A new
book by Charles Murray. Now I understand why the Techies run out to Silicon Valley and do their conspiracies.
By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission
The American way of life, built on individual liberty and limited government, is on life support.
American
freedom is being gutted. Whether we are trying to run a business,
practice a vocation, raise our families, cooperate with our neighbors,
or follow our religious beliefs, we run afoul of the government—not
because we are doing anything wrong but because the government has
decided it knows better. When we object, that government can and does
tell us, “Try to fight this, and we’ll ruin you.”
In this
provocative book, acclaimed social scientist and bestselling author
Charles Murray shows us why we can no longer hope to roll back the power
of the federal government through the normal political process. The
Constitution is broken in ways that cannot be fixed even by a
sympathetic Supreme Court. Our legal system is increasingly lawless,
unmoored from traditional ideas of “the rule of law.” The legislative
process has become systemically corrupt no matter which party is in
control.
But there’s good news beyond the Beltway. Technology is
siphoning power from sclerotic government agencies and putting it in the
hands of individuals and communities. The rediversification of American
culture is making local freedom attractive to liberals as well as
conservatives. People across the political spectrum are increasingly
alienated from a regulatory state that nakedly serves its own interests
rather than those of ordinary Americans.
The even better news is
that federal government has a fatal weakness: It can get away with its
thousands of laws and regulations only if the overwhelming majority of
Americans voluntarily comply with them. Murray describes how civil
disobedience backstopped by legal defense funds can make large portions
of the 180,000-page Federal Code of Regulations unenforceable, through a
targeted program that identifies regulations that arbitrarily and
capriciously tell us what to do. Americans have it within their power to
make the federal government an insurable hazard like hurricanes and
floods, leaving us once again free to live our lives as we see fit.
By
the People’s hopeful message is that rebuilding our traditional
freedoms does not require electing a right-thinking Congress or
president, nor does it require five right-thinking justices on the
Supreme Court. It can be done by we the people, using America’s unique
civil society to put government back in its proper box.
No comments:
Post a Comment