The Consent of the Governed

Yesterday, I posted on this site an essay by my friend and neighbor John Snyder, ruminating on the topic of The Consent of the Governed.  It turns out to be a rather timely topic.

The words come from The Declaration of Independence, contained within the phrase,

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

The public opinion firm Rasmussen Reports conducts polls on the question every few months.  This month Rasmussen found that only 19 percent of American voters believe that the Federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.

In the several years Rasmussen has polled on the question of consent, the result has hovered at or below the 20 percent mark.  It’s remarkable that, nearly 240 years into our republic, fewer than 1 in 5 voters think our current Federal regime is worthy of their consent.

In a column this week, George Will takes on the topic, writing,

The fundamental division in U.S. politics is between those who take their bearings from the individual’s right to a capacious, indeed indefinite, realm of freedom, and those whose fundamental value is the right of the majority to have its way in making rules about which specified liberties shall be respected.

These days you don’t have to be a Nevada cattle rancher to see that these two visions are becoming less and less compatible.  Reasonable people can question why every Federal agency needs its own SWAT team.

Ok, but what to do about it?  To date, the most notable reaction is people voting with their feet.  I find it more than interesting that fastest growing states are the ones that place more value on individual freedom (North Dakota, Texas, Utah, etc.).  The slowest growing states seem to be those that value the power of government more (Rhode Island, Vermont, Illinois, etc.).

As a practical matter, however, it won’t be possible to sort all 314 million of us into geographic areas the either honor freedom or like making rules.  In the interim, I think it would help everyone to either create, or strengthen, institutions that provide an alternative to government.  By creating some competition, government will need to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

A few examples would include school vouchers in education, San Francisco’s Patrol Special Police, and private mutual-aid societies like the Odd Fellows and Sons of Norway.  The modern Bismarckian welfare state did not invent concepts like health insurance and old age pensions—it merely monopolized them under government control.

Only by giving people a meaningful way of "opting out" can we hope to keep everyone together.