It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong (6 page)

Paine began
Common Sense
by restating Locke's theory of man in the state of nature and why governments are formed. Paine understood his first goal was convincing Americans to go to war with Britain to win independence. To achieve this goal, Paine presented, and refuted, all of the arguments against maintaining the status quo and remaining loyal to Britain.

I Pledge Allegiance, to the Crown, of the United States of America

First, he tackled the theory espoused by British loyalists that since America had flourished under British rule, it should maintain its tight political bonds to Britain. Paine declared this just as absurd as concluding that because a baby had grown by drinking milk, it should never mature to eat meat. Paine even refuted the premise of this argument completely, and instead suggested that America had flourished
despite
British rule over the colonies and not as a
result
of British rule over the colonies.

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This debate is eerily similar to a debate between American conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan and Thomas DiLorenzo, an economics professor at Loyola University Maryland.
⁵
Buchanan suggested that it was because of the institution of central banking and protective tariffs that the American economy saw the greatest progress in world history, progressing from half the size of the British economy in the mid-nineteenth century into twice the size of the British economy in the early twentieth century. DiLorenzo correctly refuted this claim by stating that it was not only despite these government institutions and interventions that the American economy progressed, but that these interventions hindered progress by creating four stock market crashes, and several other boom-and-bust cycles. It is a shame that it is Buchanan's, and not DiLorenzo's, views that are accepted in the mainstream today. Sadly it seems that in the long run, the American Revolution did not change Americans' loyalty to the throne of England; it only replaced the throne of England with the federal government of the United States of America.

That Is Absurd to Me Because I Have Lost My
Common Sense

Paine then addressed the next argument, which was that Britain's army and navy provided necessary protection to the American colonies. But the protection of the American colonies was for Britain's own financial gain and nothing more. In addition, Paine pointed out that since the colonies were dependent on British rule, they were seen as allies with Britain, and thus forced to be enemies with Britain's enemies. However, if they were independent, then they would no longer be enemies with nations such as France and Spain, with which they had no quarrel.

Why Doesn't the Earth Revolve Around the Moon?

Paine then explained that if the colonies were to reconcile with the British government, the abuses of the present condition would only repeat themselves, which would make it impossible to return to a state of tranquility. Paine called it absurd to believe that Britain possessed adequate ability to govern such a large and intricate land, and we can see this when he wrote,

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverse the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to itself.

This size and population disparity is the crux of Paine's just form of government. The old system had a crown in the nation's capital that ruled over all the subjects of the land. You can imagine a pyramid of power with the king being on top, then the nobles and military right below him, with the common folk, accounting for most of the population, all the way at the bottom. How could one man be expected to create all the laws that were designed to govern the lives of so many people?

Pyramids Are Naturally Upside Down

Paine attempted to flip this pyramid right on its head. The common folk, or every individual, would make up the laws that were to govern their own lives and property. They would then elect representatives who would create laws, in accordance with the laws of nature (natural rights), which governed social interactions between individuals with the only goal of preserving the individual's rights. These representatives would elect a leader of the colony who would enforce the laws, once again in accordance with the Natural Law, regarding inter-colonial matters.

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Surely a system with a localization of power, where every individual is in charge of dictating his behavior, based on what is in his rational self-interest makes a lot more sense than having some Congress with a few more than 500 members create the laws for approximately 310 million Americans. Happiness, peace, and liberty clearly cannot be achieved when one institution is making laws for an entire population, especially when the population it is making laws for is 620,000 times larger than the population of the people making the laws. We have seen in America what happens when 500 people are in charge of making the laws of the land; it is those 500 people whose best interest those laws are designed for. It is certainly not your best interest they are legislating for, but their own. Corruption, cronyism, favoritism, corporatism, and despotism are the likely results of a system that is run with this or any type of central authority. Happiness, peace, and liberty are only enjoyed by the central state, and the powerful elites with whom it is partners. Each individual can only experience happiness, peace, and liberty through a system where he is making the personal choices which govern his own life and regulate what he can do with his own property.

The Military Presence Around the Globe Is Too Big Not to Fail

Once Paine finished with his case for why the colonies needed to fight for independence, his next task assessed America's then current ability to gain independence. He started this off by asserting that the contemporary brewing question was not
if
America would separate from Britain, but
when
. There was no better time than the present (1776), he argued, because at that time America had more than sufficient manpower to form a powerful army, and plenty of resources that could raise a navy, which could be used to defeat the British. Paine affirmed that not only should the colonists create a strong navy for the purpose of fighting a war for independence against Britain, but in addition as a result of Britain's navy being spread thin around the globe during this time in history, Britain was unable adequately to defend the coast of the massive continent from the possible threat of a foreign invasion. Paine thus contended that if Britain continued its rule over the continent, its ability to defend America would become severely deteriorated.

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America's military is currently spread over 130 countries in the world and has more than 900 permanent military bases. The maintenance of this foreign empire is costing approximately one trillion dollars per year, as well as countless numbers of American and foreign military and civilian lives. Not only does this make America's homeland defense extremely weaker (and, as we have seen before, it actually creates more enemies), it is also making America's economy extremely weaker, and will inevitably lead to a collapse in the U.S. dollar. Will this scenario not bring about a “deteriorated” United States like Paine had worried about in
Common Sense
?

How Special Is Your Interest?

Paine's urgency was his understanding of the long-term effects British mercantilist policies would have on the economy of the colonies. The passage of the Navigation Acts in 1650 permitted the colonists to trade only with Britain, and if they wished to trade with other nations, the goods traded must first be shipped to British ports. Through this system, Britain was able to force the colonies to focus on the production of raw materials, which were shipped to Britain where they were changed into higher-priced manufactured goods that were shipped back and sold to the colonies. This mercantilist system created large and successful business elites in Britain during this period. As explained in the
Library of Economics and Liberty
, “the mercantile system served the interests of merchants and producers such as the British East India Company, whose activities were protected or encouraged by the state.” It was Paine's belief that the British government would just parcel out unused land and resources in the colonies to the same British elites, who were the beneficiaries of the British government's mercantilist policies.

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Paine believed this land would be used much more productively by the colonists to do such things as pay down their debts and build a better society. What happens when the United States federal government pursues policies that favor and strengthen certain economic elites, and then parcels out lands and resources to these groups? Everyone certainly remembers the disaster that ensued in the summer of 2010 when the U.S. government gave oil giant British Petroleum (BP) the rights to drill into the sea bed on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. After the Exxon
Valdez
disaster off Alaska in 1989 had been cleaned up and nearly paid for by Exxon, the oil companies lobbied the Congress for liability limits—maximum amounts that they could be held to pay in the event of a disaster. A Republican Congress and President Clinton together made it the law that oil companies would be limited to pay seventy-five million dollars for cleanups, and the taxpayers—that would be you—would pay the rest. In return, the feds would be able to tell the oil companies where to drill, and how to transport their oil.

In the case of BP, it asked the State of Louisiana if it could drill in five hundred feet of water, and Louisiana said it could. The federal government vetoed that and told BP it could only drill in five thousand feet of water. Never mind that no oil company had ever cleaned up a broken well at that depth and never mind that the feds had never monitored a broken well at that depth and never mind that BP only needed to set aside seventy-five million dollars in case something went wrong. The feds trumped BP's engineers, and the feds trumped the wishes of the folks who live along the Gulf Coast, and the feds decided where this oil well would be drilled.

Disaster struck. The feds did nothing. Oil gushed out in an amount that is so great as to be immeasurable. Political pressure grew. President Obama eventually panicked because he believes that his federal government can right every wrong, regulate every activity, and protect us from every catastrophe (“Daddy, did you plug the hole?”). He is wrong. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was ready to build barriers to protect his State's coastline, and the feds said no. The President even invoked powers that allowed him to supervise the cleanup using BP personnel and equipment. And the oil still gushed. Then, the President stopped all oil drilling in the Gulf, putting thousands out of work. Then, he demanded billions from BP so his team could decide who gets it, and a terrified BP gave him all the cash he asked for.

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So, the government that foolishly limited BP's maximum liability, the government that claimed it knew where best to drill, the government that actually stopped locals from protecting their own shoreline—that would be the same government that bankrupted Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the post office, Amtrak, and virtually everything it has managed—now wants to decide who gets BP's cash.

The last time this government had this much private cash to give away, during the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, it disregarded well-settled law and gave it to the labor unions. To whom will it give this cash—the innocent injured or its political friends?

The government cannot protect us from every catastrophe, especially ones its rules have facilitated. How about this: That government is best which governs least. The people have a right to a government that obeys the laws of economics, the laws of physics, and the Constitution. Let private enterprise do what it does best, and keep politics out of the way. If the Constitution was written to keep the government off the people's backs, it is time for the feds to get off.

I Revoke My Consent to the Government's Declaration of Dependence

Some important and influential American colonists recognized Paine's criticisms, and consequently exercised their positive moral duty to disobey an unjust government, a duty to which we will return in the last chapter of this book. These colonists, who were all delegates of the thirteen colonies, gathered together to form the first Continental Congress of the United States of America. Their first job was to form a committee of delegates to draft the first law of the United States, which was the Declaration of Independence. On June 11th 1776, the Congress appointed Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to a committee in charge of drafting the declaration.

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Thomas Jefferson's Movin' On Up on the Free Side

This committee then voted to delegate the responsibility of drafting the declaration to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. John Adams subsequently passed the sole responsibility to Jefferson because of Jefferson's education in the classical liberal philosophy espoused by John Locke on which the Declaration was to be based. Also, Adams gave three other reasons for why Jefferson should draft the document: “Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can.”