VDH: Why Fear Big Government?

Victor Davis Hanson gives five non-standard reasons to fear big government. Read the whole thing. He's been around. He's studied the rise and fall of civilizations. He's worked in both the public and private sectors. Highlights:

1) Juvenal’s “Who will police the police?”

One of the scariest things about government is its exemption from laws by virtue of its monopoly on lawmaking and enforcement. I see this every day, from the mundane to the profound. 

with examples.

2) The Power of Envy
VDH includes several examples of bureaucratic "arrogance of office" which could have been motivated by envy.

I am all for codes, building inspectors, and plant regulators, but an excess of such investigators quickly creates a priestly class who take their own frustrations out on supposedly better off others.

Side note: The $250,000 income level which Obama characterizes as representing undeserving rich people who owe more to the government just happens to be slightly above the income level of most of the salaried liberal elite. Interestingly, incomes between $150,000 and $250,000 (representing this elite class) were exempted from additional Social Security taxes under Obama's scheme. So people are to pay Social Security taxes on incomes from $100 to $150,000 plus redistributionist payments on any income above $250,000. His core constituency, the "deserving almost-rich", were not characterized as owing more to America. An his mulit-billionaire supporters were assigned no higher income tax bracket than someone working 70 hours a week to pull in $250,000 (and the ultra-rich have enhanced access to tax shelters). Obama knows how to play up economic envy without drawing negative attention to his most avid supporters.

3) Patronage

In California there are hundreds of worthless state boards with six-figure, governor-appointed officials. We assume that in our term-limited state, these sinecures are the refuges of former state assembly and senate politicians. . . .

4) The Greek four-step
VDH gives four steps involved in the current socialistic decline in Greece:

I once lived in Greece for over two years, and visit there every other summer. Any casual observer could have predicted its present fiscal meltdown, which is emblematic of big government socialism. Here is the creed of many of the EU socialist states. . .

He then outlines the results, such as:

Repressed anger is the national creed: those who work the hardest and pay the most for others less industrious or gifted barely constrain a seething resentment; those on the receiving end constantly channel envy and jealousy as mechanisms to justify why “they” should redistribute income to themselves, the more deserving.

Update: Greek debt and Goldman Sachs.
Second link: Should the EU jettison Greece? Should the U.S. jettison California?

"Every piece of evidence screams against pouring any more money down this hole.” . . . Some reckoning like this was bound to happen in the changeover to the common currency. That's why the founding documents of the EU put so much emphasis on quality public finances and curtailing support for profligate governments. A Greek default would not endanger the euro any more than a California default will endanger the dollar.

5) Ministry of Truth

Orwell was on to something in his focus on the government’s power of language to manufacture truth out of fantasy.

RELATED:
Ben Stein on the extraordinary blessings of being an American.
Ronald Reagan:
There are no "masses" in America.
Jay Cost:

Let's acknowledge that governing the United States of America is an extremely difficult task. Intentionally so. When designing our system, the Founders were faced with a dilemma. How to empower a vigorous government without endangering liberty or true republicanism? On the one hand, George III's government was effective at satisfying the will of the sovereign, but that will had become tyrannical. On the other hand, the Articles of Confederation acknowledged the rights of the states, but so much so that the federal government was incapable of solving basic problems.

The solution the country ultimately settled on had five important features: checks and balances so that the branches would police one another; a large republic so that majority sentiment was fleeting and not intensely felt; a Senate where the states would be equal; enumerated congressional powers to limit the scope of governmental authority; and the Bill of Rights to offer extra protection against the government.

The end result was a government that is powerful, but not infinitely so. Additionally, it is schizophrenic. It can do great things when it is of a single mind - but quite often it is not of one mind. So, to govern, our leaders need to build a broad consensus. . . .

Which helps explain where President Obama has gone wrong: "I won". and "Never let a serious crisis go to waste."

Update - Wretchard: Jay Cost missed something in the excellent article linked above:

“America is not ungovernable. Barack Obama has so far failed to govern it.” Cost is 99% right. But his argument misses the crucial 1 percent. The Left doesn’t want to govern, it wants to rule given the chance. It is as always willing to leave its own Big Tent behind at the decisive moment. The continual calls from the Democrat Left for Obama to “grow a spine” are really coded calls to say that the moment is now; that the President must ‘’seize the day, seize the hour.” It’s not as Cost imagines, a call to compromise. It’s a call to say that the time for compromise is over. They can drop the mask; they can hoist the Jolly Roger.

Noah Pollak’s description of the split between Amnesty International’s leadership and the head of their gender unit is the same story in a different setting. She was purged for her inability to support Amnesty International’s espousal of an Islamic radical. . . .

Saghal closed the letter describing her suspension with a recitation of her revolutionary credentials. It is an eerie passage which echoes structure for structure many of the protestations of innocence by the Old Bolsheviks when they found themselves in the cellars of the Cheka, stuffed there by a leadership that found they had outlived their usefulness. She wrote:

I have been a human rights campaigner for over three decades, defending the rights of women and ethnic minorities, defending religious freedom and the rights of victims of torture, and campaigning against illegal detention and state repression. I have raised the issue of the association of Amnesty International with groups such as Begg’s consistently within the organisation. I have now been suspended for trying to do my job and staying faithful to Amnesty’s mission to protect and defend human rights universally and impartially.

Why does she think any of this matters? The Left is not about principles. It is about itself. It is about power. Now that President Obama has been politically weakened, look for the mask to come back on. The words of sweet reason, the entreaties to “make a deal,” and feigned affection will now make a surprise reappearance. When the Left cannot rule, it will try to govern. Until the next time.

Still, the President can't help himself - he MUST put down the opposition with his rhetoric, it seems: Radley Balko - ". . none is better at trivializing opponents’ arguments than Obama."