Quick Guide to Political Philosophy

Two political philosophers that impacted the creation of the United States, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, had very different views of government and I get the sense that their outlooks are competing against one another in the US again today as many of those who are supposed to be our servants now view themselves as our masters.

I'm hoping that most of you at least heard of these two men in your high school American Government class. Thomas Hobbes is probably best known to most of us for his statement that life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". This is the basis for his political treatise Leviathan. Leviathan is properly named considering that the paperback version I have is as thick as an average Tom Clancy novel but the type is about half the size. Hobbes argues that any government is better than being in the state of nature. Civil society should be placed under a sovereign authority that severely curtails many of the natural rights of the individual and any abuses of the heavily centralized power must be tolerated by the populace as the price of a better life than that found in his state of nature. If however the central authority crosses an egregious line of abuse then they should expect a rebellion even though he is strongly against them.

On the opposite end of that spectrum is John Locke. Locke's Second Treatise of Government argues much the opposite of Hobbes and is mercifully as brief as Hobbes is wordy. His claim is that man has certain natural rights bestowed upon him by God that predate the existence of government. As such, when we enter into the social contract of civil government, we should only cede minimal rights to the central authority for the sake of creating a civil society. Most of you might know Locke as the 'life, liberty, and property' guy. Not only does government have no right to interfere in certain of our political liberties BUT it has as an express duty the job of protecting those rights from interference by others. When a government fails to protect our rights or begins to take them from the people then the social contract is broken and as sovereign individuals we have a right and duty to rebel against that authority.

As you may have guessed from previous posts, I am most definitely in the Lockean camp as were many of the Founding Fathers. With some modification his rights to life, liberty, and property are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence (the word property was replaced by pursuit of Happiness because Northern abolitionists balked at the implication of slaves in the word property). They are also embedded in the Bill of Rights with many of the rights specifically listed (free speech, press, religion, assembly, redress of grievances, arms, secure in your household) and those that are not listed covered in a catch all disclaimer in the Tenth Amendment (which bars the central government from interfering in rights not listed).

Unfortunately, too many people are not taught about our rights and into that vacuum which nature abhors step too many politicians and hucksters that see the world according to Hobbes. Our man-child president, the Kenyan bastard, is one of them. Of the one hundred Senators in Congress I would guess that about 75 of them lean toward the Hobbesian world view to some degree or another (thus making this not about party politics). I would venture to say that about 3/4 of the 435 Members of Congress are also in that camp. Some of them are there thinking that if they only had more power they could do great good but many of them - especially those who have spent more than a decade inside the Beltway - want power solely for the sake of that power. Then we are beset by a literal horde of unelected bureaucrats seething with the desire to get more control over other agencies, elected politicians, and average people like you and I. Add to that the other literal horde of those who will benefit from an expansive and corrupt government like Jeffrey Immelt CEO of GE (General Evil) which also means he is in charge of NBC (you may want to research the connection between NBC, Obama, and GE's 'smartgrid', and GE healthcare to see where that relationship is going to take us); George Soros, a crooked investor and speculator (convicted of insider trading in France) with deep pockets and a hand in the leftist Center for American Progress, ACORN, SEIU, and a host of other far left organizations; and so many other individuals/groups all vying for power over us.

I believe that we may quickly be approaching that dreadful and yet glorious day when it is necessary for us to revoke our consent to be governed by these people. All of my adult life - starting with the George Hebert Walker Bush administration - I have watched as sinister forces have been eroding our liberties. Some do it in the guise of helping the less fortunate through weakening our borders, protecting us from terrorists, 'giving' us health care, and bailing out failing businesses. Others do it through draconian bureaucracies like the IRS with its tangled web of regulations that no layman can understand or the EPA by declaring every species that sneezes as protected (or the subhuman wretches that forced wolf reintroduction in Idaho). We must not live in fear of that day or one another. That will be the one thing that stops a critical mass of us from standing up to be counted with the true Patriots. It is a daunting task but I know that I would rather die free and on my feet rather than live to an old age on my knees and die a slave to the people I've named above and their political descendants. As Patrick Henry said "If this be treason then let's make the most of it."