Self-Governance in an Unreasonable Age

It seems that a great deal (if not all) of the subject matter and commentary here at TBP can be distilled down to the following question: “What is the present state of self-governance in the United States and does the concept have a future in this country?” Let’s have a little chat about that.

Variously attributed to Thomas Paine, or Thomas Jefferson, the statement, “That government is best which governs least.” was used by Henry David Thoreau to open his pamphlet on, appropriately, Civil Disobedience. The very concept of self-governance is rooted in the idea that human beings, imbued with common sense, buttressed by common morality, and inspired by common desires could order their own affairs with the bare minimum of interference by a government disconnected from their daily concerns. If Admin indulges me, what follows is part one of a three (or maybe four) part series on some modern aspects of American life, how they affect the commonalities mentioned above, and their effect on self-governance.

PART ONE: EMOTIONAL VOMITUS

If there were ever a prime example of the emotional upchucking of national hairballs, it had to be the recent spectacle of manipulated urchins parading around pretending to know something about anything. The unrelenting political projectile vomiting on the necessity of “common sense gun laws” is just the latest example of governance by emotion.

It really sucks for parents to lose children to some freak of nature that should have been brought under control by the proper authorities long before he picked up an inanimate object with which to slaughter his fellows. However, where is it written that any individual’s personal tragedy is an excuse to reduce the liberty enjoyed by everyone else? Where in the Constitution is personal tragedy allowed a role of any kind in the promulgating of legislation or the regulating of civic life? I have lost people too, but I did not feel it incumbent upon me and mine at the time to ban motorcycles, pickup trucks, or drunken rednecks doing 120 mph at night on a two-lane country road. Perhaps I should have channeled my grief into a life-long dedication to lobbying for the banning of two-lane country roads or maybe even putting limitations on the duration of nighttime. After all, “if it saves even one life, it’s worth it” is the clarion call of the modern day tender-hearted totalitarian.

If the emotional question of any given distraught teenager is to be, “Is your gun worth more than my life?” the answer is obviously no. If the same question were rendered logical by asking, “Is your right to own a gun more important than my life?”, then the answer is unequivocally yes.

When emotion rules the day, a deranged criminal can slaughter someone’s child and immediately “something must be done.” “Something” usually involves curtailing the liberties of all those who had absolutely nothing to do with the crime or the criminal. The resulting raft of laws do nothing to address the actual problem, but teary-eyes are dabbed, sorrowful heads are patted, emotional ignoramuses are appeased (temporarily), and the pearl-clutching opportunists of the left nibble away another bit of what freedom remains to the law-abiding.

Self-governance demands clear heads, strong convictions, an unwavering commitment to intellectual honesty, and the ability to see beyond the emotion of the moment. The very concept of self-governance rests on the ability of the individual to govern himself and his emotions in order that society may govern itself in spite of his emotions. Emotion is the death of self-governance by a thousand cuts. Each wound is the worst thing that has ever happened and “something must be done” to heal the bereaved, comfort the stricken, and appease the outraged. Emotionally driven governance is a bottomless well from which only bucket after bucket of authoritarian dross may be drawn. What emerges from that poisonous void is anathema to freedom and a solvent to ordered liberty.

Muddle-headed children, raging feminist termagants, weeping soy boys, mentally ill sexual deviants, drug-addled welfare recipients, ululating mohammedans, emotionally stunted cat ladies, perpetually aggrieved minorities, and every other manner of screeching, bawling, snarling, entitlement seeking freak, wierdo, and gun-grabbing goofball are not the population pool from which competent self-governance springs. The United States is awash with such people…and they vote.

As a nation, we long ago crossed the line from civic responsibility based on logic, reason, and calm debate into the steaming fen of emotionally driven political chicanery, pop culture demagoguery, and the childish tantrums of every crazy-eyed lunatic leftist with a pulse. Whether we can find our way back to some semblance of common sense self-governance is an open question. Certainly, the current ascendancy of governance by the commode-hugging minions of emotional upchuckery is no way forward. Undoubtedly, overwrought attacks on the tattered remnants of the national fabric will never end because leftists and children, like dogs to their vomit, always return to their folly.