In a piece headlined “The Coronavirus Will Be Leviathan’s Enabler” in National Review, Kevin D. Williamson, wrote about the financial effects on government spending and how after past emergencies spending, as a percentage of our economy, never falls back to pre-crisis levels. The history shows that each crisis is used as a ratchet tooth in order to grow government and reduce freedom.
There are three key paragraphs, all coming at different points in Williamson’s piece which well stand alone and deserve pondering:
Kevin D. Williamson
“…The predictable opportunism of the political caste is, in a sense, more nefarious: Businesses and individuals find themselves in the position of needing aid not because of normal organic economic changes or unwise investments but because they are (to varying degrees voluntarily) being co-opted to serve a different social end — an important one. Forcing people into the position of needing assistance and then conditioning that assistance in self-serving political ways is corrupt, and it should be understood as corruption.”
“The natural inclinations of the American people are considerably more authoritarian than is the American Constitution, which is one of the things that make it so handy to have a constitution that is written down in English words and sentences that are generally understood to be binding on the government.”
“The United States has changed since the end of World War I, when efforts to retain Woodrow Wilson’s authoritarian “war socialism” were swept away in Warren G. Harding’s “return to normalcy.” Returning to normalcy after the coronavirus epidemic is going to take a concerted and programmatic effort — it is going to be a political project of some consequence.”
The virus is food for the “Leviathan” state
There are three key paragraphs, all coming at different points in Williamson’s piece which well stand alone and deserve pondering:
Kevin D. Williamson
“…The predictable opportunism of the political caste is, in a sense, more nefarious: Businesses and individuals find themselves in the position of needing aid not because of normal organic economic changes or unwise investments but because they are (to varying degrees voluntarily) being co-opted to serve a different social end — an important one. Forcing people into the position of needing assistance and then conditioning that assistance in self-serving political ways is corrupt, and it should be understood as corruption.”
“The natural inclinations of the American people are considerably more authoritarian than is the American Constitution, which is one of the things that make it so handy to have a constitution that is written down in English words and sentences that are generally understood to be binding on the government.”
“The United States has changed since the end of World War I, when efforts to retain Woodrow Wilson’s authoritarian “war socialism” were swept away in Warren G. Harding’s “return to normalcy.” Returning to normalcy after the coronavirus epidemic is going to take a concerted and programmatic effort — it is going to be a political project of some consequence.”