.  One of the clever half-truths of some in the media when they talk about this kind of thing is to report the murder rate in the US and compare it to the murder rate in Europe – the US rate is higher.  But what they leave out is that the violent crime rate as a whole is much higher in Europe then in the US, ranging from roughly 20% higher to more than 400% higher, depending on which country you pick.  This is true across all of Europe – including Scandinavia, usually the darling of those calling for change in the US.  Only in Switzerland can you find consistently lower murder and violent crime rates over the years.  And Switzerland is the land where every home is armed.

The economist John Lott has produced a study on the effects of handgun ownership (More Guns, Less Crime), chock full of statistics.  No one has made any serious effort to refute his statistics or his analysis.  Simply put, when people are armed, crime rates drop.  The more who are armed, the lower the crime rates.

So, back to the question at hand: who is responsible for protecting you?  The answer is simple: you are – and no one else.

These two trains of thought – the Police are not responsible, private firearm ownership reduces crime – need to be brought together.  This is an unpleasant idea to some and probably will raise some eyebrows.  But simply ask yourself this question: would 14 people have died in that theater last night, and would another 50 have been injured, if half the adults in that theater were armed and knew how to use their pistols?  The same can be asked about other public shootings, such as the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords on January 8^th, 2011, during which 6 people were killed and another 13 wounded.

No firearms law in the world would have prevented the evil creeps in either case from starting the shootings.  The courts have made it clear that the police cannot be expected to be everywhere and stop every criminal before he acts.  But an armed citizenry could be expected to act.  It might also give criminals a bit more to think about if, when they look down a street, they knew that essentially every one of their potential victims was armed.

Who DIdn't Get Where on Their Own?

The President made an interesting statement the other day in Roanoke, VA.  I will quote it exactly:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me - because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t - look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something - there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”  

The statement is, if taken literally, true.  No one got anywhere on his own.  There are mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, teachers, etc., etc.  There are all sorts of people who help anyone grow and develop in life.

But that is not what the President was talking about.  The President (and his supporters who have rushed to defend him since this statement) means simply that government funded infrastructure, government regulation, government funding of various industries, etc., have all been the sine qua non of economic development in the US.  In short, no government, no economic success.

The President is partly right.  He is also completely wrong.

All economic development beyond the most basic barter economy is predicated on government.  The purpose behind the social contract that we all share is that because we (and more to the point, our ancestors) agreed to come ‘out of a state of nature’ and establish societies that allowed the establishment of governments to perform certain functions (security, money supply, certain public services such as licensing and deeds and standards, etc.), each of us was thereby freer to pursue individual pursuits, to concentrate on one set of skill rather than having to do – in essence – each of those things ourselves.  Aristotle spells it out quite clearly.

No one is disputing Aristotle.  And so, in that sense, the President was right.

But the real issue is simply this: the government isn’t what causes the individual’s pursuit of industry or the individual or collective economic success.  That’s backward.  It is the individual’s industry, and the individual desire for economic success that comes together to develop a collective solution to certain fundamental issues (security, legal framework, standards, infrastructure, etc.) that results in the creation of a government system – and a bureaucracy.  The government is the servant of the people, created by them, for them. 

So, rather than the individual succeeding by standing on the back of government, it is government that wouldn’t exist without the individual.  As I said, backward.  President Obama would have been more accurate if he had said:

"There are a lot of powerful, successful American politicians who agree with me - because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t - look, if you’ve been successful in politics, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by politicians who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something - there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there – people who pay for all those politicians.”

Here’s the point Mr. President: you didn’t get THERE on your own.  You are there, and this government is funded, by a lot of smart, hard working individuals who over 236 years, and still today, have labored and sacrificed and funded this government, and elected officials, and sent them to Washington, and all the state capitals, and all the towns and counties, to do specific jobs, to act as dutiful and conscientious servants of the citizenry, to carry out the tasks assigned, not take from those who sent you, and for whom you work.

President Obama would do well to remember that the Constitution begins ‘We the People.’  The people do not work for the government; the government is not ‘in charge.’  Government is the servant.  He should try to remember that.  As Lincoln put it: Of the people, by the people, for the people.

No, Not Today

There are many people saying that the end is nigh: we can begin with the adherents to the Mayan calendar, move through all the people who advocate hoarding gold, add those who can present a cogent discussion of the rise and fall of the ‘American empire’ and ‘imperial overreach,’ throw in the reasoned arguments of those who point out the growing size of our national debt and the massive unfunded, government mandated annuities that en toto are 9 times larger than that national debt, and finish with the academics who, with an almost childish glee, talk about the decay of America, and the realignment of international power to a multi-polar world where the US would be just one among many nations.  Some suggest that there may even be a darker future, one in which the very nature of democracy in the US is replaced by a ‘savior’ who will seize power and set himself up as dictator.

All of these futures are possible.  But all require a choice.  All require that we acquiesce in the drift of events, that we let the debt overtake us, we let weak-kneed politicians in Congress and the White House continue to spend our future and that of our children and children’s children for current votes, that we let a lack of leadership in the White House fritter away our position in the world, that we let a demagogue arise and usurp the powers of the Constitution.

Perhaps.  But Not Today.  That is what we must repeat every day: Not today.

None of these events is inevitable, none is driven by dark, mysterious forces, none simply appears on the scene with all of mankind watching in amazement.  Nations rise and fall not because of ‘forces or history’ or ‘accidents of geography’ or the presence of some virus.  Nations rise and fall because of the force of will of the individuals in that nation.  Augustus did not simply emerge, Augustus made choices, he took advantage of those around him and those around him let him so act.  The United States is not an accident, not a serendipitous sequence of events, but a result of the choices of our citizens and the product of a series of decisions – among them the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

 

Every day we have to push back.   We need to struggle to fix our problems before they present an opportunity to new Caesars.  Perhaps we need to consider amending the Constitution, further defining and narrowing the powers of government.  But we need to act; each one of us must choose to act.  Chesterton once observed that every generation is potentially the last, that every generation, every man stands on the precipice.  It is only through our choices that we can prevent doom.  It is also only through our choices that we can continue to shape the future of this great nation, that we can build a nation better and greater, freer and more productive, than any that has come before it.  It is our choice: we can decide to decline or we can decide to rise.  It is through our choices that we forge the future.  As it is with man, it is also with our Republic.  It is through our choices and our actions that we can prevent the gloom from overtaking us – as individuals and as a nation, that we can continue to lead the world forward, to be that ‘City on a Hill’ as John Winthrop said nearly four centuries ago.

There are those who wish to change the nation, to make it less then exceptional, to make us simply one among many, to even reduce our liberties, makes us all dependent on the government, to teach us to turn to the government first for a solution, rather than to ourselves.  In the name of freedom they actually wish to quietly usurp our freedom, to control our fortunes and our futures, to dictate to our children, and make our nation subject to the whims of unnamed regulators in Washington, or at UN Headquarters in New York, or worse, in Brussels.  They would not only sell our freedom and our nation’s birthright, they would sell our future.  To these we must answer: Not Today.

Loss of freedom always begins slowly and begins with people agreeing to small steps, to small accommodations that usually involve some increase in security or care at the cost of a seemingly insignificant loss in personal freedom.  This is not new; it has always been so.  Over time, the accommodations grow until the citizens, like the frog dropped into the pot of cool water on a hot stove, find that they are now surrounded by true dangers to their freedoms and even their lives.  But at any time the citizens might have stood up and said ‘No, not today.’  Government, the organs of power, the huge bureaucracies, must always be viewed as our servants, not our masters.  We – the People – must remember that we have the power, not them.  And when they seek more power, when they seek to reach beyond the boundaries we have established, it is our duty, on the peril of our very lives, to say ‘No, Not Today.’