The Notes on Ronald Reagan: The Notes - JFK and Lifting our Problems

One of my favorite US Presidents of all time is Ronald Reagan. He was a man of courage, integrity, honor, strength, and true American principles. I admire his life and his governance immensely. Recently I started reading the book Ronald Reagan: The Notes which is the collection of Reagan’s notes, quotes, and thoughts regarding his studies throughout his life. As I read I often find myself vigorously agreeing with great thinkers like J.S. Mill and John F. Kennedy and crying out in horror at quotes from people like Mussolini and George Bernard Shaw. Reading this book is not only increasing my admiration for President Reagan but is also filling my mind with powerful conversations that are especially prevalent in our world of growing chaos. My purpose in writing this post is to share my thoughts on these quotes that I believe are absolutely necessary to the discussion of freedom, liberty, and American principles. This will not be my last post on the topic as I hope to continue sharing my thoughts with you as I read this inspiring book. I encourage you to find a copy and read yourself.

“The scarlet thread running through the thoughts and actions of people all over the world is the delegation of great problems to the all-absorbing leviathan - the state…Every time that we try to lift a problem to the government, to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of the people.”

                 -  John F. Kennedy

We live in society where we take all of our problems to the government; fiscal and social. The founders of the United States had no intention of the government ever growing to the size it has become today. Granted they probably did not envision a country with 50 states, covering a large portion of the North American continent. However, the principle of small federal government, strong states, and strong people as a method of ensuring not only a balance of power but the ultimate freedom of choice for the country’s citizens applies to nations large and small. Unfortunately we have become tremendously dependent on the government to solve all of our problems. This was a pattern that began in 1913 with Woodrow Wilson and the ratification of the 16th amendment. For those of you who don’t know, the 16th amendment allows the federal government to collect income tax (I remember this because many states allow minors to start working at the age of 16). Sixteen years later the great depression begins (1929) and lasts for 10 years (until 1939). As president for most of this time period, Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented the New Deal which was essentially a bunch of federal programs and financial reforms enacted to get us out of the Great Depression. These new programs include the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The New Deal also abolished the gold standard which allowed all of our paper money to be backed by actual substance (which is why your paper money is now essentially worthless. It’s not backed by anything; but that’s a topic for another time).  A little over half of the programs that I am aware of still exist in some form or another today. Social programs in this country have not slowed down since the New Deal (which, side note, did not stop the Great Depression. WWII did...maybe I’ll write something about that). Today we have government provisions for healthcare, housing, food, tax relief, social security, and the list goes on. This never ending increase prompted one of my favorite quotes from Ronald Reagan in his A Time for Choosing speech. “No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!”

How does this relate to JFK’s quote on giving our problems to government. Well it comes down to this simple question. Who takes care of the people? Let’s expand on that. What does “taking care of the people” mean? This is where it gets a little diverse. To a liberal “taking care of the people” means making sure everyone has equal END REWARD. We have the same lifestyle, same storyline, same experiences, etc. This is why they advocate for social programs. They believe the government is in charge of taking care of the people and giving them everything they cannot, or will not, get for themselves.  Conservatives approach things much differently. To a conservative “taking care of the people” means protecting people and ensuring equal OPPORTUNITY as much as is humanly possible. They recognize that the government is an entity that is easily corrupted and as such should not be in control of the lives of the people. Conservatives believe that it is up to the individual to take care of the individual.

This is often a difficult concept to grasp. It requires a lot of faith in humanity, which is unfortunately dangerously low at the moment. How can we as individuals do enough to take care of the poor, to provide equal opportunity, to do enough to ensure that everyone in this country lives a good life? Unfortunately the answer is that we can’t. However, the other answer of endless government involvement also does not solve these problems. The conservative ideal of equal opportunity comes down to a few things. One, the federal government provides physical safety and security and protects individual freedoms as outlined in the Constitution (including amendments). They do very little more and none less. It is important to note here that fulfilling these responsibilities does not mean passing federal regulation or protecting individuals from having their feelings hurt. It is simply a means of ensuring that individuals and state and local government have the power to self-govern without too much interference. Two, state and local governments are primarily responsible for protecting the equal opportunity part of citizens rights. Now what is equal opportunity? Equal opportunity means everyone has the same chance to achieve the same life regardless of whether or not they are successful. I add in this caveat because of how some people interpret the idea of equal opportunity. They believe that equal opportunity means everyone ends up in the exact same economic class with the exact same everything as everyone else. This is actually the essence of socialism as so horrifyingly expressed by George Bernard Shaw.

“Socialism means equality of income or nothing. Under Socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had no character or industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner, but while you were permitted to live you would have to live well.”

The problem with “equal end result” is it is simply not plausible. While America promises equal opportunity, everyone lives a different life with different circumstances. Sadly we cannot guarantee that if you work hard your whole life you will be a millionaire. However we can guarantee that you will have the opportunity to rise to whatever level you set in your sights; whether or not you make it is dependent on you and your circumstances.

The current argument against this idea is that people don’t have equal opportunity because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Alright let’s give that a fair shake. Say all of those things are true. Let’s take all of us and put us in Venezuela for a minute; same social status, same gender, same race, same everything. You now have nothing. Regardless of what any of those identifiers may be. You now live in fear. You now do not know if you will eat today, or tomorrow, or this week. You will now go to a job where you will do back breaking work and make maybe enough to live off of for the day. You will now wonder if your loved ones will disappear. You have no opportunity at all. It does not matter if you are white, black, male, female, gay, straight, etc. You simply do not have any chance to make a better life for yourself. Now let’s put us all back in America. There may be more challenges based on your identifiers. As a woman I understand this idea very much. Although I haven’t been discriminated against in the workplace I have felt the pressures to work twice as hard in other aspects of my life in order to measure up to the men (when in reality I hold my own or surpass my male counterparts). Here’s the deal. I still have the same opportunity to get to the same place. I just have to approach it differently and maybe work a little bit harder. Am I saying that the challenges that face us because of our identifiers are okay? Absolutely not. It is not okay that a woman has to work harder than a man to get to the same place. It is not okay that a black person has to work harder than a white person to get to the same place. It is not okay that we see color, gender, etc. as reasons to inhibit someone from the path of progress. My point in all of this (which I am FINALLY getting to after 1000+ words….thanks for sticking it out) is this. We cannot take these problems to the government to be solved. We must solve them on a social level through example, patience, and our own hard work. If someone tells you you can’t do something because of x, y, and z reason do it anyways! Throw it back in their face! Do what you were called to do because it fulfills you and don’t let anyone take that away from you. But that’s besides the point.

Why doesn’t government involvement work? JFK’s quote touched on it broadly by saying that we are sacrificing the liberties of the people when we give more power to the government. Why? Well a few reasons: one, bureaucracy; two, individual accountability; three, respect; four, responsibility; and five, humanization. I’ll cover these quickly because I realize this is now very long winded. I’ll start with bureaucracy.

Calvin Coolidge said, “unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It is the one element in our institutions that sets up a pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody.” Guess what happens when we take things to the government. It gets handed to the bureaucracy. If there isn’t a bureaucratic office to handle your request a new group of bureaucrats is created to fulfill your request! This grows exponentially until we have a new system of government that goes a bit like this: Federal government (actually bureaucrats), state government (also bureaucrats), local government (also bureaucrats), people (guess what you no longer have rights). While some level of bureaucracy is necessary to keep the country running, filling up the government with thousands upon thousands of unelected government workers is no friend to the rights of the individual. It takes away your right to live your life as you choose because some bureaucratic agency somewhere has a made a rule saying you cannot do whatever it is you chose to do.

The great experiment of America was “can man govern himself?” Two hundred and forty one years of self-government has proven that man can indeed govern himself when he (and she) lives by these principles: individual accountability, respect, and responsibility. Individual accountability requires people to be aware of themselves and their impact on others. It is the sister principle to the responsibility we have to exercise our rights, well, responsibly. Both of these principles are grossly misunderstood and ignored in current American life. Individual accountability requires the individual to recognize that they are in charge of their own destiny and that the government, society, their personal fear, their self imposed limitations, NOTHING but their own self is in charge of their own path in life. Yes, there may be challenges that arise because of these factors and people may be judgemental and cruel but unless you’re planning on becoming a terrorist or doing some other such threatening/illegal activity your failures in life are your failures. Your successes are your successes. You choose the life you live. This requires a lot of responsibility over yourself. It involves overcoming offense, rising to a higher standard of character, and most importantly respecting (or at least being kind to) other people even if they don’t respect you. It means not swearing in front of children at the playground (yes you have the right of free speech but you also have a responsibility to exercise that right with dignity and honor). It means if you are an atheist and think religion is the bane of society you respect other people’s right to practice religion because that is their choice. Guess what. That absolutely goes vice versa. If we can implement these simple principles into our own lives we can have a stronger effect on society as a whole than the government ever can. Why? A lot of that comes down to the last principle: humanization.

Our society spends a lot of time dehumanizing one another. From blatant disregard of people’s opinions, to actively avoiding human interaction, to trying to solve all of our problems without actually talking to the humans. By not trying to solve problems with respectful communication we will never be able to affect the change we want to see. If you want to change society you need to focus on the people. You cannot include the government. Although the government is instituted to protect the people it is not a social institution. It is not created or designed to designate social cues or social lifestyle. If you give the government that power you strip the people of their individuality; especially in a nation as large as the US. We are a culturally heterogenous nation which is a beautiful and powerful gift. What we often forget is that our vast cultural differences can make it difficult to communicate with any semblance of respect. We have taken the human element out of solving our problems because it is hard to solve problems with a people who are so unique and so opinionated! Rather than seeing this as a blessing we have taken it as a curse and instead of rising to the challenge of working together to create change at a social level we have tried to take our social change to the government so it wouldn’t be so hard. Unfortunately we as a nation have not paused to learn from this mistake. Instead we have pushed forward, maintaining a frantic cry for government intervention when what really needs to happen is a large dose of humanization. America we do not need the government to solve our problems. We need the government to make sure we can solve our own problems. No side is perfect at solving problems. In fact I think pretty much everyone has done an absolutely abysmal job of doing so in the past 40 years. However, we have the responsibility to work together as citizens to create a society that is respectful of people and that honors the individual.

“The scarlet thread running through the thoughts and actions of people all over the world is the delegation of great problems to the all-absorbing leviathan - the state…Every time that we try to lift a problem to the govt., to the same extent we are sacrificing the liberties of the people.”

Let us not be a people that tries to take the easy way out by handing all of our problems to the government. The end result is a life of misery and bondage. We will lose our freedoms. We will lose our identity. Let us instead rise to the occasion and be the American people of self-governance and respect. It’s what we were made for.  

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal#Second_New_Deal_.281935.E2.80.9338.29

(You all use Wikipedia. Let's not make this a big thing)