When Government is a Problem: The Unintended Consequences of Ignoring the Separation of Powers

All kinds of people complain about the government: rich and poor, old and young, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, Progressives and Libertarians. Why? As historian Ben Shapiro notes, “the problem with government isn’t that government doesn’t get enough done — it’s that it gets too much done.”

The government is often tempted to be overactive — to do more than it should. The main task of the government is to protect the lives, freedoms, and properties of its citizens. But often, governments want to do more than that — to regulate, encourage, or discourage activities; to undertake programs and projects that go beyond defending people’s individual political liberty.

To be sure, often government actions are undertaken with good intentions, and with sincere desires to help. But even when the government wants to help, it cannot. In some situations, the best thing the government can do is stand back, and let society fix its own problems.

As President Ronald Reagan said in 1986, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.”

Well-intentioned government programs usually have unintended consequences: Government programs to end poverty actually cause more poverty; when the government tried to reduce illegal drug use, such use increased; when governments try to make peace, the result is usually a war; when governments try to fix the economy, wages fall and more people become unemployed.

In 1849 Henry David Thoreau wrote, “That government is best which governs least.” He was likely recalling a magazine article from 1837 which included this line: “The best government is that which governs least.”

To protect people’s freedom is to limit the power of the government. The idea of “limited government” is the foundation of freedom.

People should not, in the words of Ben Shapiro, “become accustomed to the government taking care of them.” It seems like a nice idea, but throughout history, it has led only to dictatorships and atrocities.

There is a choice: people can have freedom, or they can have a government which reaches into their lives and tries to help them. They cannot have both. Solutions to social problems come from society, not from the government. Solutions to economic problems come from businesses and economists, not from the government.

If people mistakenly believe that the government can fix problems, then that belief “leads to calls for government action with every supposed crisis,” as Ben Shapiro says. He continues:

If we want to restore logical boundaries to government, we can begin by restoring logical boundaries to our desire to rely on the government. To do that, however, we must first understand how the government currently works. Here’s a hint: it has almost nothing to do with the Constitution.

Consider how our government currently works, how it worked in the past, and how it might work in the future.

Again, people from nearly every political viewpoint, from every race, from every religion, all agree — the government isn’t working well at present. That’s because, as Shapiro points out, the government currently has little to do with the Constitution.

While nearly every elected or appointed political leader will quote from the Constitution and praise it, in reality, the organizational mechanisms of the Constitution are routinely ignored.

When the Constitutional system is working properly, it does things like end slavery, as it did between 1863 and 1865, or ensure women’s right to vote, as it did in 1869, long before the amendment confirmed it in 1920.

So what does it mean for the Constitutional system to work properly? What does that look like? A big part of the answer is the “separation of powers.”

Each part of the government has its own assignment to do. The legislature, or Congress, is supposed to make laws. The executive, or president, is supposed to apply the laws. The judiciary, or court system, is supposed to interpret the laws.

Yes, it gets a little more complex than that in some situations, but the basic principle of “separation of powers” is this simple principle.

Things go wrong when the executive branch makes laws. For example, the president appoints people to operate government agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or Department of Commerce. When those agencies start making their own rules and policies, instead of applying the laws which Congress has made, then there is a problem. They have effectively taken Congress’s job. There is a name for this problem: “administrative law.” It’s when the administration, instead of the Congress, makes laws.

Another way things can go wrong is this: The legislative branch can usurp the role of the executive branch. This happens when Congress has hearings and investigations. While it is appropriate for Congress to hold committee meetings and to gather facts relevant to debates about potential legislation, it is not appropriate for Congress to investigate (that’s a task for the executive branch), and it is not appropriate for Congress to hold hearings (that’s the work of the judicial branch). The one rare exception is an impeachment process for a federal employee.

Many of our current problems arise from the fact that the three branches of government are not restricting themselves to their assigned tasks. If each branch of government will do its work, and not the work of the other branches, then many of our problems will be solved, and desired outcomes like freedom, prosperity, justice, and peace are more likely.

The Flag, the Anthem, and the NFL: Unity and Race

The question of race in America has a long and bitter past, and for this reason, continues to manifest itself in new and different ways. Honest and intelligent people seek a sense of unity among the nation’s diverse citizenry.

This unity remains elusive, and sometimes the very moment of unity is itself attacked as being unjust and racist. The word ‘racist’ has become weaponized, and by means of this word’s abuse and misuse, there is confusion about exactly what it might mean.

People often unite around symbols. A piece of music and a bit of cloth stand for ideas and ideals. So it is that the United States flag represents something profound. It was the flag carried into battle during the Civil War to end slavery. It was the flag on the uniforms of those who escorted the Little Rock Nine into educational equity.

The flag is a symbol of justice, freedom, and unity. Martin Luther King understood the flag in this way when he wrote:

Since Crispus Attucks gave his life on Boston’s Commons, black men and women have been mingling their blood with other Americans in defense of this republic. For the protection of our honored flag which still floats untarnished in the breeze, Negro men and women have died on the far flung battle fields of the world.

The national anthem, too, symbolizes the concepts which not only all Americans, but all people, value. Martin Luther King encouraged students in Alabama who stood on the steps of a government building and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1960 in Alabama, and he likewise encouraged Rose Battle English, a gifted vocalist, who sang the national anthem at a “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom” in 1957.

At some relatively recent point in history, some people lost, or forgot, or discarded, the near-universal recognition of the flag and the anthem as unifying symbols. The flag and the national anthem are symbols of justice and unity, and specifically of justice and unity in matters relating to race. But one segment of society doesn’t, can’t, or won’t recognize the meaning of the flag and the anthem.

Martin Luther King incorporated the flag and the anthem into his movement, calling the flag “honored” and “untarnished.” He saw the flag and the anthem as symbols of everything he and his movement worked to achieve.

Yet some, who would present themselves as a continuation of King’s work, now do not see justice and unity in the flag, and do not hear unity and reconciliation in the national anthem. They do not perceive that all which they claim to desire is encapsulated in these two unifying symbols.

The National Football League has been one of several venues in which a group has explicitly denied that these national symbols point to, and contain, the goals for which the group claims to strive. Instead of acknowledging the flag and the national anthem as enshrining justice, they claim that other gestures or rites are needed to symbolize justice.

So some NFL players kneel during the national anthem, refuse to acknowledge the flag, remain in the locker room during the presentation of the flag and the singing of the national anthem, etc., and introduce instead other rituals which they claim to be symbols of justice and unity.

In an October 2020 publication, author Peter Speckhard writes:

People react to competing narratives almost viscerally. For example, at the first NFL game of the season this year, the Houston Texans and the Kansas City Chiefs linked arms at midfield for a “moment of unity” on the issue of racism. The stadium announcer asked the mostly empty (due to the pandemic restrictions) stadium to observe a moment of silence. But the intended moment of silence featured a loud chorus of boos from the few thousand fans in attendance. After the game, superstar player J.J. Watt expressed confusion that anyone would be booing a moment of unity to end racism. Well, it could be that many of the fans were racists opposed to expressions of racial unity. Or it could be that the fans instinctively sensed an alien narrative at work.

To be clear, many of the NFL players who participated in this event and similar events did so to be good sports, and to get along with the other players. But those players who advocated for such events, and their handlers who directed them to do so, ignored the fact that the “moment of unity” which most authentically reconciles all manner of people to each other, and which most directly points to justice, is that moment which centers around the flag and the national anthem.

Because the flag was an integral part of the abolition of slavery, an integral part of school integration and desegregation, and an integral part of movement for civil rights, Martin Luther King embrace the iconography of the flag and the anthem. Civil rights arise from citizenship.

Citizenship is a common bond, and when recognized and understood, unites people across the usual dividing variables: race, religion, ethnicity, language, color, etc.

Peter Speckhard continues:

What I think the fans understood is that the national anthem, for which many NFL players routinely kneel in protest, is itself supposed to be the moment of unity before the game. That’s why the tradition got started and the only reason to perpetuate it. The bitter rivals on the field, the competing fan bases, the furious coaches, and the blind referees might not have anything else in common, but they have their nation in common. The only reason to have a separate moment of unity on the field this year in addition to the anthem was to endorse the idea that the national anthem doesn’t unite Americans. Holding an additional moment of unity only endorses the outlook of those who kneel for the anthem. Two competing moments of unity are actually just one larger moment of disunity. People booing at the moment of unity were not expressing racism. They were rejecting the idea that the American flag and our national anthem actually represent systemic ongoing racism.

If the United States flag, and the “Star-Spangled Banner,” authentically point to justice, then to ignore or oppose such symbols, and to suggest alternative symbols, moves us further from justice, moves us away from unity, and moves us further into bitter division.

Symbols of national unity are effective against racism. To dismantle rituals of national unity is to open the door to increasing racism.

Falling for Socialism: How Redistribution Schemes Fool Voters

Not only in the United States, but in many nations, various socialist economic plans are presented to the public in charming phrases and attractive anecdotes. Socialists can be persuasive.

The rhetoric of wealth redistribution is filled with metaphors, vignettes, and parables.

The socialist movement needs such picturesque language, because the public will not happily digest abstract statements like this one from Michael Harrington: “The politics of international economic and social solidarity must be presented as a practical solution to immediate problems as well as a recognition of that oneness of humankind celebrated in the Biblical account of the common parents of all human beings.”

The socialists also need these folksy similes and stories because these engaging little tales hide the unpleasant realities lurking in socialist schemes like those promoted by Harrington.

Garrett Hardin produced one of these distracting and seducing narratives, as historian Amity Shlaes recounts:

One of the thinkers of the era, a microbiologist at the University of California in Santa Barbara named Garrett Hardin, sketched a picture to try to convey the need for great public-sector interventions. Shepherds live by a rich common pasture. All want to graze their own sheep there, and all do, each driving as many of his own sheep as he can into the common area without regard to the needs of others or the grass of the commons. Soon, the grass is gone. The sheep starve. This dynamic Hardin labeled the “Tragedy of the Commons.” Hardin recommended a collective solution of the sort Harrington would have praised: let governments play the shepherd, managing or rationing resources of the common.

Hardin’s myth has several factors typical of propaganda. He presents a binary scenario: evil shepherds, good governmental regulators. He also places the vast majority of the citizens into the category of sheep who are the mercy of either shepherds or regulators, but who apparently can’t act or think for themselves.

In his metaphor, Hardin also reduces the amazing complex world of technology, politics, and economics into the overly simplistic symbol of pasture land where sheep graze. He first published his allegory in 1968.

Then, as now, the world of interest rates and taxes, of microeconomic and macroeconomics, of data storage and transmission, of spacecraft and pharmaceuticals, of election cycles and intragovernmental negotiations was exceedingly complicated. To reduce that world to the undemanding analogy of grassland is to engage in massive oversimplification.

Redistributionist and socialist campaigns habitually rely on such oversimplification, from Huey Long to Bernie Sanders.

A more accurate assessment of modern civilization regards the majority of people not as sheep, but as decision-makers. Citizens are constantly making economic, political, and technological choices. The millions of choices made daily shape the nation, the marketplace, and development of new software and hardware.

An accurate picture of socio-political economics includes people who are more farsighted than the shepherds who quickly destroy the land’s grazing material, regulators who are not omniscient angels who know all and always act altruistically, and scenarios with a nearly infinite number of options instead of the two presented in Hardin’s parable.

Socialist schemes for redistribution are almost always presented in such oversimplified rhetoric, and intentionally so: only by means of oversimplification can the socialists gloss over the universe of flaws and problems which come to light whenever someone attempts to implement such programs in the real world.

Gerald Ford: America’s Favorite Vice President

Many people respected and liked Gerald Ford, but few thought that he’d one day become the vice president of the United States, and even fewer suspected that he’d one day be president. Until 1973, he was a leader in the United States House of Representatives, and congressman representing the state of Michigan.

In that year, Spiro Agnew resigned. Agnew had been vice president since January 1969, but questions about his financial ethics forced him to leave the office. Under the watchful eyes of the American public, and of Congress, President Nixon had to appoint a new vice president. The new VP had to be able to undergo the most careful investigations and be able to show that he was free of any hint of scandalous behavior.

Despite the detailed scrutiny of both government and media, Gerald Ford proved to have a spotless record regarding both public and private behavior.

Once he was confirmed by the both houses of Congress and became VP December 1973, he found that his work would be challenging, as historian Thomas DeFrank writes:

As vice president, Ford was faced with one of the more daunting assignments any American politician has ever confronted. He was determined to remain loyal to his president, the old friend and former congressional colleague who’d made him VP. He was also intent on staying true to his conscience, and much of what he saw unfolding at the White House troubled him. More than anything else, he was also desperate to do everything in his power to hold his beloved Republican Party together amid the wreckage of Watergate.

As VP, Ford was immensely popular with Americans. He was, in fact, much more popular than Nixon at the time. It is awkward for a vice president to be more popular than the president for whom he works.

Realizing that he would eventually, and probably soon, be president, Ford was careful to preserve his connection to the ordinary American citizens by not supporting Nixon too much, as Thomas DeFrank notes:

Every vice president struggles under the yoke of playing second fiddle, but Watergate made the part far trickier for Ford. Even in the beginning, when he still believed Nixon was innocent, Ford was smart enough to realize there was a reasonable chance he might become president anyway. If it happened, he’d need to come before a wounded and troubled nation as the Great Healer. By defending Nixon too forcefully, he risked being tarred as an Agnewesque polarizer, diminishing his capacity to reunite the nation

During his brief time — less than one year — as vice president, the public, the media, and the other leaders in government uniformly perceived Ford as honest, ethical, and decent.

This would become vitally important when he became president in August 1974.

LBJ, The Great Society, and Unintended Consequences: Good Intentions, Bad Results

With much fanfare, President Lyndon Johnson promoted his legislative agenda, including a bundle of programs which he called ‘The Great Society.’ Johnson was most probably sincere in his desire to alleviate the misery of poverty, both because he knew that it would increase his popularity, and because of genuine human compassion. LBJ saw conditions in Texas and in Appalachia which prompted him to use the slogan, ‘War on Poverty.’

Johnson’s simultaneous endorsement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act gave the impression that Great Society programs would also help lift African-Americans out of poverty. But, as historian Ben Shapiro writes, “The Great Society significantly slowed economic progress for black Americans.”

“Government involvement is far more to blame” for “the stagnant rates of increase in black prosperity.” In the past, the government had imposed racism when it legislated “Jim Crow Laws.” But starting in the mid-1960s, it was anti-poverty programs which did the most harm to the Black community.

The Great Society programs of President Lyndon Johnson, touted as a sort of reparations-lite by Johnson allies, actually harmed the black community in significant ways that continue to play out today. According to former Air Force One steward Ronald MacMillan, LBJ pushed the Great Society programs and civil rights bill out of desire to win black votes.

Johnson frequently used inappropriate and hateful epithets to refer to African-Americans, usually the “n-word” but also others. His racist vocabulary has been well documented.

But Johnson hoped to persuade Black voters to support him and his political party. He presented his programs as their salvation. Yet the biggest cause of poverty turned out to be LBJ’s anti-poverty programs.

In essence, the Great Society drove impoverished black people into dependency. In 1960, 22 percent of black children were born out of wedlock; today, that number is over 70 percent. The single greatest indicator of intergenerational poverty is single motherhood. As Thomas Sowell writes, “What about ghetto riots, crimes in general and murder in particular? What about low levels of labor force participation and high levels of welfare dependency? None of those things was as bad in the first 100 years after slavery as they became in the wake of the policies and notions of the 1960s.”

An analysis by the Brookings Institute shows that, prior to Great Society programs, African-Americans were making progress: “From 1940 to 1970, black men cut the income gap [with white men] by about a third.” Black wage-earners were experiencing rising wages and were headed for equal pay.

This optimistic trend, however, faded, as Ben Shapiro notes: “Such growth slowed after the implementation of the Great Society. According to economists John J. Donahue III and James Heckman, black men saw ‘virtually no improvement’ in wages” after LBJ’s initiatives were implemented.

Thomas Sowell notes that African-Americans made the largest and fastest economic progress before Great Society programs were launched. Johnson’s war on poverty actually slowed the gains being made by Blacks, as Sowell writes:

Despite the grand myth that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the Civil Rights laws and “War on Poverty” programs of the 1960s, the cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960. This was before any of those programs began. Over the next 20 years, the poverty rate among blacks fell another 18 percentage points, compared to the 40-point drop in the previous 20 years. This was the continuation of a previous economic trend, at a slower rate of progress, not the economic grand deliverance.

It’s worth noting that the Great Society programs did not help white people either, or Latinos, or Native American Indians. Johnson’s programs have been in place for fifty years, but poverty rates remain unchanged, as Ben Shapiro notes:

As for the Great Society itself, poverty rates in the United States have remained largely unchanged: the government spends $9,000 per welfare recipient per year in the United States, and yet Americans had the same poverty rate in 2013 as they did in 1963. Living standards have improved, but dependency has not decreased.

The number of Americans and the percentage of the American population living in poverty declined throughout the 1940s and 1950s. But those numbers have been frozen since the mid-1960s. Johnson’s programs are expensive but ineffective.

The Great Society programs started by costing billions; now they cost trillions. These programs have inflicted suffering by means of taxation and by means of expanding the national debt. But these programs have not reduced poverty — for African-Americans, for whites, for Latinos, or for anyone else.

Understanding Obama: Part 06

The election of Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency was a singular event. For the first time, the nation’s chief executive was African-American, or more precisely, biracial. As Obama noted, writing about his parents, “he was as black as pitch, my mother white as milk.”

Obama’s racial ambiguity would be both an asset that he would deploy on the campaign trail, but also an Achille’s heal which would ultimately erode his support among Black voters.

Although his presidency was greeted at first with exuberant jubilation among African-American citizens, in time, Black activists like William Darity would author articles with titles like “Barack Obama Failed Black Americans.” What caused Black voters to see through the Obama image?

The sad reality for millions of African-Americans was that, during the eight years of the Obama presidency, unemployment rose faster among Blacks than among any other racial or ethnic group; income declined faster; and family net wealth declined farther and faster. Other numbers extend that trend: home ownership, employment among teenagers, etc.

If the Obama administration wasn’t able, or didn’t care, to help African-Americans in terms of economic opportunity, did it help them in any other way?

Obama did extend help to selected individuals, some of whom were Black. For example, Obama fired inspector general Gerald Walpin in order to help Kevin Johnson, an NBA star turned politician. The complex series of events is explained by historian David Limbaugh:

On July 11, 2009, Obama abruptly announced his decision to fire Gerald Walpin. He sent letters to leaders of the Senate and House notifying them of the termination, to take effect in thirty days. His stated reason? He had lost “the fullest confidence” in Walpin, which is “vital” in “the appointees serving as Inspectors General.”

After only six months in office, Obama fired a federal employee. The only justification for the dismissal given by Obama was a loss of confidence.

The lack of detail is significant. What caused this lack of confidence? Was there there theft, or embezzlement, or bribery?

This was not your ordinary executive firing of an at-will staffer. The Inspector General is a highly sensitive position that acts as a watchdog against government corruption and must not be occupied by a lapdog who provides cover for wrongdoing. To be fired by the leader of the very branch of government one is assigned to investigate is enough to create a presumption of suspicion.

Who suspected whom of doing what?

If Obama had suspected Gerald Walpin of unethical behavior, then the usual process would have included some investigation or report. Instead, Obama merely referred vaguely to confidence.

On the other hand, if the suspicion was directed at Obama, i.e., that Obama’s firing of Walpin was unethical, then Obama’s vague explanation would make sense.

The Inspector General, and the various inspectors general who work in that capacity, are tasked with investigating unethical, negligent, or corrupt practices in government. A president who fires an inspector general without substantive explanation is revealing that there is something to hide, that this inspector general had discovered that there was something to hide, and that the president in question is actively engaged in a cover-up.

Suspicion immediately arose that Obama was firing Walpin because of Walpin’s investigation of Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and mayor of Sacramento, California, who is a strong Obama supporter and personal friend. Before becoming mayor, Johnson had established a non-profit called St. HOPE to help “revitalize inner-city communities through public education, civic leadership, economic development and the arts.” After opening an investigation into whether St. HOPE had misused an $850,000 AmeriCorps grant, Walpin discovered that Johnson had used AmeriCorps funds to pay volunteers to participate in political activities involving the school board and to run personal errands for Johnson like washing his car.

Gerald Walpin had discovered that Obama’s friend Kevin Johnson had been misappropriating taxpayer dollars for his own personal benefit. Obama fired Walpin to protect Kevin Johnson.

Kevin Johnson was ultimately forced to repay the money, and the charitable organization which he’d founded, St. HOPE, was ineligible to receive any federal funding for a period of time.

How did this seem to Black voters? Within six months of taking office in 2009, Obama devoted his attention and energy to firing an investigator who’d uncovered the financial corruption of one of Obama’s friends. But Obama’s time and attention, if they were directed toward African-Americans at all, were not effective in reducing unemployment, increasing wages, creating jobs, or growing the net personal wealth of Black Americans.

By 2012, the situation hadn’t changed, with unemployment figures hovering around 8% or 9%, as David Limbaugh reports:

The standard unemployment figures also downplay another unsettling trend: private-sector job creation is at near record lows. Fewer existing businesses are hiring and fewer entrepreneurs are starting new businesses, meaning fewer jobs are available for the unemployed. Prior to the recession, more than 5 million new employees were hired each month, but this figure fell to 3.6 million by June 2009. By February 2012 it had only slightly improved to 4 million. While fewer employees are being laid off since the start of the recession, unemployment remains high because of these sluggish job creation figures.

After four years in office, unemployment was high, and unemployment for African-Americans was even higher. But after only six months in office, Obama had leapt into action to rescue one of his personal friends from the legal consequences of misusing federal funds — i.e., to rescue his friend from the legal consequences of crime.

It is no surprise, then, that in November 2012, fewer Blacks voted for Obama than in November 2008. Obama had lost significant amounts of support among the African-Americans who’s so enthusiastically greeted his presidency four years earlier.

Varieties of Nationalism: From Benign to Malignant

The word ‘nationalism’ is widely used, and too often carelessly used. Reflection reveals that this word can refer to a variety of things, from a beneficial and peaceful sentiment to an aggressive and warlike passion.

The evil version of “nationalism” is a value system in which the existence, growth, and power of the nation-state is the ultimate value, outranking other potential values like family, justice, duty, honor, religious faith, art, or friendship. This evil type of nationalism can lead to combat and hostility, because if the nation-state is the ultimate value, then anything or anyone else can be sacrificed for the good of the nation-state.

As historian Jill Lepore writes, the evil form of

nationalism is often thought of as what happens which a nation-state demands extraordinary sacrifices from its people — especially by participating in wars of aggression — and, requiring their consent, asks for that sacrifice in the name of the nation. The more outrageous the war, the harder it is to gain that consent, the more grotesque the depiction of the nation’s enemies.

By contrast, the good version of “nationalism” is not only salutary, but it is even necessary for a peaceful global community. This form of nationalism is a fondness for one’s own nation, and the ability to objectively see the achievements and contributions of one’s own nation. Importantly, such peaceful nationalism also allows the individual to appreciate the contributions and achievements of other nations. This type of nationalism leads to peaceful international relations because it allows each nation to have respect both for itself and for other nations.

The term ‘nation-state’ merits definition: a state is a clearly demarcated geographical territory with its own government. In common language, a ‘state’ is what we often call a ‘country.’ A ‘nation’ is an ethnic group — a group which shares a language, or a culture, or a shared narrative history, or a way of life, or artistic traditions like clothing, music, and food. A ‘nation-state’ is when a nation and a state are coextensive, i.e., when they are the same thing.

Notably, it is sometimes debated as to whether the United States is a nation-state. It is a state in any case; but the question is posed as to whether there is enough of a common culture to merit calling the United States a nation. Those who argue that the U.S. is not a nation point to the diversity of religions, languages, and cultures within the territory. Those who say that the U.S. is a nation point to commonalities which universally join the citizens: bluejeans, hamburgers, a fondness for cars (the ‘automobile lifestyle’), popular sporting events, popular music, etc.

The reader will decide for herself or himself.

So it is, then, that learning to have a fondness for one’s own nation, and to appreciate the achievements of one’s own nation, is not necessarily a warlike sentiment. It is, however, a necessary perspective for creating a peaceful community of nations: wholesome friendships between countries can be formed only by those nations with a healthy appreciation for both themselves and for other nations.