Never Fear, Washington Has Things Under Control

Posted by Larry Miller on August 7, 2009 under Why | Read the First Comment

Our constitution brilliantly designed our government by assigning most power to impact our everyday lives to the individual states and the functions such as defense and a few other administrative operations to the national government. Unfortunately, many in Washington just don’t seem to understand this division of authority. Whether it’s grasping for more control or an actual desire to make the world a better place… we are seeing one more intrusion into state affairs. This story may not have the impact of many high profile issues, but amply illustrates the battles we have to fight, one issue at a time… until we can fix the problem.

Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood is all up in the air about people texting while they are driving. Most would agree that this is a practice that is foolish, dangerous and the province of state laws. This does not bother the crusading secretary… he’s going to fix the problem anyway. This is typical of inside the beltway thinking… that they are the sole repository of wisdom and capability. We often don’t see people raising their voices because sometimes the ideas may need to be implemented – but at the state level. When we see the heavy handed schemes Secretary LaHood and congress have cooked up, we see the truth in C.S. Lewis comment, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive”.

The Washington machinery is revving up to insure the individual sovereign states will quickly fall in line and ban this hazardous practice. A summit is being planned to jawbone and pressure state legislatures to bend to the federal will. If that doesn’t work, congress is looking at withholding a quarter of the federal highway funds from uncooperative states. The morality of taking money from the individual states and metering back to them to insure compliance with federal edicts falls miserably short of Reagan’s image of shining city on a hill. It’s more like mob practices in old Chicago… not to say that the practice suddenly materialized with the Obama administration.

At this point, it’s doubtful that much can be done to prevent this most recent incursion into the realm of state responsibility, we have to begin looking at this and each of the federal intrusions as part of a larger pattern and dominant DC mindset. The folks in Washington have lost the founders vision of the federal government providing services to the states and being subordinate to them. We will not get our country back until we change this thinking. We will not be free of this intrusion until we, as citizens, refuse to tolerate it.

Whether the issue is highway regulations, transferring individual assets to the government, then to Wall Street bankers, or taking control of our medical care, we will get what we, as a society, will tolerate.