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News Flash, Washington: The national government sometimes gets it wrong.
Another News Flash, Elsewhere: So do the States.
Of course, this is no news to anyone, rather old news to
everyone. We all know that the national
government is neither perfectly right nor wrong. The same is true for state governments. All are staffed by human beings, like you and
me, with the similar packages of wisdom and foolishness.
For nearly two decades I worked in the U.S. Senate for a
very wise man. I once heard him say that
when he came to Washington he was frustrated at how little one person could get
done. He said he soon came to rejoice in
the fact. Yes, it is hard for one person
to achieve the good that he envisions,
but it is even harder for one person to impose
on everyone else the good that he envisions.
The founders of the nation did not seek to perfect
mankind. They left that for God, as flawed
humans cannot create perfect humans. For
now God has left governments to imperfect people (though He is willing to
provide as much wisdom as people are willing to accept). The wisdom of the founders, thousands of
miles away from other nations, but drawing upon thousands of years of history,
was to create a system of government that did not rest upon the wisdom and
foolishness of one individual or even a small cadre of them.
The founders arrived at a system of government for the new
nation that neither guaranteed nor expected officials to get it all right. It was designed to make it harder for them
all to get it all wrong. Moreover, the
founders worked to limit the field of that government, so that as much as
possible of the getting things right and wrong was left to the people
themselves in their myriad of daily activities, far too complex for a
government to manage.
The arrangement divided governing responsibilities among
many hands. States have their
responsibilities, which they share with local governments. The national government has its share of
duties and powers to be applied where appropriate for a national sphere. Those powers are further divided among three
interdependent branches, the executive, legislative, and judicial. I say “interdependent,” because neither was
given enough power to operate without involvement with the other two.
Impasse arises, frequently, because schemes for government to
govern too much wreck upon the shoals of the diversity of our people and the
multiplicity of their needs and preferences.
Such impasse is not a sign of inefficient government but of our system
of government efficiently reminding us when it is trying to overreach, going
beyond government’s competence.
The founders formed their plan as they realized that it was
the only way to govern a nation so geographically broad, increasingly populous,
and already socially diverse. As the 13
states have become 50 from sea to sea, and the several million have become
several hundred million, it is even truer today. There are things that governments must
do. There are many more that need to be left
to the governed.
In recent months we have witnessed waves of expanded
government restrictions, probing the limits of government wisdom and
power. Space here will not allow an
evaluation of the successes and failures, or the effect on individual freedom.
I rejoice in this federal system of government that allows
for a diversity of approaches and accommodation of a diversity of
conditions. In my view, the governor
where I live has gotten more wrong than right and is out of step with his
state’s conditions. I find the contrast
of other examples a source of hope. The
purpose of dividing governmental power is to allow the exposure of mistakes and
thereby preserve and promote individual freedom.
The division of error in our system offers hope of relief
and recourse from error. It still leaves room, as well, for individuals to get
it right and when they get it wrong to learn from the errors, with the freedom
to try again and do better.
I will tattle, that the Senator for whom I worked for so
long sometimes got it wrong. Having been
a college professor, he told us that we learned so much by working for him that
we should pay tuition. We did not agree. He did not press the point.
Parting News Flash, New
York
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