Limitations and Understanding: The Individual Above the State

When considering the state and its proper function in society, we must first begin with the notion of what a state is under various forms of society. In the totalitarian society, the state is the source of power and possesses absolute control over property. In the democratic society, the majority possesses power up to and including the power over private property. That is, the majority may vote themselves the property of the minority. Finally we arrive at the republican society, where the individual possesses power over his property and his person, and the power which he possesses serves as a check on both the majority and the state. We call these powers rights, and we acknowledge that they are sacrosanct and non-negotiable.

The exception to this notion of individual rights as being sacrosanct is of course the exercise of individual liberties in a manner whose net result or logical conclusion is the overturning of individual rights for everyone else outside of a particular ideological construct. This is why we acknowledge the right of individuals to worship freely according to their conscience but deny them the power to seize control of government and enact ordinances or statutes which would serve to reduce other forms of worship to a lesser status in the eyes of the law.

The concluding sentence contains within it the important distinction: in a legitimate republican society, individuals may not be more equal or less equal in the eyes of the law or the institutions tasked with upholding the law. We allow for democratic selection of elected representatives, but we place them in manacles as their offices have enumerated powers which serve to limit their ability to act. Democracy, like fire, possesses the power to destroy anyone who handles it carelessly or without regard for its intrinsic destructive power.

In much the same way that we as parents or adults acknowledge the privilege of children to make choices within the parameters that we set, we set up democracy in such a way as to limit majoritarian power. The child can pick the strawberry or grape drink while the lemon lime drink is not available for selection; the voter can pick the partisan of his choice with the understanding that the partisan may only go so far in a given direction owing to the enumerated powers of his office.

Key to both forms of democratic selection and choice is an understanding of limits. Without that understanding, problems emerge. The child who does not understand at the outset that lemon-lime is not an available option will become petulant and surly; as will the voter who does not understand that the campaign promises his candidate holds forth to gain votes are impossible to enact owing to the constitutional limitations of the office the candidate seeks.

In America, many of our current problems stem from a lack of understanding where limitations on government power are concerned. The federal government may not exercise any power it is not expressly authorized to exercise by the Constitution. The powers not delegated to the federal government fall to the states via the 10th Amendment. There are implicit powers within the Constitution, things which flow naturally from the executive branch, whose occupant and subordinate officials must evolve methods of executing the laws passed by Congress. Executive orders, national security directives, and the like are reasonable when exercised to execute the the letter of the law, so long as that law is consistent with the Constitution and does not overstep the limits placed upon laws by the rights contained within the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments.

This is the key distinction: constitutional consistency and alignment, and functions which fall within the parameters and limitations set forth by individual rights. The government has no power to overstep the rights of individuals. Indeed, the government exists solely to uphold, defend, and even expand the rights of individuals insofar as it explicitly codifies rights in the form of amendments. We know that the rights contained within the Constitution are not the only rights we possess. The Framers and Founders explicitly spelled out as much in the Ninth Amendment, recognizing as they did the inherent danger in allowing individual liberty to be seen in the same light as enumerated powers.

Rights are therefore uniquely distinguished from government power. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that there are other, unenumerated powers which exist for the government. If the laws do not conform to the limitations placed upon government by the enumerated powers of the Constitution and the rights of individuals which exist as a barrier to government authority and reach, then the laws are invalidated by virtue of their unconstitutionality. If the laws do conform to the Constitution and do not overstep the barrier of individual liberties, then there may be implicit executive powers which must be exercised as a matter of practicality for the purpose of carrying out the law.

The point which we must convey to individuals is that their rights are superior in every way to government power; for not only do they serve to limit government power and reach, they also serve to establish that individuals have other rights not expressly enumerated, rights which give unto individuals vast prerogatives to exercise their self-determination, to define for themselves who they are and what they would be if given the opportunity to make themselves into anything as a logical extension of their own labors and industriousness.

We must also guard against individuals seeking to claim for themselves the power to exercise their rights in a way which makes a mockery of the claims of others to those same rights. Equality before the law is the basic premise of a republican society, and without it, our society will collapse into fractious divisions and schisms. Indeed, due to the the failure of individuals to comprehend the limitations of the state as a basis for their own empowerment, we have individuals seeking to assert for the state virtually unlimited powers so that they may enact their personal vision and prejudices as the law of the land. This works out well when they have the majority, but when political tides change, we see that reciprocity is possible and likely. No society which functions according the rule of a see-saw can have order and stability for long. It is time that we understand that regardless of who has power, there will be limits upon that power which serve to promote a kind of stasis within our society that acknowledges the individual above all else, especially democracy.

Other stories of interest:

1. The Threat of Gun Bans Still Lurks Over Us
2. The Primacy of the Individual: The Intent Versus the Result in Statism and the Dangers of Leftism
3. President Obama’s State of the Union Address from 1-27-2010
4. United States Republic Replaced by “Council of Governors”?
5. Jim Schneller Announces Run for Congress