Politics And Programs And Corruption

EVERYONE is chuckling about the criminal allegations made against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D). His blatant determination to “sell” the vacated US Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama for value received is so over the top that you can’t help but laugh. Even the Wall Street Journal was able to crack a grin.

Of course, the president-elect had nothing to do with this. Nothing.

But liberals, isn’t it time to look in the mirror as little? If you chaps insist on gathering up 35 percent of the national output every year and running it through the political system, this is what you get.

All that money sloshing around, not doing very much except rewarding supporters, sets up the occasion for corruption. It’s not helping people, it is stealing from people.

Now you might say that to make the United States into a patronage state, where people get their livelihood from their association with a great lord, is no bad thing. Indeed you could argue that the world as always worked this way and always will. Political rulers naturally fall into the role of patron, and the voters and minor party functionaries naturally fall into the role of client.

But I don’t think that liberals really believe that the patronage state is really the highest and best form of political association.

Conservatives certainly don’t. That’s why we are ashamed of the corrupt Republicans who spent the last eight years trying to stay in power instead of trying to reform government programs. And why we weren’t that sorry to see the Republican Congress defeated in 2006.

Conservatives believe in an America of trust and honesty, where government is limited and Americans get their livelihood from serving each other rather than by becoming the client to a great political lord.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

TAGS

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches� they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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