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Accountability general freedom ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

The Wisdom of the Founders

“At a certain point, you have to let go for the democracy to work,” President Barack Obama told HBO’s Bill Maher last week, praising “the wisdom of the founders.”

“There has to be fresh legs,” he continued. “There have to be new people. And you have to have the humility to recognize that you’re a citizen and you go back to being a citizen after this office is over.”

Maher failed to ask Mr. Obama how this “fresh” viewpoint squared with his support for Mrs. Clinton. Nevertheless, let’s applaud the president’s endorsement of term limits.

Speaking of the founders, and limits on power, and this being Election Day, I’m reminded of a commentary in Forbes, back on Election Day four years ago, written by Ed Crane, the man who built the Cato Institute into one of the nation’s preeminent think tanks. Bemoaning the “interminable presidential race,” Crane wished for “a nation in which it really didn’t matter who was elected President, senator or congressman.”

“Don’t get me wrong, because I’m not saying it doesn’t,” explained Crane, “only that it shouldn’t.” He added, “I believe the Founders had a similar view.”

His point is simple: Getting to vote for your next president and senator and congressman is swell, but it’s important to have a Constitution that restrains those elected, so they “don’t have a heck of a lot of power over you or your neighbors.”

“We are a republic of limited governmental ­powers,” or should be, argued Crane. “Such a nation allows for sleep on election night.”

Instead of gnashing of teeth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Constitution, voting, democracy, Ed Crane, fear

 

Categories
general freedom too much government

Ideas Semi-​Move the World

Ideas move the world. Want a better world, spread good ideas as widely as possible.

If you can expose enough people to the right ideas, everything will work out for the best, with an ever-​wider vista of freedom and achievement as the inevitable consequence. Right?

Well … not quite. Ideas and values don’t have any kind of independent existence. Individuals must accept and apply them. Hillary Clinton once admitted to being inspired by Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s mammoth novel celebrating freedom and entrepreneurship and attacking socialism. Yet Hillary still ended up trying to ram socialist health care down our throats. And she ain’t done yet.

Or take Vladimir Putin, the repressive semi-​post-​Communist Russian leader whose government just invaded the former satellite country of Georgia. The autocratic Putin is no Stalin, but he’s no Jefferson either … even if he did attend a Cato seminar on the values of a free society.

It’s true! I recently stumbled across a 2004 issue of Cato Policy Report, published by the libertarian Cato Institute. Ed Crane, Cato’s president, reported that during a long meeting with Putin, Crane and others discussed the benefits of a free press and concerns that the Russian government was repressing the media. Putin seemed open to a more across-​the-​board freedom. He even said he wanted to “make Moscow the center of liberal debate in Europe.”

Really? Try a little harder, Vlad.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.