Governing:  Who's In Charge?

We the People. Those words from the preamble to the Constitution mean everything to us. We believe that the collective wisdom of the citizens, expressed through their votes borne of their life experiences is far more profound than that of any set of politicians, pundits, entertainers, or consultants.

  The Declaration of Independence stated the discontent of the colonists and said that, whenever a group of people decide to change their government, they should state their reason why.  Here is what they said about governing:

. . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . .

Given these beginnings, how is it that law-abiding citizens can live in fear of their government?  Why, then, are our lives and our family's lives so connected to government decisions?  What has gone wrong?

The Founders believed that government did not know best– not even the king.  In our founding documents, they placed restrictions on government and placed the power in the hands of the people.  We'd like to keep it that way, but government keeps taking the power intended by the Founders to be ours and making decisions for us.  We don't believe that is an appropriate role for government, just as our Founders believed.

Governing should be a process of (fallible) individuals following a set of rules established with the consent of the governed to manage the affairs of our society.  It is the set of rules with their time-tested processes that define the authority of those individuals who are temporarily "in charge," not what they think should be done, based on their personal opinions.

Humans are not perfect, by any means, and our rules and processes should be established to ensure that even malicious, incompetent public servants can do only limited harm.  Given that opinions vary regarding what constitutes "malicious" and "incompetent," society must also be protected against the self-described good intentions of self-defined benevolent public servants.

To permit government to step outside of the rules and processes established and approved by the people, even if the intentions are pure, is to give up our freedom.  No public servant should be permitted to exercise judgment based on his or her personal view of what is "just."  That opinion can vary greatly, and public servants are imperfect.  Accordingly, permitting such behavior, particularly from a person with "authority," guarantees injustice.  What is prejudice, if not the act of wielding authority while permitting personal biases as the basis for decisions?

We the People hire government to do the job of managing the affairs of our society.  Those doing the managing are our employees.  Would a business owner permit an employee to threaten them, to change the company's processes, or spend them into bankruptcy?  Would an employee have the means to change the entire business model of the company?  Of course not.

We are called "conservatives" because we believe in conserving the essence of what made our country great–a form of government that derives its power from the consent of the governed.  We believe that the collective experiences of all our citizens, manifested in their informed votes, should maintain a tight rein on government, permitting only incremental improvements, rather than sweeping changes with a host of unintended consequences.