At the heart of any political argument, there are certain premises that must be assumed to be correct.  These premises cannot be proven by empirical data, but rely on a preponderance of anecdotal evidence.  They are the basic philosophical underpinnings upon which political theory and policy are built.  Whether the premises are correct can only be estimated by evaluating the ensuing results of acting on the assumptions. 

    Let’s say that I have a belief that owning property is a sin against nature.  We are all creatures of nature and everything belongs to everyone.  Living within that belief, I begin taking food and other property from the immoral people that believe that they have some claim to these items that is more valid my own.  First, my belief lands me in prison, and later gets me killed by some evil land “owner” who believes he has a right to occupy a house and the right to keep me out by force.
 
    While it cannot proven by scientific data, the anecdotal evidence that the premise upon which I based my behavior  – everything belongs to everyone equally – is incorrect.  From a moral perspective it is an assumption that cannot be proven or disproved.  From a real world perspective the theory falls flat and our prison population swells with people that actually believe some variant of this theory.

    This brings me to the point of this post.  In politics, there are arguments for and against about every position on every topic.  The key to deciphering the arguments is to trace the argument using a logical regression to the premise.  This underlying assumption must be analyzed, and you must make a judgment call on whether the premise is sound or faulty.

    If we build a mathematical theory on the premise that 2x2=5, higher calculations can be made that make perfect logical sense, but the results won’t match reality, and the theory will fail.  Not until the original premise is debunked can we build a mathematical theory that will prove itself in the real world.

    The same principles apply to political arguments.  The purpose of this article is to introduce and discuss the principle of following an argument backwards from proposed action to the premise on which it is based.  Very little specific policy will be discussed here, but will be in future posts.  As a general discussion point, I will discuss liberalism and conservatism as generic theories.

    The United States of America was founded on the belief that men (I use the term “men” as in mankind – not the gender) had a basic right to be free.  While total freedom ends in anarchy, our founders believed the libertarian premise that each person has a right to live their life in the manner of their choosing with the caveat that they do not forcibly interfere with another persons right to live their life in the manner of their choosing.   This is where a paradox begins.  To ensure freedom for all, the freedom of all must be restricted.  It is the restricting of freedom upon which government is built.

    The founders constructed the bill of rights and the constitution as an absolute guarantee that no law would be passed restricting the 10 items in the bill of rights, and the constitution itself imposed strict limits on the power of the federal government.  We have ignored the constitution for decades and granted the federal government nearly unlimited power that is unconstitutional, which has allowed it to grow into the behemoth that it has become today, with it’s tentacles reaching into every aspect of our lives.

    Let’s look at the basic premises behind the generic “liberal” and “conservative” values, and how practicing each has affected the life of the United States.

    Conservatives believe that the Constitution, if followed as closely as possible will allow for the greatest amount of freedom possible.  They believe that free men dealing with free men in a free market will bring about the greatest financial prosperity for all, and will allow all to prosper to the greatest extent possible.  They believe that freedom – the freedom for each to make the most out of their lifes circumstances – to climb as high as their work and ideas can take them – is what constitutes the “American Dream”.   Anyone with a good mind and good ideas and hard work can achieve wealth and overall prosperity.  Conservatives generally believe that a man owns his own life, and should be able to do with it as he pleases and reap the rewards or failure of his choices.

    Liberals believe that government – the restricting of freedoms – is what makes us great, and that fairness is the foundation of a great society.  They believe that achievers must be sacrificed at the altar of taxation for the good of the less “fortunate”, and that some people should not be able to live in luxury while others live in poverty.  It is their duty to see that those at the bottom receive their “fair share” of the pie. 

    Let’s look at how those premises have stacked up to reality.  How has each affected the growth and health of the United States?

From the time the country was founded we lived, by and large, within the framework of the constitution.  In 230 years the United States has become the wealthiest, healthiest, and most powerful nation on the earth.  We have done so by allowing freedom to rule the day, by fiscal restraint in government, and allowing the constitution to be the law of the land.   Using 1910 as a starting point – the must current year within 100 years with census data – we will see how each of the basic philosophies have benefited the country.  In 1910, 33 years before the income tax was instituted, we had a national debt of 2.6 billion dollars.  That meant that we had borrowed $28.26 for every man, woman and child living in the U.S.  Adjusted for inflation per year, that works out to around 700 dollars per person in todays dollars.  In 1935, the welfare program was introduced in which we began the liberal, “progressive” idea of rewarding someone for not working and cranking out babies.  In the 1930’s FDR instituted the “New Deal” which everyone was supposed to be working for the “common good” which brought with it the inevitable government programs, massive deficit spending, and many other ills that plague us to this day.  In 1943, the income tax was introduced which gave rise to our current IRS and confiscatory tax code.  LBJ instituted his “Great Society” in the 1960’s, which was another huge government spending spree on programs for “social justice” and poverty elimination.  This was primarily a continuation of the New Deal. 

    During this modern, liberal period in U.S. history, our national debt has swelled to over 10 trillion dollars, with the debt ceiling raised to 11 trillion. That’s 12 zeros.  That amounts to over 22,000 dollars in debt for every man, woman and child that the government has borrowed on our behalf.  Now, we sit in the midst of another financial meltdown caused primarily by government.  Their solution is to confiscate and spend another 3.8 trillion to bail out private industries from an unnecessary crisis.  This crisis arose from their requirement that banks loan money to people unlikely to be able to repay. 

    Let’s get back to the point.  Which of the two basic sets of opposing premises, liberalism or conservatism has served us well?  For 150 years, we lived by the constitution.  We grew, prospered and became the most powerful and wealthy nation on earth.  For the last 80 years, we have begun to allow the federal government unlimited power and control over our every breath. We balloon into debt that our great grandchildren will never be able to repay.  We sit in financial collapse, and elect a big government socialist as the president. We watch the stock market take the biggest post election nose dive in history as capitalists and investors fear his “spreading the wealth”, his doubling of the capital gains tax, and his plans to expand the federal government to a size and scope that would not be fathomable to our founders.

    Let’s see.  Live by conservative principles and let the constitution guide us and we achieve prosperity, power, wealth, and health.  Let liberals enact program after program that has no constitutional basis and grab an ever increasing amount of money and freedom from the citizenry and crash, debt we cannot repay, bailouts, handouts, unemployment etc.

    I’d say the anecdotal evidence shows that conservatism works and liberalism fails miserably.