When English philosopher John Locke, who greatly influenced America’s Founding Fathers, claimed that mixing our labor with what was formerly common property gave us the right to now call that property our own, he both reaffirmed the Protestant work ethic and provided a philosophical defense of private property rights.
Writing of the rights affirmed by the English [“Glorious”] Revolution of 1688, Locke focused on three: “life, liberty, and the right to own private property.” Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence famously broadened the scope of the third to the more comprehensive “pursuit of happiness.”
For Locke, it was to secure and protect private property rights that governments were formed. Even the rights to life and liberty, for him, sprang from the property rights that we have to our own body and our own person.
That we have these rights not from government but from our Creator was obvious to Locke and the Founding Fathers. As such they were inalienable [“unalienable” was a printer’s typo]. While an alien is separated from his or her homeland, these rights could not be separated from us, not even by government.
When Barack Obama claimed that it was effectively his goal and that of his administration to fundamentally remake America, he did so from the standpoint of Progressivism, a loosely constructed conglomerate of political philosophies which share in common a rejection of the view of our nation’s founding documents as given above.
Influenced by the German philosopher Hegel’s view that the entirety of human history is in a constant state of flux and development, Progressivism views them not as incorporating timeless and invariable truths concerning fundamental human rights and government’s role in protecting them, but as anachronistic documents, culturally bound to their own time and circumstances, inadequate for contemporary challenges.
President Wilson, a Progressive pioneer, suggested applying a Darwinian metaphor to the Constitution: Like an evolving species it needs to adapt to its environment to meet contemporary needs. It is a living, not a static, document.
According to Ronald J. Restritto in an article entitled “The Birth of the Administrative State,” it was President Woodrow Wilson who first suggested a way to free American government from the checks and balances placed on it in the Constitution and pave the way for Progressive reforms: vest more and more real power in the hands of unelected administrators.
He seems to have genuinely held what strikes many as an incredibly naïve belief, namely that administrators who were experts in their own fields, would somehow be above politics and so interested in devoting themselves to serving the needs of the citizenry that checks and balances on their actions would be unnecessary.
Whether Barack Obama accepts Wilson’s view, he seems to have learned its lesson well. In appointing one unelected Czar after another to positions of overriding authority in his administration, he has engineered countless end runs around Constitutional safeguards.
While Locke believed that governments should be instituted for the protection of individual rights and liberties, Progressivism has from its inception loathed individualism and its political expression in our founding documents. In “The Meaning of ‘Progressive’ Politics” Barry Loberfeld quotes Herbert Croly, a Progressive writer, as saying that, “The Promise of American Life is to be fulfilled … by a large measure of individual subordination and self-denial.”
Reading this, one is reminded of Barack Obama’s response to a question from an NBC News reporter on why he thought his proposal for a government takeover of the health care system had aroused such widespread antipathy. As Obama put it: “It’s an argument that’s gone on for the history of this republic, and that is, What’s the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look out for one another? … This is not a new argument, and it always evokes passions.”
No wonder the great concern of center right Constitutional Originalists is that the Obama Administration, with its unchecked Czars, unwavering Congressional support for a large and invasive government – and admitted quest to “balance freedom” — seems to think that it can advance Progressive reforms in far more than merely incremental ways. And if it does, it may finally be able to tip the balance that remakes America into a Socialist state once and for all.
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Victor Morawski, a professor at Coppin State University, is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.
October 12th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Notwithstanding the gaping holes and false suppositions sprinkled throughout your article (using “some” people believe, stating as evident things that are not, nor supporting such a position with facts, ommitting that all recent Presidents have used czars – Bush had, what, 50 of them?), your view is that the Constitution, as written, is locked in stone and cannot ‘evolve’, as you use the term.
Given your viewpoint, then do you follow that the Amendments to the Constitution were not necessary, since, as you suggest, the documents of the founding fathers are NOT subject to later revisions?
Because either you accept the Amendments, and admit that documents laid down over 200 years ago must evolve as we, as a society, do, or you must deny the validity of those changes, in which case your premise is on non-existent ground.
October 12th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I think it has more to do with the pace of change. I’d say some change is necessary, in order to preserve what we have. Obviously we’ve had to adapt as a nation to the challenges of racial questions, the evolution of war, etc. And we’ve done so rather well, and still look like America.
But changes here have always come rather slowly, as our politics discourage it. It takes rather remarkable figures to move it anywhere at all, though they always come along when the time calls for them. But that conservative impulse we as a nation maintain is ultimately the most powerful tool of preservation. It makes our direction as a nation far more deliberate, less subject to whim, than anywhere else on earth.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
American,
So is the proper way for the Constitution to evolve through amendments or czars?
October 12th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Czar Wars – George W. Bush vs. Barack Obama
http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Czars.pdf
October 12th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
MWS – I really like what you said there in #2, and I think you said it really well.
As to czars, I’m not for them. I think since they don’t have to be confirmed, there’s a lack of checks and balance. They rank right up there with signing statements in my opinionated view.
But I can see the argument for them if there is no willingness in congress to be bipartisan on ANYTHING. If you have a whole block of congress refusing to act in good faith, then the whole concept of checks and balances is stood on its end, and the whole thing falls apart.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Hey Aron
Thanks. I found this on the same site.
http://factcheck.org/2009/09/czar-search/
October 12th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Just to clarify, I only have issues with czars NOT confirmed by the senate and chosen by a sitting President.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back… Now, A Progressive Obama Takes A ‘Great Leap’ Forward… Because A ‘CRISIS’ Is Imminent
Or, when it rains it pours… are Cloward & Piven ideas being intentionally promulgated in the Obama administration as in New York City, but on a national scale?
A thoughtful article by Victor Morawski.
> “Whether Barack Obama accepts Wilson’s view, he seems to have learned its lesson well.
> “In appointing one unelected Czar after another to positions of overriding authority in his administration, he has engineered countless end runs around Constitutional safeguards.”
“… ommitting that all recent Presidents have used czars – Bush had, what, 50 of them?), your view is that the Constitution, as written, is locked in stone and cannot ‘evolve’, as you use the term.”
- – - – -
If Obama wants to ‘change’ and to ‘fundamentally transform the United States of America’ but the U.S. Constitution does not have the ‘redistributive’ language that he thinks it should have, how does he propose to transform America and ‘balance freedom’ between the makers of money and takers of money?
The constitution is a living, evolving document, yes… by the amendment process ONLY. Federal or state court pronouncements (pick your favorite thus-saith-the-court verdict) are not ‘living document’ amendments. The thus-saith-the-court verdicts are as transitory as Presidential directives… and they should be transitory… and changeable (‘changeable’ does not imply ‘evolve’ or ‘amend’).
The quantity of advisers/czars is not and never has been an issue for any administration… what they intend to do with their end run around the constitutional safeguard of House and Senate oversight is the issue.
Obama is taking advantage of a sky-is-falling ‘crisis’ and is doing progressive/statist long-term damage to America by appointing the marxist/communist Hugo Chavez admiring acolyte Mark Lloyd at the FCC, self-proclaimed communist Van Jones, a Senate confirmed here-a-’nudge’… there-a-’nudge’… everywhere-a-’nudge’-'nudge’ elitist such as Cass Sunstein and et al.
Included in et al. is the Tides Foundation, the Apollo (a tsunami is coming) Alliance and Bill Ayer’s bombing buddy Jeff Jones, and Obama’s long time and Chicago home town right-hand-lady Valerie Jarret.
Valerie Jarret’s family and their marxist background is well known in Illinois, and it seems that Valerie’s background inspired her to watch the self-proclaimed communist Van Jones closely and then recommend him and his communist inspired anti-capitalist ideologo to Obama to bring Jones into the Obama inner circle of his administration… until that Saturday midnight when Jones resigned.
Does Barack Obama know who his 40+ advisers/czars are… really?
Are they revolutionary and anti-capitalist marxists… really?
Does he know?
Does he care?
Does he?
Well?
Is Obama promulgating the 21st Century iteration of the specter of a national Cloward & Piven, with the intended result of chaos and the opportunity to impose an agenda that “remakes America into a Socialist state once and for all?” Or, as Obama said 5 days before his inauguration, to ‘fundamentally transform the United States of America.’
October 12th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Obama is taking advantage of a sky-is-falling ‘crisis’
Like Bush did with TARP and the Iraq War? Didn’t hear anyone complaining here when we sent soldiers into a country that had nothing to do with 9/11…
“Does Barack Obama know who his 40+ advisers/czars are…”
Read the link. It’s chocked full of these really fun things called ‘facts’. Give it a try
October 12th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Bush was WRONG…
Bush was definitely wrong and not thinking straight (don’t blame his counselors) when he said he needed to abandon free market principles to save the free market.
Yes, Bush was wrong about TARP… that does NOT mean Obama has to pile on and claim king-of-the-hill status re: inflicting on America’s children’s children… a multi-trillion debt as far as the eye can see… greater debt than all the presidents from George Washington to George Bush… combined!!!
Why did Obama pile on the debt?
Maybe Obama learned a lesson well from the New York City bankruptcy, and the Cloward-Piven Strategy that requires the 21st Century iteration of the strategy to disregard the national consequences in favor of the neo-national(ist) agenda.
I read the website link on FactCheck.org. The facts of the number of advisers/czars is not the issue. What Obama wants to do with his end-run around the oversight duties of the House & Senate is the issue.
The question remains unanswered… previous answers here and elsewhere on other forums are not persuasive and thus not convincing…
… what did Obama mean by saying ‘… we are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America?
The Iraq war is what it is… it had nothing to do with 9/11 in the same quiescent quiddity sense (i.e., a hairsplitting distinction; a quibble) as Germany had nothing to do with America being attacked in Hawaii by Japan.
Friends don’t let friends drive drunk, and allies/friends help allies/friends… and by extrapolation, enemies of our friends are our enemies in time of war…
… and after 17 resolutions to straighten up and fly right, Saddam Hussein was an enemy of freedom for his own people and America’s allies who entered Afghanistan to take out Allah’s, Muhammad’s and Islam’s, the self-proclaimed religion of peace’s allahu akbar (THEIR… god is great), nut jobs who believed that they were doing Allah’s will in killing innocent kaffir’s who are not jizya paying dhimmis.
Bush was also wrong for playing the well-meaning dhimmi re: the Muslim supremacist ideology, the real enemy. Terror is not an enemy, it is a tactic… and America’s President should not be bowing to their Whabbi leader in Saudi Arabia.
Facts are definitely WONDERFUL things, aren’t they?
October 13th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Our checks and balances, which is the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our Government are controlled by the very left wing and Socialist elements who has given Obama carte blanche over the fate of our Country. This is a very unusual time in history.