Why Secure Liberty?
One of the goals of the U.S. Constitution is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” AntiCA uses the phrase “secure liberty” as:
• A noun: Liberty that is secure and lasting, because there is sufficient protection against the forces that would deprive people of that liberty.
• An imperative: Securing liberty requires an active effort against such forces. It requires hard work, diligence, risk, and sacrifice.
How is liberty best achieved and preserved? Liberty is freedom. So, at first thought, it might seem that the best way to achieve maximum liberty is for everyone to have complete freedom from any governmental authority. That is the concept of anarchy.
That might work in some hypothetical universe where everyone treats everyone else with respect and nobody attempts theft, violence, oppression, extortion, and conquest. Unfortunately, the history of the world shows it is in human nature for some to commit these and other crimes if they can get away with it.
Complete freedom from any governmental authority (anarchy) does not provide secure and stable freedom. It inevitably devolves into chaos, insecurity, conquest, or imposition of oppressive governments. History has shown that lack of government leads to insecurity and oppression on a local level (e.g., crime), regional (e.g., warlords), or national conquest or imposition of oppressive governments). Anarchy’s promise of liberty is temporary and illusory. The reality is that liberty is not secure and lasting without some level of government protection.
The key is to strike an appropriate balance between preserving individual liberty, local governance, and a national government that is sufficiently strong to protect the liberty of the country as a whole while being restrained enough to respect and secure the liberty and rights of individuals and local/state governments.
Achieving this balance, and thus preserving our liberties and rights, requires:
* Government that is restrained in its use of power and is fiscally responsible
* Policing that is sufficiently strong, but respects individuals’ rights
* An effective and fair judicial system governed by the Rule of Law
* Military that is sufficiently strong, but restrained in its involvement around the world to what reasonably serves the interests of the U.S. and its citizens
* Secure borders, combined with a fair immigration system
* Citizen participation and oversight
Many of AntiCA’s products (such as clothing, stickers, and educational materials) are designed to educate about the need to secure liberty and honor those dedicated to that effort, both now and in the past. AntiCA is committed to donating 10% of its profits to organizations that work to establish and preserve liberty and justice for all, including law enforcement, active and veteran military, border security, and citizen participation and oversight.
A Reasonable Balance of Central, State, and Local Government Power and Individual Rights
The United States learned early on that secure liberty requires a thoughtful balance between liberty (on the individual and state level) and government authority. Following the American Revolution, the citizens of the newly founded U.S. were very wary of centralized government power that could impose unwanted restrictions and burdens on the liberty of the states and citizens. The original thirteen states wanted to give up very little of their liberty to a central government. Therefore, the first national government for the U.S. -- established by the Articles of Confederation, which went into effect in 1781 – was only a very weak centralized national government (consisting only of Congress, without any executive and judicial branches) that had little to no authority or ability to require the states and citizens to comply with the decisions of Congress. Having a weak central government served the states’ desires to maximize their liberty. However, it was not long before the lack of centralized power led to a number of problems that threatened to undo the union and render the states vulnerable to a complete loss of liberty to European powers or domestic conflict. As explained by the U.S. National Archives:
"Just a few years after the Revolutionary War, however, George Washington and James Madison were among those who feared their young country was on the brink of collapse. With the states retaining considerable power, the central government had insufficient power to regulate commerce. It could not tax and was generally impotent in setting commercial policy. Nor could it effectively support a war effort. Congress was attempting to function with a depleted treasury; and paper money was flooding the country, creating extraordinary inflation.
"The states were on the brink of economic disaster; and the central government had little power to settle quarrels between states. Disputes over territory, war pensions, taxation, and trade threatened to tear the country apart.
"In May 1787, the Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation."
Through a lengthy process of brainstorming and debate, the Constitutional Convention realized that to accomplish a lasting resolution of these issues and preserve liberty for the entire country, individuals and the states must cede sufficient authority to the central, national government. On the other hand, they did not want to give the central government so much power that it could be tyrannical and deprive them of their most important liberties. After all, the point of ceding power to the national government was to preserve those liberties, not to lose them. The Preamble to U.S. Constitution explained the purposes of the new Constitution, which included to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to strike an appropriate balance of centralized government authority and liberties retained by the states and individuals.
That balance is not always perfect. Different people have different opinions about how much power the central government should have. And there are always people who want to acquire and misuse power to enrich and aggrandize themselves. We must always be vigilant against that. Throughout U.S. history, those in power in Washington, D.C. have tended to increase the power and size of the national, federal government in order to increase their own power and wealth at the expense of the states and individual citizens. This has been made possible by U.S. citizens voting for such people and the U.S. Supreme Court allowing this shift of power to the central government.
If this trend of increasing centralization of power and loss of individual liberty is to be stopped, and reversed, it is necessary for more people to become actively involved in that effort. The first step is awareness. It is important that people understand the actual and potential structures, uses, and abuses of the various systems of government in the United States (federal, state, and local) and their relation to each other and to our individual rights.
With that understanding, we can determine what needs to be changed and how to work on accomplishing that for the benefit of us all. The need for this process is not new. In fact, it is older than the U.S. itself. For example, more than ten years before the American Revolution, John Adams was one of many who called on the American people to engage in a similar process of political education and awareness:
"The prospect, now before us, in America, ought . . . to engage the attention of every [person] of learning to matters of power and of right, that we may be neither led nor driven blindfolded to irretrievable destruction." -- John Adams, “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law” (Oct. 21, 1765)
And the struggle to define and limit the size and power of government has continued throughout our country’s history. There were great increases in the power and scope of the federal government via President FDR’s New Deal and in the 1960’s and 70’s. When he became President in 1981, Ronald Reagan sought to reverse that trend, as stated in his first inaugural speech. See video of the speech below. Click here for the full text of the speech. Click here for the full inauguration video, speech starts at 21:10)
As President Reagan noted in his 1981 inaugural speech:
“We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.”
Early in his 1981 inaugural speech, President Reagan referred to government being the problem, not the solution, to the crisis the U.S. faced at the time. By that, he meant too much government was the problem. Later in the speech, he made clear that what is needed is a proper balance between government and private actors, with government playing a helpful, supportive role, rather than dominating or stifling private actions:
“Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on Earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price. It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government.”
President Reagan’s guiding insight -- that limited government working cooperatively with private actors (rather than controlling or stifling them) is responsible for unleashing the energy and individual genius of people to a greater extent than has ever been done before—has been confirmed by economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. They examine this phenomena in detail in their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012). The book examines a wide range of case studies to understand why various nations and economies develop differently, with varying success in achieving prosperity for its members. At the risk of oversimplifying, their conclusion is that successful economies that broadly benefit the members of society have the following institutional support: legal protections for private property and inventions; an equitable rule of law that applies broadly to all members of society, not just those in the favor of the government or ruling elite; strong enough central government power to enforce those laws; and limits on taxation so agricultural and business development, inventions, investment, and earnings are not disincentivized. An important lesson to take from their work mirrors President Reagan’s inaugural speech – limited government that supports and unleashes the individual and business development potential of all people is necessary for sustained and broad-based economic success, while too much government is counterproductive and stifling. On the other hand, lack of government regulation has sometimes led to human suffering and death and environmental destruction. The key is finding the right balance.
Democracy vs Republic
The Stability of Mixed Government and a Dominant Middle Class
The American founders believed the only legitimate source of political power is the people (meaning those who qualified as citizens). [For example, see James Madison's Federalist No. 39 (defining a republic as "a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people") and Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 at p.19 (“The Whigs’ loyalty was always with the people. . . It seemed self evident to the Whigs that the promotion of the peoples’ happiness was the sole purpose of government.”)] That’s why the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution starts with the famous declaration that “We the People” established the Constitution and federal government of the United States. But that doesn’t mean they thought pure direct democracy or pure representative democracy were good.
The U.S. Constitutional system of government was designed after considering the various forms of government throughout European history and the Iroquois Confederacy to determine which could best achieve their goals. (For the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy see here, here, and here.) The founders wanted a system that would always be subject to ultimate control by the voters, and would balance individual liberty with stability and sufficient strength to withstand outside aggression and internal insurrection.
They intentionally decided against direct democracy (in which all laws are decided by direct vote of the majority of citizens) and pure representative democracy (the majority of citizens in each district elect representatives and the majority vote of those representatives can pass any law they want), because those had proven in many instances to degenerate into one or more of the following problems -- a tyranny of the majority, loss of liberty and rights for minorities, civil war, and chaos that often resulted in a reactionary authoritarian state seizing power to restore order. Alexander Hamilton discussed this problem in The Federalist No. 9.
Direct and representational democracy were prone to such problems since at least as far back as ancient Greece. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle identified three basic forms of government: rule by the one, rule by the few, and rule by the many. Each of these had a “good” form, meaning the power was used for the general good of the society, and a “bad” form, meaning the power was used to benefit a select few (individuals or groups). Aristotle assigned different names to the versions of these governmental forms that were good (i.e., power used for the common good) and bad (power used for the rulers and chosen groups). The good form of rule by one person was "monarchy" and the bad form "tyranny." The good from of rule by a few was "aristocracy" and the bad form "oligarchy." The good form of rule by many (aka popular government) was "polity" and the bad form was "democracy." Aristotle used the word "democracy" to refer to a government by the general public in which the majority abused their power to benefit themselves and/or oppress the minority, rather than acting for the common good. For a simple explanation, see Aristotle - Politics, Philosophy, Logic | Britannica. For a more detailed examination of Aristotle’s politics, see, e.g., Aristotle’s Political Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
The U.S. founders were influenced by Aristotle's categorization of "democracy” as the bad version of popular rule. The were wary of the tendency of the majority of the general populaton to put their own interests first (often at the expense of the minority), rather than acting for the common good.
The U.S. founders’ goal was not simply to have a government that would express the will of the majority of the people. As noted above, history had proven that the desires of the majority are sometimes destructive to those in the minority and to the common good. The U.S. founders’ goals were fairness, stability, and the common good. The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution expressed their goals for their new government:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
[If you want to hear the Schoolhouse Rock video of the Preamble, here’s a link: The Preamble of The Constitution Schoolhouse Rock]
The Preamble expresses a number of goals other than the pure democratic process of the majority getting to decide whatever they want. In fact, many of the goals (justice, domestic tranquility, and promoting the general welfare) could not be secured for future generations if they were subject to a purely democratic process. As expressed by John Adams in 1814:
“Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy. It is not true in Fact and no where appears in history. Those Passions are the same in all Men under all forms of Simple Government, and when unchecked, produce the same Effects of Fraud Violence and Cruelty.”
As John Adams noted, the U.S. founders knew that every form of government (democracy, aristocracy, monarchy, etc.) is subject to abuse, because people tend to be selfish and will try to use power to benefit themselves and their chosen groups. The founders realized that to restrain the abusive and self-destructive nature of all pure (simple) types of government, it was necessary to have all government power constrained by various checks and balances. They decided the key to accomplishing this was to have a mixed form of government that combines elements of polity (the good form of rule by many), aristocracy (the good form of rule by a few), and monarchy (the good form of rule by one -- in the case of the U.S., not a hereditary monarch, but an elected executive position (the President) subject to impeachment), all subject to certain constitutional rights that protect everyone, including those not in the majority. This approach reflected the wisdom of Aristotle, who argued that in most cases, the best government is a kind of “mixed” constitution. Aristotle’s Political Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Aristotle’s approach to the balance of power also included consideration of economic classes. He noted that the dominant class in oligarchy is typically the wealthy, whereas in democracy it is the poor. His “mixed” constitution was intended to result in rule by a large “middle” group of citizens, a moderately wealthy class between the rich and poor (Politics IV.11). Aristotle thought that the middle class would provide more stability, because he believed those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation find it “easiest to obey the rule of reason” (Politics IV.11.1295b4–6) and are less likely than the rich or poor to act unjustly toward their fellow citizens. A constitution based on the middle class is the stable middle ground between the extremes of oligarchy (rule by the rich) and democracy (rule by the poor). See Aristotle’s Political Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Aristotle’s belief in the stability of a mixed government dominated by the middle class is confirmed by the fact that much of the political stability in the U.S. is due to the U.S. having a broad middle class.