When the Hoover Institution invited me to assemble this fourth collection of my newspaper columns syndicated nationally by the Los Angeles–based Creators Syndicate, I read through previous prefaces and asked myself what can I say in another preface without being too repetitious. After all, my core values have not changed, so why repeat the story. But then there are readers who are unfamiliar with that story and might be genuinely perplexed by my uncompromising posture regarding personal liberty and the principles laid out in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. That being the case, a little reader preparation for what follows might be in order.
My core values derive from the principles of natural law, or what some might call God-given rights, expounded by philosophers like John Locke, Sir William Blackstone, and Edmund Burke. Their principles of natural law had a major influence on our Founding Fathers. We find those principles captured simply, elegantly, and compellingly in our Declaration of Independence by the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The initial premise of natural law is that each individual owns himself; he is his own private property. From that initial premise, certain forms of behavior are readily and easily deemed just or unjust. One of the best statements about what's just conduct was given to us by American philosopher-lawyer Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) who said, “Each man shall do, towards every other, all that justice requires him to do; as, for example, that he shall pay his debts, that he shall return borrowed or stolen property to its owner, and that he shall make reparation for any injury he may have done to the person or property of another…. Each man shall abstain from doing to another, anything which justice forbids him to do; as, for example, that he shall abstain from committing theft, robbery, arson, murder, or any other crime against the person or property of another.”
Not everyone respects the natural rights of others; therefore, we form governments to enforce respect for private property rights. In the state of nature, prior to the formation of a government, each of us has the right to protect ourselves from predation. We have the right to be prosecutor, judge, jury, and, if needed, executioner. When we form a government, we delegate those particular rights to the state on the condition that the state will use its might to guarantee our rights. Thus, we give up a limited number of rights to guarantee security; however, if the state fails to provide security, we nonetheless retain the right to provide for our security.
Rights is a concept that is widely confused these days. We speak of “the right to affordable health care,” “the right to housing,” “welfare rights,” and so forth. These notions are a gross corruption of the term rights. A right is something that is held simultaneously among people and imposes no burden on another. My right to free speech in no way diminishes another's right to free speech and imposes no burden on anyone beyond that of noninterference. A so-called right to food or housing is quite another matter. If we say that one person has a government-guaranteed right to food or housing, it means that another person must have less of something in order for government to make good on that “right.” In other words, government does not have any resources of its own. For government to give one person something, it must first take it from another person, usually through taxes. Thus, one person's “right” to food and housing imposes a burden on another person requiring him to have less of something. If we applied this corrupt usage of rights to my free speech rights or my right to bear arms, it would mean that others would be required to provide me with a microphone or radio studio or they would be required to provide me with money to purchase a firearm. The more appropriate word for today's corrupted vision of rights is wishes. As such I am in agreement with most people, for I too wish every American had decent housing, plenty of food, and adequate health care.
A significant moral issue arises when government provides goods and services to others. By the democratic principles we espouse, government cannot have a right that citizens do not grant it. There are certain things that a person has no right to do. A person has no right to murder or rape another. Therefore, people cannot grant government authority to murder and rape. Similarly, no person has the right to forcibly take the property of one person in order to give it to another. Therefore, people cannot grant government authority to do the same thing. If I forcibly took property from one person, for any reason, most people would condemn it as theft, an immoral act. Theft or any other immoral act does not become moral because it is done by government acting on behalf of a consensus or majority vote just as murder or rape does not become a moral act simply because of a consensus or majority vote.
If there is a general theme to my columns, that theme is the attention I give to the proper role of government in a free society and the need for politicians to live up to their oath of office to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Today, little that Congress does is authorized by our Constitution. Most of what Congress is authorized to tax and spend money on is carefully enumerated in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. Even a casual observer would conclude that Congress has exceeded its authority by a wide margin. Close to two-thirds of the federal budget is spent on items like housing, education, farm and business subsidies, various domestic and international welfare programs, and Social Security. There is absolutely no constitutional grant of authority for Congress to make these expenditures. Debates in Congress on spending focus mostly on constitutionally irrelevant issues like whether the spending programs are effective or whether the nation can afford them. Save for a precious few members of Congress, the more important issue never surfaces, namely, are they permissible expenditures under the Constitution?
It is far too tempting for us to blame politicians for the virtual trashing of our Constitution. And, yes, I agree that they are culpable, but just a little bit. They are guilty of violating their oath of office, not being statesmen, and sacrificing principles as a means to election and reelection. But the bulk of the blame rests with you and me, the American people. Politicians are simply our agents doing precisely what we elect them to office to do, namely, to use the power of their office to take what rightfully belongs to one American to give to another American or confer a special privilege on one American that is denied another American or both.
This unflattering and immoral behavior can be readily demonstrated if the reader considers the following: Imagine there is a candidate from your state seeking election to the U.S. Congress. During his campaign, that candidate tells the electorate that he has read Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution enumerating the taxing and spending powers given to Congress. He says that if he is elected the people of his state cannot count on him to lobby or vote for aid to higher education, highway construction funds, ambulatory services for the elderly, higher Social Security and Medicare payments, more police to fight crime, not to mention midnight basketball. He tells the electorate that there is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to make these expenditures. If doubt is expressed about the constitutionality of congressional spending for the purposes of benevolence, the candidate might quote the words of James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, who said, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on object of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” If the candidate is challenged by someone arguing that the “general welfare” clause justifies social spending, the candidate might bring up Madison's warning, “With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.”
I guarantee that such a candidate would never be elected to the U.S. Congress. Respect for both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution would be an anathema to the electorate whose votes he hopes to win and would be political suicide. Why? Because he would not be promising voters what they want of him, namely, to use the power of his office to take the property of one American and give it to them and give them privileges denied other Americans.
The tragedy of such a voter calculation is that it makes a lot of sense from a private, rational, self-interested point of view. The reason is simple. If the candidate, who hopes to become a member of Congress or a senator representing, say, New York, does not bring back taxpayer-funded goodies for them, it does not mean that New Yorkers will pay lower federal taxes. All it means is that New Jersey citizens will get the goodies instead. Sometimes this situation is referred to as the tragedy of the commons, where once legalized theft begins, it pays for everyone to participate. Those not participating become losers.
While many of my columns discuss government, I also apply economic analysis to issues involving race and sex discrimination, health and the environment, education, and international issues. My major objective in writing columns, and also in public speaking, is not necessarily to convert people to my way of thinking, although it would be great if such a conversion was forthcoming. My objective is to challenge conventional wisdom on a wide range of issues by offering an alternative outlook or way of analysis and allow people to reach their own conclusions their own way. That is precisely what I experienced as a Ph.D. student at the University of California at Los Angeles back in the 1960s. I thought various forms of government intervention made sense until various professors asked me, Have you looked at it this way? Have you considered its unanticipated effects? Is there a better way to achieve that objective?