An Important Distinction

This post will cover a topic I wrote about twelve to fifteen years ago, but current events seem to me to make it relevant still.  I am not going to reproduce the older post; this one will have some differences because of events and situations since that time.

More than twenty years ago, I read the book "Modern Times" by British historian Paul Johnson.  It covered the twentieth century from the end of the First World War to the Reagan-Thatcher years.  But there was one matter he discussed in that book that has stayed with me ever since.

Johnson wrote that the most important political distinction was not between liberal and conservative, or Labor and Tory, or Republican and Democrat.  It was between those who put a high value on individual freedom and those who saw the power of the state as the solution to every problem.  He went on to add that you can have both liberal and conservative statists, and liberal and conservative freedom-lovers.  (My own observation is that liberal freedom-lovers are getting scarce these days--Tulsi Gabbard might qualify, and maybe Kyrsten Sinema, but not many more.)  At the time, I could see Ronald Reagan as a freedom-lover; his successor, George H. W. Bush, was clearly a statist.  I was willing to give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt when he was elected, but he showed himself over time to be a statist also.  

The difficulty for statists is, not all problems can be resolved through use of government power; in fact, since government often has a tendency to be heavy-handed, it may take a wrong approach and make an issue worse rather than better.  There are some things that may be better to resolve at the grass-roots level, rather than from the top.  But a statist can get so enamored with government power that he fails to see its limitations.  

Clear back in the days of the Roman Empire, the government tried to suppress the new religion of Christianity.  Most of the original apostles were executed; persecutions continued off-and-on for more than two centuries.  But it did not work.  And the Roman Emperors had more absolute power than any American president.  You cannot change all people's minds by government decree.  

But power can be intoxicating.  The English Lord Acton wrote in the late 1800s, "Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  And intoxicated persons, whether intoxicated on alcohol or power, will think they can do things that they would not have tried when sober.  (I am afraid some of our modern politicians have not been sober for a long time!)

It might seem more efficient to impose things by government decree.  But it is usually more effective to persuade people, even if it takes longer.  And using authority does have its limits.  I learned this a long time ago--partly from two different bosses that I worked for, and partly from the book "The Velvet-covered Brick" by Howard E. Butt.  Butt wrote this zinger in his book:  "Authority is like soap; the more you use it, the less you have."  If you rely on raw authority all the time, you may not have enough left in an emergency.  It is better to use it lightly, and rely on persuasion and other methods as much as possible, and save authority for when there is no other way.

Another book that illustrates this principle in history is Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly."  Most of the book covers three major historic events, and the results that an intoxication on power produced.  The first was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which was triggered by the corruption and immorality of the Renaissance popes.  The second was the American Revolution, which was a direct result of the arrogance of both King George III and his Parliament.  The third was the Vietnam War.  The book is worth reading, because it does show the limits of power, and how it seduces people into making serious mistakes.

How our present situation will turn out, I do not know.  It does seem that freedom-lovers are becoming more evident, some in local and state government, many outside of official positions.  The authoritarians have made some major missteps in the last few years, and I am afraid we can count on them making more, which will just cost them more support.  We shall see how this turns out in the coming years.