The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

In the first installment of this address, I discussed the belief - shared, by the way, by the great Alexis de Tocqueville - that republics as governmental systems cycle in 200 year harmonics. [To be completely honest, I thought up the 200 year pendulum thing; Tocqueville actually believed that republics generally only last 200 years; fortunately, ours has proven that premise wrong.] Also, please note that when I use the term "republicanism," it is in a non-partisan sense. Republicanism, as delineated in our Constitution and in the minds of the Founding Fathers, was not a political party but a form of government. Their vision of "republican government" encompasses several distinct and sacrosanct principles: minimalist national government, strong local (state) authority and autonomy and, above all else, individual liberty. On the other hand, the Federalists believed that the only way to preserve the union was through a strong central government. The fight over the exact nature of the nascent American government was the basis of the very real Constitutional crisis in our first 200 year cycle. Specifically, between the Federalists (John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, et al) and the republicans (again note the small "r") led by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

Much as a pendulum swings from one apogee to the next, the values of republicanism within our political framework still cycle between the tendency toward centralized national power (the old Federalist conceptualization) and individual freedoms (the ideals of republicanism). In case any one cares to notice, we have now reached another critical point - almost exactly 200 years since the victory of early republicanism at the turn of the 19^th century. Here, at the turn of the 21^st century, we face another crisis in national government and a decision about the direction our "American Experiment" will now take. Pointedly, the question is: Will we continue the inexorable trend toward massive central government control or, regaining our republican senses, begin the difficult but still possible journey back to individual liberty? Alexis Tocqueville’s prediction was clear:

"It is indeed difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people. A constitution, republican in its head and ultra-monarchical in all its other parts has always appeared to me to be a short-lived monster. The vices of rulers and the ineptitude of the people would speedily bring about its ruin; and the nation, weary of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions or soon return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master." [Emphasis mine]

I, ever the optimist, am not as convinced as Alexis is to the inevitability of our demise.

This brings us to one of the most underrated (and under-read) conservative thinkers of the last century. I speak of the incomparable Robert Nisbet. A living oxymoron, Dr. Nisbet was rarest of hen’s teeth: a conservative sociologist. His work and writing spanned half a century and was always prescient and singularly prodigious. Sadly (and I can only think of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn writing his masterpieces in the Stalin’s gulags), Nisbet wrote his masterworks while "confined" to the socialist gulag that is the University of California at Berkeley. Thus, they (like the works of Solzhenitsyn) remain, largely, unnoticed. Yet, they shine a bright light on the state of the American republic and the path down which it has headed for the last century. Regrettably, he passed from this earth in 1996, before his just deserts and recognition had arrived.

I came to discover Dr. Nisbet’s books as I typically discover similar obscure gems of wisdom: while in search of something totally unrelated. Specifically, I was researching "boredom" - a topic near and dear to my heart - and, through all the Google searches, the name of this Berkeley sociologist kept popping up. Intrigued (see "How My Mind Works" for the sordid details), I ordered several of his books. I was not disappointed and the omnipresent "project du jour" took a wholly different direction. And, thus, here we are.

In his seminal first book, "The Quest for Community," Nisbet was among the "Golden Age" of conservative thought that included the first works of Russell Kirk ("The Conservative Mind") and William Buckley ("God and Man at Yale") - all published in the 1950s. In "Quest for Community" - and as a recurring theme in all his works - Nisbet "was particularly interested in the causes and consequences of the ascendancy of Leviathan - the modern, runaway political state, which dates, generally, to the French Revolution and, philosophically, to Rousseau. He especially noted the erosion of community and intermediate forms of association (family, guilds, clubs, churches, etc). The French Revolution provided the first modern example of the total state,a colossus that attempted - in the name of the ‘common good’ - to be all things to its citizens while refusing to countenance any group or affiliation or ‘partial association’ (as Rousseau termed it) between itself and the solitary individual." (From Eulogy in American Philosophical Society Proceedings, 1996) [Emphasis mine]

In his "The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America," Nisbet addresses his second essay, "The New Absolutism," to a fantastical notion: What would the Founding Fathers think if they returned to see their country in its current form? It was he who, starkly, brought me vis á vis with the term "democratic absolutism." It is this very state of affairs - described by Nisbet with what seems to be an oxymoron but, assuredly, it is not - to which we have arrived in our present day. We, in the America of today, are becoming quite like what Rousseau had once envisioned: the omnipotent, omnipresent, absolute state. Where Stalin’s and Mao’s totalitarianism failed, we have succeeded.

Lest you think that Dr. Nisbet (and I) are merely reactionary relics of a time long-passed, let us examine the "republic" we, as Americans, inhabit. Let us, for a simple example, merely look at the government contacts involved in the workings of my lowly medical practice. At the first layer, there is - of course - the tax burden. Employee withholding taxes paid monthly to the I.R.S., and then quarterly to the State and county and the city. At the next level, we have the professional requirements for being in business, first, and practicing medicine, second. Annually, I purchase a license to have a business from the city , the cost of the license based, apparently, on the type of business (professional office) and gross revenues. Once every year or two, I have a surprise visit from the local fire department to check if my office is sufficiently "up to code" (emergency exits clearly marked, fire extinguishers current, etc). Also, as a physician, I must have several permits from the government. Triennially, I have to purchase a permit from the D.E.A. to write prescriptions for my patients. Annually, I have to renew a state license for engaging in medical practice and a state drug license (duplicating the efforts of the D.E.A.). In 2005, I and my colleagues were required to begin reporting to the Public Health Department of my state every prescription drug I dispense (directly, not written prescriptions; the pharmacies jump through that particular hoop) from my office. And, as of 2006, I had to register with the government for yet another federal system: the National Practitioner Data Bank. This wonderful system is, quoting from their website:

"administered by The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr), Office of Workforce Evaluation and Quality Assurance (OWEQA), Practitioner Data Banks Branch (PDBB) is responsible for the management of the National Practitioner Data Bank and the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank." [Whew! That keeps a lot of folks employed!]

Of course, not required by government per se, I am compelled to carry malpractice insurance. This is not to protect my non-existent wealth but, primarily, to protect Medicare and the private insurance companies should I be sued. Finally, at the personal level, I am required to pay state and federal income taxes, corporate income taxes, and sundry other forms and documents to file. Annually, I must purchase a car license plate from my state and, ever few years, I must purchase a permit to drive said car on the public streets. There are other examples of "creeping government" but these will suffice to make my point. Just 100 years ago, the average citizens’ only contact with the federal government was a trip to the post office. My, how times have changed.

Dr. Nisbet’s thesis is that government has expanded to the point that is has not only intruded into every aspect of our lives but, more importantly, it has actively extinguished those institutions which, for centuries, had given meaning and structure to our lives. In Nisbet’s term, we are becoming "loose individuals." We have lost the moorings that family, friends, guild, church, neighborhood provided and are now floating, untethered and without direction - other than, of course, making and spending money. Karl Marx had it wrong. Religion is not "the opium of the people"; democratic despotism is the opiate of the 21^st century.

You see the effects of the utter dependence of people of government activism in every crisis, large and small. When a pregnant woman disappeared (later found deceased) recently, I saw a "local official" pleaded to her CNN interviewer that "we need the federal government to come here and search." When there is a natural disaster, the people effected raise their hands - not to heaven - but to beseech government assistance. Nisbet would quote Rousseau, at times like these: "Each citizen would then be completely independent of his fellow men, and absolutely dependent upon the state...for it is only by the force of the state that the liberty of its members can be secured." [Emphasis mine] Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at Rousseau’s "Social Contract" - his Utopia.

Nisbet dates the rise of democratic despotism squarely with the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson shifted America to a "war state" in 1917, he began the inexorable rise of the governmental Leviathan. Another spike in active government came with FDR and the depression/World War II one-two punch that enabled the government to gain unprecedented control of the nation. One of the points Nisbet frequently makes is that crises fuel government expansion. And, since Wilson and World War I, Roosevelt in World War II, Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon in the Viet Nam/Cold War nexus, government has expanded to dizzying heights. And, now, we have another "war state" post-9/11. Expansionism proceeds apace and no one is watching the store.

Let’s look at some numbers, shall we? According to the Washington Post, "the "true size" of the federal government stands at 14.6 million employees." According to the article, while the number of civil servant jobs, military jobs and postal jobs have remained steady, "the 10.5 million federal contractors grantees the government a "hidden workforce" because politicians tend not to mention them when discussing the size of the federal bureaucracy. Yet such workers absorbed nearly $400 billion in federal contracting funds and $100 billion in federal grants in 2005. They often performed vital work such as researching new vaccines, running federal computer systems and making body armor, weapons and meals for the military." Paul Light, a professor of government studies at NYU said that "politicians who focus on the size of the civil service and fail to acknowledge the hidden workforce ‘encourage the public into believing that it truly can get more for less,’ Light added that the heavy reliance on such workers, while sometimes necessary, makes it more difficult to figure out who is accountable when things go wrong." [You can hear an NPR interview with Dr. Light here]

Not part of the article is some quick math off the top of my head: if approximately 15 million people are directly working for the government in a nation of 300 million, that means that 5 per cent of our fellow citizens are employed by the federal government. This, of course, ignores those who work for the state, county and city governments. Likewise, it leaves out those 2-3 million teachers who, in truth, work for the government. This does not even begin to include those who get government assistance in the form of SSI, welfare, unemployment, ADC, ad infinitum? What was that old Tocqueville said in the quote at the beginning of this article? Something about "bribing the people" or some such?

I, once again, must apologize. My wordiness and flight of ideas has caused me, yet again, to exceed what is reasonable for anyone to digest in one reading. So, I suppose there will have to be a Part Three. Perhaps, at long last, I can get to my point. Namely, we need to stop the madness and hit the brakes on this cradle-to-grave government creep. I refuse to believe it is too late. All we need is to find one candidate - one - brave enough and wise enough to say (and truly mean) these simple words:

"Government cannot solve all the problems, inequities and unfairness that exists in a nation of 300 million citizens. It is time for government to call a halt and it’s time for the people to start doing what they once did so very well: looking out for each other."

Think you will likely hear these words in the coming Presidential election? Me neither.