The State, the State, the State

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/28/22

            Statism, not to be confused with statecraft, is typically defined as a political system in which the state has substantial centralized control over social and economic affairs. But that’s a formal dictionary definition. Denotations – dictionary definitions – are one thing, but connotations – the applied and commonly understood definitions – are another.

            Statism is a rather prissy, formal word. It’s also a strong word. Statists, those who believe in big government, don’t usually use it because it is not a weasel word that hides meaning. It clearly means government control. It places the nebulous village above the flesh and blood villagers. Those in America who like government control know that it was not government largesse that built the foundation of the American nation; it was individual liberty and free enterprise. They therefore must sneak their philosophy in and call it democratic socialism or anything other than statism, collectivism, or communism.

To best understand statism, think back to 1917, to Lenin, and to the political system he and others set in motion. After barely 7 decades of forced work camps and not enough groceries, the so-called Union of Soviet Socialist Republics fell. How could it not? It was a forced union, not at all social but autocratic, and as far from being a union of republics as a plan of governance could be.

Statism is the opposite of localism, so of course Lenin and company used the word “Republics” in their new name in order to deceive. Statism’s essence is centralism and the people are never its center. The power-hungry elites running the show are. Government elites aren’t always born into elite families. Stalin wasn’t. Neither was Hitler, Mao, or Castro. But they became elites after gaining power and availing themselves of the booty that comes with political victory. Lyndon Baines Johnson fits into this category as does Joe Biden. Born into either poor or lower middle class families, they clawed their way to political prominence.

Statism is a free man’s enemy. It is bureaucracy gone wild. It is the refuge of those who are either too lazy, too soft, too afraid, or too lacking in confidence and faith to venture out and risk or to work for themselves. They need the safety of the village. Can anyone picture Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, John Kerry, Al Gore, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden joining a wagon train heading to the uncharted west? Can you see them surviving in a little house on the prairie? 

Yet it was the frontier spirit, the “Go West, young man” calling, the Midwestern ruggedness, the hardworking farmer’s sweat, and the inventor’s trial and error that made Americans different from the many European lands they or their parents left. Had they climbed up onto a covered wagon, Sanders and Warren would have immediately begun to plot regulations regarding how the wagons should be covered. Kerry and Gore would have spent their time wiping trail dust off their pants legs. Obama would have written a pointless treatise on the journey, Biden would have kept asking “Where are we?” and Harris would have chuckled at it all until realizing that they all had actually left for a new place, never to return.

Statism tells us we can be safe and comfortable if we stay with the village and obey its rules and regulations. It claims it can provide us with health care (still a soft, modern, over-promising term, to me), protect us from those mean capitalists, give us free medicine, help us fight against evil employers, and make people stop saying things that hurt our feelings.

Statism is a philosophy. Statists are those who adhere to it. Currently America’s statists are far, far away from the Berkley free speech movement of the ‘60s. Today’s statists believe in canceling speech they don’t agree with and insist that the state do the canceling. Statists blame all horrendous shootings on guns, ignoring the weakened family caused by fatherlessness. Statists like signs that say “Gun free zone,” apparently failing to see that such signs are open invitations to evil people. They clamor to take guns from law-abiding folks who justifiably intend to protect their families from those whom the ruling statists won’t subdue.

Statists rejoice over the corporate world’s desertion of Middle America and its new love affair with the political left.

This coming November will tell us how American voters feel about statism. If voters choose statism, the American spirit will most likely be dead forever. If they reject statism, giving the original American spirit new life, their children will bask in the liberty our founders had in mind.

 

Roger Hines

May 26, 2022