Unquestioning trust?

Wisdom of the week

[Reprinted from Issues & Views November 1, 2004]

Trust was not supposed to be the basic American attitude toward government. Distrust is closer to the mark. The United States was founded in revolution against tyranny. The revolutionary generation had felt the brunt of arbitrary power and didn't want the new country to suffer the same curse. Thomas Jefferson, who best captured the spirit of the time, warned against "confidence" in power. He proposed jealousy, that is, vigilance, instead.

For Jefferson and his colleagues, the very point of a constitution is to restrain the government. Why restrain it unless it warrants suspicion? Today political philosophers and others believe that restraining government amounts to restraining "the people." Jefferson knew better -- restraining government liberates people. "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for," he wrote.

These days the Constitution is of little more than antiquarian interest. It is invoked far more often than it is observed. Over the decades it has been steadily debased, to the point that, where it once was a bulwark for liberty against domestic tyranny, it now serves those who want ever more intrusive government and a correspondingly shrunken sphere of liberty. . . .

We have drifted so far from the original American frame of mind that distrust of government is often interpreted as lack of patriotism, even hatred of one's country. If by "country" we mean its founding principles, namely, the primacy of individual rights, then love of country is perfectly consistent with distrust of government, no matter who's in office. It is not only consistent; it is required. They who proclaim their trust of the administration may be said to have betrayed America's founding vision. Yet it is precisely unquestioning trust that today is equated with patriotism.

-- Sheldon Richman; excerpted from "Honor the Country by Distrusting the Government, " Future of Freedom Foundation. He is author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State, and editor of The Freeman magazine

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