Big government feeds political war
I like David Corey’s framework at Law & Liberty, which reminds us that to defuse America’s march toward political violence, we must shrink Washington and learn to live with our differences.
Corey’s remedies, while well known, are difficult to achieve. Still, his piece is one of the better ones offering a comprehensive list of solutions for pulling America back from a kind of politics that feels increasingly like total warfare.
I’ve summarized his call for reform, but the entire essay is worth reading.
1. Reject Ideological Thinking: Avoid systems that oversimplify reality.
2. Accept Pluralism: Stop seeing difference as a threat. (Sometimes pluralism gets a bad rap, but our more pluralistic society has ignited great public policy achievements like the school choice explosion.)
3. Limit Federal Power: Embrace federalism and voluntary association to lower the stakes of national politics.
4. Take Responsibility for Understanding Reality: Seek balanced information and resist media distortion.
5. Reform Civics & Education: Transform K–12 and higher education to teach ideology’s limits, political toleration, and pluralism.
Corey’s essay calling for a rejection of the Marxist habit of reducing politics to pure power struggle is spot on. It’s infected so much of our political and educational culture today. When we see opponents only as oppressors, persuasion and compromise give way to conflict. It’s toxic and erodes critical thinking skills, creating a bland allegiance to tribalism. Commitment to principles are important but ideological fervor and a blind loyalty are Marxist constructs that will only decimate the free society. This is why Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reminds us in the “The Gulag Archipelago” that “Shakespeare’s evil-doers stopped short at a dozen corpses, because they had no ideology.” A great reminder that we must never let politics fuel the loss of our humanity.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat