I was browsing in a bookstore the other day and happened on Andrew Napolitano’s “Constitution in Exile”. I had read good things about Napolitano at Lew Rockwell’s site and was tempted to buy a copy. I quickly changed my mind when I read the dust jacket endorsements from Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and several other wingnuts associated with Fox and right wing radio. I had figured the book to be about a return to limited government, but I decided that it couldn’t be based on the identity of the endorsers. Of course, I doubt Bill O’Reilly or the other clowns on the dust jacket actually read the book, or any book for that matter. They don’t seem like readers to me.
If the book is about the virtues of limited government, it will be ironic if it gets read by people who are fans of the endorsers. I should say if fans of the endorsers get someone to read the book to them. Their heads may explode from cognitive dissonance overload. It will be like Captain Kirk when he talks a robot into destroying itself.
Some of my conspecifics who fancy themselves as Constitutionalists in Exile don’t really care much for the idea of limited government per se. They want limitations on the federal government but reckon that individual states can do anything they want. They figure that they might be able to get control of their state and set up a fascist paradise if it weren’t for the buttinsky feds insisting on applying the Bill of Rights to the states. For my part, I apply the idea of limited government to every level. I would limit it out of existence if I could. At a minimum, I would advocate state constitutions even more restrictive on state power than the federal one. I am not looking to limit one level of government just so I can have unlimited government at another level.
I reckon I’ll never know where Napolitano stands on the issue
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3 comments:
how many people can and bother to read? i'm with you on the levels of government. start with none. when people group into groups they will follow the person who seems to have the best handle on the overall situation that the group faces. when it comes time to negotiate with another group - how will you do it? how do you build inter-group trust? when you figure that howdt, then you can start local govt. again.
Somebody on the Smith2004 list once described Constitutionalism as "The White Man's Ghost Dance". He was not wrong.
"For my part, I apply the idea of limited government to every level. I would limit it out of existence if I could. At a minimum, I would advocate state constitutions even more restrictive on state power than the federal one. I am not looking to limit one level of government just so I can have unlimited government at another level."
Thank you for saying this. I get very nervous around decentralist anarchists and libertarians who start talking about how wonderful liberating government (or 'democracy') is on a local level. You mean South Dakota? You mean reversing Lawrence vs. Texas? You mean many little worlds where everyone isn't a married heterosexual male or property thereof is fair game for law enforcement?
No thank you. I want freedom. Not tyranny in a can.
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