“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.”

~Barry Goldwater

Watching the Democratic National Convention this year has been an odd experience for me.  I have enjoyed some of the speeches.  Governor Schweitzer of Montana was fun, and his speech was a good preface to Hillary’s call for unity.  Even I can be roused by some of the calls for a better tomorrow, by the pleas for new technologies, greater investment in science and our education.

I just find that on a logical level–on the plain of Reason rather than Emotion–I could not adopt much of the liberal ideology, even if I wanted to.  For instance, last night at the DNC convention, I’m not sure how many times supposedly intelligent people said something to the effect of “Gas prices have gone up, and oil companies are making record profits, so we need to tax gas companies more (to punish them!)”

This use of windfall profit taxes requires a complete abandonment of reason.

First of all, yes gas prices are up.  This is due to a number of things, but primarily to supply and demand.  Also, yes, the oil companies are making record profits.  This, however, is not due to gas prices being up, but to sales being up.  It is costing the gas companies more to get the oil, and this added cost is passed along to the consumer.  Add to this the fact that as China and India develop their economies, they purchase more oil.  So do other developing nations. So, for oil companies, sales are up.  This means they make more money.  So do the nations which sell the oil in the first place, like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and the UAE.

Government as an Agent of Fairness, an Agent of Good

So is the answer taxation?  Certainly on an emotional level, as we watch the dollars go up while filling our tanks, this makes sense.  But logically, more taxes mean more costs for the oil company.  Higher costs, as we discussed earlier, are passed on to the consumer.  Following this line of reasoning, the hiking of taxes on oil companies will simply be passed on to you and me.  This is fine if the end goal is to drive up oil costs so high it becomes impossible to even use the stuff.  There are some liberals who want this, thinking to force our hand, to force the US economy down the road to renewable energy.  There are very few politicians, however, who would admit this.

Higher taxes on Big Oil means higher cost at the pump.

So who are we “punishing” again?

Now I’m not an anti-tax at all costs conservative.  Taxes are necessary evils, within reason.  I think if we plan on spending like crazy, we’re going to have to tax like crazy, or just live forever in debt. The only way to have low taxes is to put the Government on a diet and cut out unnecessary programs.  This is difficult to do, because many of these programs sound really good, like No Child Left Behind.  That sounds good.  That sounds like a program that a really good Government might use to help kids…

I understand the liberal desire to use the government as an “agent of good.”  I would fully support this if I thought it would work.  If I thought the State could actually achieve its aims, then I would say by all means, raise taxes, raise spending, throw money at the problem!  But what actually happens is increased bureaucracy, more lobbying efforts and bigger payouts to strong special interest groups, and ironically bigger business benefits from this more than small business.  Big Government feeds corporate hegemony, not small enterprise.

Don’t get me wrong, I think corporations are fine, but I don’t think an American economy totally dominated by big business is the best model.  I like some small business in the mix, some middle-sized companies that provide good jobs in small towns.  Strong local governments help create this, not a massive Federal one.

Programs like No Child Left Behind serve to inflate the bureaucracy, but they don’t actually solve the problem with our schools.  In fact, no Federal program ever has.  This is because throwing money at the problem simply doesn’t work, especially when that money has to pass through the Federal Government first…

Government as an Agent of Social Justice

Then there is the subject of health care.  I believe in health care for everyone.  I personally have health care, but I didn’t always.  In fact, there was a brief moment between jobs when we had an emergency and had to rely temporarily on State health insurance (yes, it already exists for low income families!).  Now I have private health insurance, which is far better.  But it was nice to have that safety net in case of emergencies.  So maybe there is some credence in having a safety net system in place.  But a safety net is far, far different than nationalized health care and the death of private insurance.

You see, I want my insurance to be the insurance I have now, not the insurance I had provided by the State.  This one is provided through my employer.  It’s high quality.  It actually pays the doctors and hospitals unlike the State-run insurance which often doesn’t.  This keeps our medical professionals in business, which is a good thing.  Without them, all the insurance in the world won’t do you any good.

So the notion of nationalizing our health care, making it less efficient, more expensive…this frightens me.  I worry that our health care system will go downhill, and while everyone will have health care, nobody will have enough, and what is provided will be of a far poorer quality.  More power will be in the hands of the State, and less in our own hands.

Many liberals think conservatives are just out to keep taxes low so that they can stay rich, or to impose their sense of morality (which is true in the case of the far religious right).  Nowadays, liberals associate conservatives with war and aggression, conveniently forgetting the many military actions taken on by liberal hawks in the past.

In fact, most conservatives simply believe that while many of the things liberals are after are good and just, the State cannot, in fact, be used as an “agent of Good.”  The State is at its best when it is small–not necessarily as small as the Libertarians want it, but smaller than it is now.  The power of the Federal Government should be spread out to the States and local governments, and the money gobbled up by the Government, should be left in the hands of private citizens who can spend it better.

Government as an Agent of Practicality

The Federal Government is good at raising armies.  It is effective in the management of our foreign policy, and the regulation of our currency.  It is good to have a Federal government that can form alliances with other nations.  One of the problems inherent prior to the Union of the States, was the inability of individual States to manage their own currencies and alliances and armies, or even to regulate State-to-State trade.  Indeed, if they did it would be a mess.  Imagine fifty different governments overseeing foreign affairs!  The US would not be the economic power it is today.  So these things are naturally within the sphere of the Federal Government.

This is the State as an agent of Practicality.  It does not punish companies for being successful, nor does it impose taxes out of fairness.  It operates based on its needs and limitations–taxing only so much as it needs to carry out its mission.  Should times warrant greater spending, then greater taxes should be imposed.  But our elected officials should not be working to get as much money as possible so as to feed as many pork barrel projects as possible–they should be working diligently at keeping the Federal Government small and in check, keeping taxes low so that business can thrive and jobs flourish, and keeping our alliances and military strong, so that we are safe.

High taxes and high spending at the Federal level only serve the politicians and bureaucrats who impose them.

I believe I share all the sentiments of the Left when it comes to notions of equality.  I believe in women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, etc.  I just don’t believe more government is the answer.  It was Big Government that imposed restrictions on voting in the first place, and only by limiting government, by shedding that imposition, that we finally gave women and minorities the right to vote.

Government as an Agent of Religiosity

This is why I oppose a ban on gay marriage.  That is not limiting the Government.  It is using it as an agent of Morality, or better yet, Religiosity.  The government is no more an agent of Morality than it is an agent of Social Justice or an agent of Fairness.  It is an essential, practical institution that should keep us safe, allow us to be free, and provide a haven in which our economy can flourish.

I would argue just as vehemently against a Federal recognition of gay marriage.  It is a States issue.  The Government should not make laws that enforce or diminish equality.  It is not the Government’s place to create an equal playing field.  Without such laws, the playing field is as equal already as it was ever meant to be.

And so even as I watch the DNC and nod my head at the sentiment of much of what is said, behind it all I know that these are just politicians, who through their liberal policies will shore up more power in the Federal government.

When I watch the RNC in a few days, I know the same will be true.  I know that few of these so-called conservatives will do any different (surely the current administration hasn’t)  I know that many of the conservatives are actually pushing to use this Government, set up as a secular government by our Constitution, as an agent of Morality.  Many are just as fond of Big Government as their counterparts on the Left.

Both sides will seek to strip our freedoms, and both will do so for our supposed benefit.  Soon enough, they’ll make a push to take away even our most simple of rights, our right to gun ownership–the one thing that stands, however brutally, between us and totalitarianism.  Just as guns are the true power behind diplomacy, so too they are the one right that truly ensures the sanctity of our Constitution.  For our own good, they will try to take them away as well.

As C.S. Lewis wrote:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Our Founding Fathers seemed to understand this.  Our current leaders do not.

Kain's major subjects of focus at NeoConstant are international strategy; support of Israel; the failure of the international community to stop genocide; the spread of American power and democracy; historical analysis; and current events both domestically and abroad. He writes here, Newsvine and his blog, IndiePundit.