With the advent of war, what means are available to those who wish to resist the progressive socialization of American society?
After every war, until the last one, the people took their liberty back. It was understood that they would; it was understood, in each case, that the government would surrender its extraordinary wartime powers and return to the form that was before. But during World War II, as we know, the planners at Washington were writing the enlarged design for a controlled world — enlarged, that is, from the New Deal design. They thought they had learned all they needed to know about controls, and they said, “You see that the economy has to be planned for war — prices, production, distribution and all. What is good for war is good also for peace. Unemployment can be planned away. Prosperity can be planned. The full life forever, with security and social justice — that can be planned.” FULL ARTICLE
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“There will be something still for the individual to do. He cannot refuse to pay taxes, no matter how absurd the budget may be.”
Really?
Written shortly after WWII, Garrett wrote in passing of “compulsory health insurance”. Does anyone know to what he is referring? Considering that is just what many are calling for today, could it be that we have already tried this experiment?
This is truly tangential to the primary intent of the essay. But it caught my eye as something valuable to research in light of current rhetoric.
To Joe,
Reading from “Unmasking the Sacred Lies” by Paul Cleveland, he mentions that the original framers of the Social Security Act wanted to make national health care part of the Act, FDR only backed down so that he could get other aspects of the act passed. Also, the Revenue Act of 1935 started the push into third party health insurers since it instituted a highly progressive income tax. Cleveland cites Charlotte A. Twight’s “Dependent on D.C.” which “discusses the political process by which the government has steadily usurped control over the nation’s health care industry.”
I would like to believe, as Garrett does, that it takes a crisis as severe as war to constrict the freedoms of Americans, but it just aint so.
The assault on liberty did not begin with the Welfare State. The Constitution was effectively neutralized in 1803, with the Marbury vs. Madison decision. The Supreme Court officially declared itself the final arbiter of all controversy. I am not sure I disagree with the premise “Somebody has to do it, why not us?” I do disagree with the idea that a 5/4 vote is adequate. How, under our Constitution, can the will of Congress, as irrational as it often is, be tossed aside by a 5/4 vote? The Court cannot even claim “Papal Infallibility” or “divine right”; it is still a 5/4 vote. The Court relies on “precedent” set by other courts, as if those were carved in stone, yet claims the Constitution is a living document and does not need “Amendment” to evolve. Politically, I suspect they rely on a 5/4 vote because it would be impossible to get a unanimous vote of 9 egomaniacs, not to mention life appointments and alsheimers, but that is my personal opinion.
The Supreme Court has never been given full credit for their role in the Civil War. They failed to overturn the Missouri Compromise, but shortly issued the Dredd Scott decision, effectively forcing “free state” taxpayers to pay for law enforcement to capture and transport a form of property, the slave, which was illegal in their state. “How dey do dat?”
Once the bloodbath that was the Civil War established the concept of “federal preemption”, and the supremacy of the Supremes, all else is nothing but a meatball. They get to pick the winner of Presidential elections, they get to decide when life starts and when it ends, they decide when you have property rights, and when you dont. They decide when the “Bill of Rights” applies, and when it doesnt. All on a 5/4 vote. Given the reluctance of Americans to hold the Court accountable, the Welfare State is one of the most benign alterations to our Constitution.
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