When the word Statist or Statism is thrown around, most people don't get the meaning. After all, the ideology in this country is mostly centered around Democrat and Republican, liberal or conservative, left or right. Statism and Libertarianism are somehow perceived as "fringe" positions, with statists written off as big-government crooks and libertarians as hippy militiamen.
Obviously, every one of these positions is patiently false. The core values of the Democratic Party were basically "statist-liberal" and the Republican Party "libertarian-conservative". The order is important, here, and thus we need to discuss what Statism means as it pertains to the parties.
Why is it important? Because right now, more than any other time in this country, every candidate (except Ron Paul) and every party is basically statist in it's outlook. If you aren't a libertarian and you wonder why they are so angry, wrought up, and emotional, that's why.
So, let us begin:
Q: How was the country originally founded? What was its orientation?
A: The US was originally founded as a libertarian country. Anyone who denies this much is pretty much in historical denial. The Federalists were statists to a certain degree, but even Alexander Hamilton did not approve of "too much government". The idea of "liberalism" back then meant something totally different than it did today. A better way to look at it was that everyone was a libertarian back then, and the only differences were if you were a strong libertarian or a weak one.
Q: If the country was originally Libertarian, how and why did it change?
A: The realities of history and demographics forced it to do so. A small country of coastal states, linked through a simplistic road system and bordered by mountains, had no need of a strong federal government. The move to Statism occurred mostly in financial areas, with the founding of a central bank, tariff controls, and more importantly, increasing trade. The government had to expand rapidly, however, as the size of the US and the level of technology continued to expand at a pace unexpected.
Even so, the argument could be made as late as the 1920's that the country was mostly Libertarian. It made the strongest moves possible to Statism during the Great Depression, in centralizing power, in enhancing the power of the Federal Reserve, in the Public Words Administration and the TVA, and even more so during World War II. The grasp of power by Roosevelt, including interning American citizens of German and Japanese birth, censorship, economic controls, rationing, and the like brought with it unimagined levels of power and control to the Federal Government.
Q: Why did we not go back to a libertarian style of living, then, after the War?
A: Because things were good in the 50's. Quite simply, that is what I believe the truth to be. In the 50's and 60' and even the early 70's, the size of government was not necessarily seen as a problem. Rather, the government was seen as the only answer to economic woes, to political collapses, to civil unrest, racial tensions, and an utterly amoral and destructive counter-culture movement which tore the moral framework of this country to bits and embraced every form of degeneracy heretofore kept under public view by simple decency.
Conservatives began to spend more and more time fighting the moral decay of the country and, with the burgeoning Cold War, the military grew, and a strong government was seen as a good thing. Thus, statist power continued to grow unchecked -- the McCarthy hearings, the blacklisting of Hollywood actors and writers, the persecution of people for political beliefs, the outrages of Hoover's FBI.? . . These were simply not stood up to effectively.
The final nail in the Libertarian coffin, though, was very simply the rise of the megacorporation. A true military-industrial complex, combined with the consumer mentality and the flooding of the entertainment sphere with personal entertainment like never before, became the opiate of the masses.
Q: And then Reagan came along, wasn't he for small government?
A: If you actually think Reagan was for small government you are living in a fantasy world populated by the naive. This is when the Statist movement began to split.
Liberal Statism emerged as the Welfare State: a place where everyone was equal, where the poor were supported, everyone could go to college, political correctness was required, the poor of the world needed our support, and the government was our only answer.
Conservative Statism became the neocon movement in nascent form, with us as the World's Policeman, the shield of the weak, where government had to regulate morality and society, where a strong military was required, where taxes were cut and some programs reduced but pork spending skyrocketed.
Q: So what about the core values of the Republican Party? They say they want smaller government, don't they?
A: I'm sorry, but the profanity is required -- bullshit. The Republican Party is for smaller government the way people are about prisons -- they think it's a good idea as long as it doesn't affect them personally.
When a Republican says "smaller government' he means "get rid of welfare, affirmative action, entitlement programs, public art, education programs, and anything that empowers liberalism". A Republican has no need to cut government spending -- haven't you realized this by washing Bush I, Bush II, and most Republican congressmen?
Republicans are about dictating what they think is right, both to you as citizens and to the world abroad, under the Great Paternalistic Shield of Uncle Sam. They like big business to labor under as little government regulation as possible, but they certainly won't try to get rid of government bureaucracy.
Q: And the Democrats?
A: Do I even have to belabor the obvious? Of course they aren't for smaller government. It's the same thing, they'd reduce government that they don't like, and expand it everywhere else.?To be fair -- Republicans would have a SMALLER government than Democrats. It's akin, however, to suggesting that instead of being forced to carry an elephant on your back, you just have to carry a rhinoceros.
Q: So, both parties are basically Statists right now, is what you are saying.
A: Indeed they are. Republicans see big government as a way to enhance corporate power, bigger profits, expand our military, and engage in neoconservative empire building, in a new demi-colonial model where we basically conquer with corporate power backed up with the fist of our military. They see government as preventing gays from living openly, keeping illegals out, and making sure that minorities don't change the nations' values very much. They don't have a problem with big government as long as taxes are lower than under a Democratic reign and as long as the pork keeps rolling back into their states in the form of businesses, military bases, and defense spending.
Democrats want to legislate morality, and use the government to force acceptance of everything they hold dear, including affirmative action, egalitarianism and leveling of wealth, safety nets and welfare backing of the poor, disestablishment of corporate power to a more socialist model and, of course, challenging God in every public venue.
Q: You seem to be making a strong case for Ron Paul here, if I don't believe in all that.
A: Maybe you think so. I'm not here to argue the ins and outs of Libertarianism, really. I don't worry about it because it doesn't work; it never has and never will because power is not water. It does not flow downhill; it flows to the point of most attraction. Centralized government power in statist form will always be EASIER to implement, more REACTIVE to external threats, more IMPRESSIVE in it's long lasting achievements, and most of all, doesn't require THINKING or PASSION from it's citizens. To suggest that going back to a model of government that appeals to 15% of the country on it's ideals when 60% of the country doesn't care and 25% of the country makes it's LIVING and is in POWER due to big government is , well, denying reality.That being said, and taking into account my own beliefs, the main issue in this campaign isn't about liberalism or conservatism. Those two things have been corrupted. Liberals don't care about the poor, they don't care about minorities, they don't care about the environment, they simply want to lecture someone, they want to feel as if they are "making a difference" so that when they go home, they can say "we did this", and to them, a big government is a tool that will make that happen.
Conservatives want things to be like they "used to be", with a strong patriotic America, but they certainly don't really CARE about a smaller government, they don't care about controlling spending, and I'm not 100% sure the evangelical branch even cares about the message of Jesus they are supposed to be spreading. They simply want to have things stay the way they are and pretend that globalism and the American Dream have fundamentally changed.
There isn't a good way to get to liberal values without being a statist, really. People aren't going to accept change easily until it's forced on them. Civil rights in this country for minorities went nowhere until the government mandated it. Worker's rights, the same. Environmentalism, the same. And so on. Liberalism really requires big government.
Liberal-leaning libertarians are big on the power of private enterprise, and common decency, and point to the abolitionist movement, and grassroots organization of gay rights groups and the like . . . but these were only the impetus to make the government act, and without the power of a large government, nothing would have changed.
As for conservatives, I think they simply lost there way in the bared might of power they had gathered. It began to make more sense for them to use government to simply push the things they believed in than in hoping smaller government would bring those changes about.
You can quote any number of natural philosophers you like, or go on about the innate values of liberty and justice, but we aren't talking about the possibility of man, or the enlightened man, we're talking about the American, the guy who couldn't find China or Zimbabwe on a map, the woman who spends more time on shoes than on spreading the word of God, the family that lets the public schools and TV and popular culture raise their children then wonders why the kids are having sex at 14.
It's easier for conservatives to have a big government supporting charter schools and faith based initiatives and cracking down on gay marriage and (if you're a neocon) spreading "democracy" than it is to hope in the innate "goodness" of people.
Libertarians are, of course, upset and angry and frustrated. They see big government not simply as unfair taxes and wasted money but as a moral and physical danger. They blame every ill of society on big government and the actions it makes, regardless of any good it has done, regardless of the things it's achieved, and regardless of the cost to our society that a small-government mentality would entail.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that all a statist has to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. I could vote McCain, Romney, Obama, or Hillary -- I've got a good solid statist in all four of them. Ironically, even Dr. Paul, should he win, is going to have to use the very system he despises to get any of his ideas to work.
Statism is the idea that the power of government, and its goals, trump all other concerns. In many ways none of the parties or their candidates are statist. But they ends they pursue are irrelevant compared to the size of the machine they use to do their bidding, and in the end, that leads to the final question:
Q: Is Statism even a political position, then??
A: Not really. A pure statist is just a centrist who believes in big government. When the properly elected government, with the representatives honestly and openly elected are good representations of the values the people who elected them, acts in a manner that is transparent and for the good of the nation, the flavor such action takes is not relevant.
There are good liberal ideas, there are good conservative ideas. A statist can lean either way, but in his or her mind, the most important thing is that we have a strong government to protect our freedom, to defend us from harm, to legislate corporate power, to ensure our freedom of speech and religion while preventing the oppression of minorities, to enhance the moral fiber of the nation while allowing people to live their lives as they see fit, and to make this country the greatest on Earth based on what we are NOW, not what we originally were.
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