I’m not a libertarian nor a states’-rights mouthpiece. I don’t think 50 tyrannies are better than 1 federal tyranny, whether stemming from rampant mob-rule democracy or dictatorial statism in one of its various forms. It’s just as wrong for states to abridge individuals’ rights as it is for the federal government to abridge those rights.
And I’m no anarchist either; I am absolutely, 100% on the side of government when it comes to properly protecting individual rights via the police, the courts, and the military.* That said, it’s worthwhile to note the stark departure in Presidential opinion over the years regarding the Constitutionality of charity-work by the federal government.
Recent opinion-pieces have been hammering on the 10th Amendment, which reads (in whole):
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
(But see Article 1, Section 8: The Powers of Congress).
But, as Larry Elder writes:
Ever since the ratification of the Constitution, federal lawmakers have attempted to circumvent it. President Franklin Pierce vetoed an 1854 bill to help the mentally ill, saying, “I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity” and that such spending “would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.”
And President Grover Cleveland, when vetoing an 1887 appropriation to help drought-stricken counties in Texas, said: “I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. … I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.” [From here].
Imagine any modern US President parroting these former Presidents. Imagine the public outcry, the fury of the special-interest groups!
These days, everyone wants a piece of my pie, via the government, and more and more people are lining up to be served. In what position, then, is the cook left? Baking pies, but not in control of where, or to whom, her pies go? To produce and earn, but to not have the power to choose how to dispose of her earnings and her pie?
Ignore the sweet smells from the kitchen, the checkered tablecloth and the ruffled apron: that economic situation is called slavery.
And no, partial control is not a form or kind of control; it’s a degree of departure from control. "Control" as a concept in the context of money, implies completeness or totality. If a man has "partial control" of his car because the brakes have gone out - but not the steering - where is the emphasis in the idea "partial control"? The emphasis, the operative term, is "partial" not "control". He does not have control of his car if the brakes are out, even if he retains control of the steering. Likewise, one does not have control of one’s earnings if the government forces that you hand over some of those earnings, regardless of how small that seizure or how agreeable the redistribution.
Likewise, "freedom" is a concept that requires completeness to make sense. A slave-owner who gives the slave some pittance of the income generated by the slave has not reduced the slaves status as such. It hasn’t altered the fundamentals of the situation, which is that the slave owner controls the productivity and earnings of the slave.
So yeah, I resent people sticking their fingers in my home-made pie (or petitioning the neighborhood bully to do it for them). It’s mine, and unless I volunteer to sell it to you or share it with you, you have no right to it. It is actually possible to fund massive social programs without government help (it’s called charity); and it is actually possible to fund proper government functions without the extortion of taxes and the yoke of generations of debt. Lack of financial ingenuity on the part of people who want to have a government is not a carte blannche reason to enslave anyone. There is never any excuse for it, it is never right or permissible or "a necessary evil", no matter the race, the religion, the nation, the form of government, or the century involved.
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*Bad as things may be, I tell you I’m appreciative of our police and courts (while never settling for less than what they should be). They aren’t on the brink of collapse, they do occasionally have teeth, and they frequently operate more quickly than a retreating glacier. And the American people, by and large, still hold high, moral, and reasonable expectations regarding the police and courts (let’s not talk military today), so there is some kind of public outcry and political pressure when things get dramatically worse.
Here in Kenya, public lynchings, stonings (to death), and savage hatchet-jobs at the hands of an angry mob are both normal and unpunished, and not just out in the sticks, I it also happens mid-day in downtown Nairobi (beatings and stonings mostly). Most of the time there isn’t even moral indignation (much less outrage) expressed in the newspapers over this "mob justice". Why? The mobs - usually ad hoc, sometimes organized - beat up on (known or suspected) theives and mafia-like gang members who steal, extort money, rape and/or murder; the gangs essentially rule the areas in which they operate. The terrorized working folks have had enough, and the police are unwilling, unable, or thoroughly incapable of effectively doing their job. Their job. The last couple days, a mob of (I believe) some 2000 citizens went around to villages, destroying property, burning houses, detaining suspected gang members, issuing do-it-or-die ultimatums, and killing a half dozen 29 people so far. I mean, hacked-up-with-machetes killed. And all with the pre-approval, consent and participation of the police.
What guarantee is there that the mob is right in correctly identifying suspects? None. By what standard of justice are some murdered, some hung, some detained, and some warned? None. What civil recourse is there for innocent victims and their families? None.
This is a reversal of what it means to be civilized. "Being civilized" means the delegation of the use of retaliatory force to the government (except when in imminent danger of physical harm). For domestic issues, the use of force is delegated to the police; for international issues, the use of force is delegated to the military. Disputes are mediated and judged by a neutral third party: the courts. Punishment is determined by the courts and meted out with the help of the police (if necessary). By criminalizing the initiation of force and fraud (by individuals, groups, or the nation) and delegating retaliatory force as much as possible, force is removed from day-to-day human interactions.
But if a person can’t rely on or trust the institutions erected to protect him, and he doesn’t resign himself to the fate of a sitting duck, then he necessarily takes force into his own hands and retaliates in whatever fashion he sees fit. That’s a breakdown in civilization, the evaporation of objective justice, the dissolution of peace and trust between neighbors.
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