Steve’s post on NH Exceptionalism posted up right after our GrokTALK! show this past Saturday – and I really liked it! To me, the money graph was this:
In a corner of America where co-dependence with government is the prescription of choice, the Granite state rejected it on an epic scale.
But it also got me thinking – is that all? Is that’s all that it is, a rejection of dependency on Government? I think not.
Oh sure, there are some that believe that there is nothing to be called Exceptionalism, that it is merely a matter of luck and geography. Simply, we all were and are fortunate simply by birth and location – nothing less, but nothing more. They see so much wrong in our history, their dislike the current state of society, and their outlook is so dim – they cannot fathom or stand that life is not completely "equitable" for all. They realize not, in their striving for that "equality for all", that they have gone past ‘equality of the law’ but to "commonness in outcome". In other words, they strive for the lowest common denominator. In their headlong rush to provide their "freedom from" for the "oppressed", they don’t understand (or care) that in deliberately taking from some to give to others, they have become inured to the fact that they themselves have become the oppressors even as they see themselves as liberators and saviors.
Our Founders made much of idea of personal liberties and designed a system of governance that was designed to enhance those freedoms above the needs of the State. After all, they had decided that the heavy hand of the English Monarchy was far to much to bear – in order to reap the rewards of that Liberty, the only alternative was less government overall and that each individual citizen would have more of a say of how such a new governance would work. They toiled over each word, the nuances that were built up by each phrase, all with the end result of constraining that Government that would result. They surely understood that Government was a necessity; but in the histories that they read, they compared the best of each of those political systems in those historical accounts and tried to take the best of each AND provide checks and balances against even the best features.
Their crowning genius was not just determining that series of checks and balances that resulted in both the US and NH Constitutions, but in this one eternal fact:
Men will always be men.
Unlike the current crop of socialistic Progressives that believe that mankind can evolve to their standards if only channeled correctly and by the right people to a "higher plane", the Founders realized that those that would seek such control ARE the problem and tried to prevent that. Over and over again, they bumped into historical examples of "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", and that while the times may change, while the situations may change, the innate fallen spirit of man, when confronted with the wielding of power, suffuses them with the call to acquire more power.
A most simple truth. Most, once obtaining that desired power, will lust for more. Not always in large amounts all at once, but as with many Administrative States, simply proceeding step by step ESPECIALLY if not confronted, admonished, and vanquished. And that is exactly what has happened here in NH. But there was, as we have seen the last two years, that headlong rushes to "fundamentally change" society, the intermixing of Society and Government, the replacement of personal charity with governmental funding of services. A limited government grown to Leviathan dimensions and that growth seemingly without end.
Steve adds these questions:
How about a realigning of the relationship between the governing and the governed, where the state is actually constrained by its own constitution? How about measures designed to restore the state’s relationship to the general government which gets its powers from the states, not the other way around? How about restoring local control to its rightful place with the towns and the people?
I have been using the meme of "progressing forward by returning to the past" for the last year or so. Progressives are of a single mind about "progressing forward". When pressed, they will regurgitate a litany of themes: eliminating discrimination, the inequity of income or wealth, what is "fair", hate speech, providing for the poor. Where they stumble is when you press them on the next level: how? How to do that? How does that square with the consent of the governed and the primacy of individual Rights vs the operation of the State?
And then when you complete the circle, they have no answer concerning how that in giving something to some, requires them to take from others – and cannot square the circle of how that greatly conflicts with the Founders’ First Principles but greatly align with Socialism (then they resort to changing the discussion). Steve asks the questions:
How about a realigning of the relationship between the governing and the governed, where the state is actually constrained by its own constitution? How about measures designed to restore the state’s relationship to the general government which gets its powers from the states, not the other way around? How about restoring local control to its rightful place with the towns and the people?
He asks the right questions and rightly points out the underlying philosophy that pins them all together. Although the Democrats will not admit it, it WAS their politics, their philosophies, and their methodologies, that caused their fellow citizens to utterly reject their style of condescending governance. Why?
Freedom. No, not that word that we so often blithely throw around like confetti at a party. Rather, an instinctive realization that true Freedom comes from within the individual from their Creator – and not from the Government. They assessed that the Democrats have had it backwards.
A realization that another term that Conservative oft throw into the wind is "self-responsibility" has been replaced with "We’ve got a Govt Service for that!". And that, my friends, is what I believe that Granite Staters, took stock of and found the Democrats wanting. They realized that a re-definition was happening right before their eyes – and didn’t like it much a t’all.
Self-responsibility means just that – taking responsibility for oneself and NOT relying on Government. The citizens realized that a Government that used to be simply in the background in our daily lives had moved, instead, into the foreground. It had gone quite the ways down the road and was becoming and acting like a Nanny / Butler on steroids, ready at every turn to have a service ready for this, and a regulation for that. Add to that the role of Panhandler Supreme, demanding payment in advance for what they would do for or to you.
Self-responsibility is standing on one’s own two feet, willing to stand, walk, and run towards a goal of one’s own choosing without impediments – especially those stemming from government. They wish to be able to strive to be the best person they can be without others, using the levers of power, constraining them because of their group identity and/or status within a protected class (or not). They wished to be considered and measured on their own merits, to succeed and reap the rewards of their labor.
Or not, for the Freedom to succeed is to be able to risk failure. The Freedom to compete for the brass ring instead of having parts (and only small parts) handed to them.
Surely we heard "Oh, but we only have your best interest at heart!" as they started weaving that ever so cloying cocoon of intersecting agencies and commissions and bureaus and departments and divisions. With one step after another, they decided that they knew better what was best for NH society with their social engineering (MaggieCare and MaggieSpeech, anyone).
Finally, that sense of individualism of the electorate said "Enough!". As the Democrats at the national level wore out the patience of the electorate with policies that the we, the Majority, rebelled against (yet passing those policies by the barest of margins with the hugest of political bribes), so did Granite Staters here when confronted with similar tactics emanating out of Concord and more locally.
They have, with the Nov 2 election, said "We no longer require the Mommy and the Daddy that the Progressives wish to give us in the form of larger government). We can do it by ourselves, the vast majority of the time, without needing you – go away.
NH Exceptionalism – it could be summed up by "Just leave me alone and get out of my way" (ah, to write short!). They realized that their traditions were being changed – without being asked and without their permission. They understood what Democrats do not – THEY wish to govern themselves and not be governed by others in their personal lives or in their interactions in public. NH Exceptionalism is all about a voluntary Society and – that the Democrats don’t understand – separate from their Government. After four years, the citizens rejected that conflation of the two. There is a public morality – and it was not that which the Progressives thought was best for us all.
They wish to govern themselves, not just in a formal governance way, but in what they do and how they wish to do it every day. NH Exceptionalism is a voluntary association with others – and not forced into structures created by Government for Society at large.
There is more, but it is late, and once again, I have writ long…..sigh…
OK, Tom, Tim, Doug, Ed, Don, and Ann Marie….your turn!
