The Republicans’ Opportunity to Restore America . . . and Their Obstacle

Government spending and intervention in the economy are destroying America. The government is amassing obscene debt (now approaching $14 trillion), debasing the dollar, causing massive unemployment (now at 9.8 percent), and wreaking general economic havoc. But in the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans—courtesy of the Tea Party movement—gained control of the House, picked up several seats in the Senate, and thus were granted an opportunity to begin the process of saving America.

Indications are that at least some in the GOP recognize and want to seize the opportunity. Republicans from John Boehner to Rand Paul to Mitch McConnell to Eric Cantor have said that their party’s new agenda will involve cutting spending, reducing the size of government, repealing all recent tax increases, stopping all the looming tax hikes, balancing the budget, and defunding and eventually repealing ObamaCare. Some Republicans are even talking about phasing out third-rail entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This much is good news.

But talking about such actions and taking them are two different things, and the Republicans’ track record on following through is, to put it mildly, unimpressive. During election campaigns, Republicans always promise to reduce the size of government, repeal regulations, cut spending, and lower taxes; that is how they occasionally get elected. But once they are in office, they invariably take a different course.

Recall, for example, that from 1995 through 2006, Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate (except the latter from June 2001 and January 2003, due to Jim Jeffords’ switch to Independent)—and that, during four of those years, they did so under Republican President George W. Bush. What happened? Government expanded and spending increased—especially under Bush. During Bush’s first term, the Republicans passed, and Bush signed into law, among other things, the No Child Left Behind Act, Sarbanes-Oxley, the Medicare Prescription Drug Act, McCain-Feingold, new farm subsidies, and new tariffs on the steel and lumber industries. Nondefense discretionary spending during this time—with a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican president—increased by 25.3 percent (in real dollars). These were the biggest expansion of government and the greatest spending increase in more than thirty years.1

And while the Republicans actively expanded government and increased discretionary spending, what did they do toward changing laws to begin phasing out Social Security and Medicare? Absolutely nothing. They left these massive problems untouched.

Why? Why have Republicans historically been unable to walk their reduction talk—even when they have controlled both the legislative and executive branches? The answer is that Republicans are unable to name and uphold the only principle that would enable them to do so namely, the principle that the only proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights.

In order to reduce the size of government or cut spending, politicians must first differentiate the essential from the nonessential aspects of what the government does. How can they do this? They can do it only by reference to the proper purpose of government. Should government expand further into health care? Should it spend more on education? Should it shut down the military? It depends on the proper purpose of government. Should we privatize the public schools? Should we privatize the police departments? Should we phase out Social Security? Should we close down the courts? The answers to all such questions depend on the proper purpose of government.

The proper purpose of government—as the Founding Fathers knew—is to protect individual rights. As Thomas Jefferson put it, the purpose of government is to “guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”2 The government “shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”3

If today’s Republicans were to grasp this principle and bear it in mind, they could begin to identify the areas in which spending could and should be cut. They could ask themselves, “Which aspects of today’s government serve the purpose of guaranteeing everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it? Which aspects restrain men from injuring one another but leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement? And which aspects of government take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned?”

By asking and answering such questions, Republicans could see that programs such as Social Security and Medicare are inconsistent with the proper purpose of government, and therefore should be phased out. They could see that departments such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Department of Energy—and laws such as minimum wage laws and Sarbanes-Oxley—violate men’s freedom to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and therefore should be abolished. And they could see that the courts, the police, and the military are essential functions of government: the courts being the means of settling disputes among citizens, and the police and the military being the means of protecting citizens from domestic and foreign aggressors.

In short, if Republicans could grasp what the Founders knew about the proper purpose of government, they could follow through on their campaign promises and begin reducing government to its proper functions.

The problem, however, is that Republicans face a self-imposed obstacle, an obstacle that precludes them from understanding or accepting the principle that the proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights.

Rights are moral prerogatives to freedom of action. The right to life is the right to take all the actions necessary to sustain and further one’s life. The right to liberty is the right to act in accordance with one’s judgment, free from coercion by the state or others. The right to property is the right to keep, use, and dispose of the product of one’s effort. And the right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to pursue the goals and values of one’s choosing.

But individual rights are not simple matters; they are complex, highly abstract moral principles that depend on more fundamental moral truths. In order consistently to recognize and uphold individual rights, one must be able and willing to recognize and uphold the deeper truths on which rights depend. Herein lies the Republicans’ obstacle. Those deeper truths run contrary to the moral status quo, which most Republicans accept as unquestionably true: the idea that being moral consists not in selfishly pursuing one’s life-serving values but, rather, in selflessly relinquishing one’s values, giving them up for the needs of others.

This notion of morality is incompatible with the principle of individual rights. Thus it is incompatible with the Republicans’ stated agenda to cut spending and reduce the size of government.

• Repeal ObamaCare? How can we do that if the right thing to do is to sacrifice for others? People need medical care, and ObamaCare will provide it by forcing everyone to sacrifice as he should.
• Phase out Medicare? How can we do that if we are morally obliged to provide for the needy? The elderly need medical care, and Medicare provides it by forcing everyone to pony up.
• Phase out Social Security? How can we do that if, as the Bible tells us, we are our brother’s keeper? The elderly need money for retirement, and Social Security provides it by forcing everyone to do the right thing.

In short, how can we justify repealing or phasing out programs for the needy if being moral consists in providing for the needy? Answer: We can’t.

The morality of self-sacrifice (aka altruism) is incompatible with the goal of cutting spending on such programs—never mind phasing them out or repealing them. And the left knows this. As one leftist recently put it:

The Tea Party’s supreme value is the rights of individuals, which sounds good when first heard. The cry “take back our freedoms” may seem inspiring, until it is set along side of the Jesus vision of the kingdom of God on earth. Implicit in the Jesus vision of justice is accepting responsibility for one’s neighbor.4

Outspoken leftist Jim Wallace makes this same point almost daily:

Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition. The Christian answer to the question “Are we our brother’s keeper?” is decidedly “Yes.” Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone.5

The left does not make this stuff up; they get it from the Bible, which is chock full of passages demanding that we sacrifice for others. “I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land,” says God (through Moses).6 “Woe unto those who . . . turn aside the needy,” says God (through Isaiah).7 “Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you . . . do not demand it back,” says Jesus. “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor.”8 And so on. The Bible is riddled with such commandments; politically speaking, it is a socialist manifesto.

As the left knows, so the right needs to learn: The morality of self-sacrifice—the morality of the Bible—is incompatible with individual rights.

Rights are patently egoistic principles. Consider the right to life: What could be more selfish than taking all the actions necessary to sustain and further your life? Or the right to liberty: What could be more egoistic than acting on your own judgment, free from force by the state or others? Or the right to property: What could be more self-serving than keeping, using, and disposing of the product of your own effort? Or, perhaps most obvious of all, consider the right to the pursuit of happiness: What could be more egoistic than pursuing the goals and values of your own choosing?

If Republicans want to do more than fecklessly chip away at America’s rapidly expanding statism, if they want to reverse the statist tide and return America to a rights-respecting republic, then they must find the courage to do what it takes. They must recognize and embrace the principle that the proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights. And, in order to do that, they must recognize and embrace the principle on which that principle rests: that acting in one’s rational self-interest—while leaving others free to do the same—is moral.

Political questions such as how to phase out Social Security and Medicare, how to cut discretionary spending, and how generally to reduce government to its proper function, are technical matters that can be worked out once Republicans recognize that such goals are morally correct and thus politically necessary. For instance, once Republicans understand that Social Security is immoral, they can identify possible ways to phase it out over time. One possibility is to gradually increase the age of eligibility and gradually decrease the benefits. Granted, this would cause some financial fatigue for retirees over the next few decades. But, given the nature of the massive Ponzi scheme that is Social Security, undoing it will necessarily entail some pain, and the pain is more justly suffered by those who have permitted the scheme to remain in existence than by those too young to have ever voted or those yet to be born.

But there is no point in Republicans planning to take political actions that they regard as immoral. As Republicans have amply demonstrated over decades, a person’s or a Party’s ethical views will trump his or its conflicting political goals every time. If Republicans want to save America, they must grasp and uphold the only morality that is consistent with that goal: the morality of self-interest. America’s future is egoism or bust.

The Tea Party has given the Republicans an opportunity to begin restoring America to a republic in which the government is limited to the protection of individual rights. Will the Republicans find the courage to embrace the morality of self-interest? Or will they capitulate, once again, to the statism demanded by the morality of self-sacrifice?

Those are the Republicans’ alternatives. And it is high time they realize it.

About Craig Biddle

Craig is cofounder and editor of The Objective Standard, cofounder and director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. He is the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It; Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing; and the forthcoming Moral Truths Your Parents, Preachers, and Teachers Don’t Want You to Know. He is currently working on his fourth book, “Thinking in Principles.”

View all articles by Craig Biddle →