[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Unfortunately, not much – that is, unless you can both publicize what’s going on and get a majority of voters to care. That’s a tall order – a lot of people will willingly swap what libertarians and classical liberals deem to be important individual rights in exchange for a small measure of economic security, or to empower the goverment to “fix” a perceived harm (which is what happened during the New Deal and the civil rights cases, respectively).
In Europe, that might not even be enough – see what’s happened with the EU Constitution being rammed down the throats of various countries after repeated rejections, as happened in Ireland and may happen in the Netherlands.
What we probably cannot do is dismantle the various prongs of government that have sprung up in the last 100 years – the IRS, executive agencies, etc. Perhaps the only way to really pare things back is to come up with a series of Amendments to the Constitution (or in the EU’s case, amendments to the draft constitution) that address individual rights and prohibit the government from taking certain actions altogether w/r/t individuals. Kind of a 2nd Bill of Rights movement, if you will.
Short of that, you’re fighting against a 100 year tide of consolidation of power in the government’s hands, which happened in piecemeal fashion – so it would be extremely hard to tackle the problem by tackling the expanding government. Better at this stage, in my opinion, to tackle the problem by vesting rights in individuals.[/quote]
Ahhh mate, that is definitely not what I wanted to hear. :*(
You speak as though there is no hope!
Throughout history you can see how this consolidation of power incrementally grows simultaneously with the removal of people’s rights. Because it is incremental people grow accustomed to it and what happens is people don’t even realise what is happening becuase it is so gradual.
As each generation dies off, so does the memory of old freedoms. Each new generation is born with less rights, but that seems normal and acceptable to them, because it is all they know. I suppose the phrase ignorance is bliss is very applicable here.
Obviously, reality is more complex than that and there have been times where the people win back some of their freedoms and power, but as far as history since the birth of the United States goes, I’d say that is a decent summary (for much of the rest of the world too).
Anyways, thanks BostonBarrister, I hope you will try to raise awareness, and I am going to try too.