Historical perspective on percentage of Americans opposed to federal government, over time (1 Viewer)

[adonis]

Throughout our history, even before the country was formed, there seem to have been huge groups of people who oppose the federal government in whatever form it took or was taking at the time.  People who were willing to put folks in power to destroy much of what had been built, or to strip away the federal powers and strengthen local power.

At our founding, and for years afterwards, there were huge fights about this subject.  This continued to the civil war, and continues today, perhaps in different manifestations.

But today, we have a group of folks in the country, a significant group, who believe government is the problem.  They are the "burn it down" group, where installing someone like Trump into the presidency doesn't cause them any heartburn because they really don't care, and they just sit back and grab their popcorn and enjoy the show.  Our federal government, and its institutions, and traditions, and international framework, isn't something they care about so they're not upset watching it burn.

I"m curious what folks thoughts are on how today's anti-federalists compare historically to similar groups over time that had huge differences with the federal government.

 

[rockaction]

Throughout our history, even before the country was formed, there seem to have been huge groups of people who oppose the federal government in whatever form it took or was taking at the time.  People who were willing to put folks in power to destroy much of what had been built, or to strip away the federal powers and strengthen local power.

At our founding, and for years afterwards, there were huge fights about this subject.  This continued to the civil war, and continues today, perhaps in different manifestations.

But today, we have a group of folks in the country, a significant group, who believe government is the problem.  They are the "burn it down" group, where installing someone like Trump into the presidency doesn't cause them any heartburn because they really don't care, and they just sit back and grab their popcorn and enjoy the show.  Our federal government, and its institutions, and traditions, and international framework, isn't something they care about so they're not upset watching it burn.

I"m curious what folks thoughts are on how today's anti-federalists compare historically to similar groups over time that had huge differences with the federal government.

If one is to do an honest comparison then seriously, they like government much, much more, and not even out of hypocrisy or lack of book learning. Our colonial fathers and mothers started small, often religious or utopian states and had no problems with governance writ large, but rather with a lack of even a nod to a large federal government as we know it.

As far as those that do understand history and political philosophy, most of today's anti-federalists, should they know such a term for it, are willing to accept many more encroachments by the federal government than our forefathers and mothers would have in the pure sense. 

 

[Yankee23Fan]

I might join in. Later though. Playing golf today.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Good question and topic for a thread.

My purely gut feel is it's about the same as it has been.

I think the number of people who want to "burn it down" and watch the fire with their popcorn is incredibly small. I think there's a large number that want to do their business with less of what they see as "interference". And like anything, it's a matter of degree and balance and perception. The government prohibiting a manufacturer from dumping toxic waste into the river is different "interference" than the government requiring quadruple forms filed over a meaningless thing. 

I think even the most extreme people understand the value of roads and a water supply. 

I see both sides. I personally know people who work in government that are appalled at the waste and inefficiency. 

I personally know people who benefit greatly from the social safety net government provides. 

Bottom line, I think it's about the same as it has been for how people feel. 

 

[Kal El]

There have to be ways to make things more efficient while still providing necessary resources to whose who need it. The biggest problem is finding someone who is willing to go through, find the issues, cut them out, and not cause more problems.

 

[wikkidpissah]

Government wasn't designed to be the answer. It was supposed to be the referee, the mediator but, when technology exploded feudal roles and provided the possibility of personal dignity for the individual, business still had no interest but exploitation and govt found greater & greater difficulty mediating between corporation & individual. It chose to provide answers itself and the individual has voted for more of that ever since. That grew our institutions of power to & past the size of our institutions of money. And money had to find inroads to power to maintain/expand their path to more money and realized along the way that, by demonizing government while using electronic media to influence the voting public, it could have both the money & the power. The idiotic, oblivious American populace, consumed by consumerism over citizenship said "Does everybody get cable, smartphone? Then i don't care". And the foxes sell eggs now.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Government wasn't designed to be the answer. It was supposed to be the referee, the mediator but, when technology exploded feudal roles and provided the possibility of personal dignity for the individual, business still had no interest but exploitation and govt found greater & greater difficulty mediating between corporation & individual. It chose to provide answers itself and the individual has voted for more of that ever since. That grew our institutions of power to & past the size of our institutions of money. And money had to find inroads to power to maintain/expand their path to more money and realized along the way that, by demonizing government while using electronic media to influence the voting public, it could have both the money & the power. The idiotic, oblivious American populace, consumed by consumerism over citizenship said "Does everybody get cable, smartphone? Then i don't care". And the foxes sell eggs now.

THank you,1960s congress

 

[rockaction]

To wit and to draw an example of how this can get complicated when drawn upon the typical lines that exist today, take from it what you will.

Corporations.

The first corporations came from private citizens gathering private capital for limited times and purposes, to invest in new public works, e.g., roads and bridges, to be paid by the state though the public purse. This is why a large corporation was able or considered by the law to have directors who were essentially personally indemnified from law suits brought upon them because of property damage, personal loss, etc. The reasoning went was that they were working for the state's benefit (you can also see a bit of sovereign immunity bleed into the legislative thinking at the time) and that was enough to indemnify through a filing and acceptance procedure. It was efficiency in the name of the public's good, and they not personally available for suits brought about by the public against individual investors.

But to indemnification: It was a trade-off that a grant from the state meant in service of the state, not the other way around. Today, you have corporations elevated to individual status and granted free speech protections, etc. It's highly privatized, privately elected and run, and highly protected by governments, up and to including public subsidization.

Also, in centuries past, a corporation's function and length of time allowed to operate was described clearly in their charter, and they were closed once the public work was finished, completely unlike today with the broadest of charter grants for intended purposes and length of time in the name of efficiency.

So corporations changed significantly from the inception of the federal government. It's amorphous, not tied down, not liable for damages done by directors, and often publicly subsidized somehow. It's a become a monster. Nobody left or right back then could have dreamed of the mish-mash of these large institutions; the tendency towards all things small was there in the anti-federalists and federalists alike. And today, in public consciousness, there's little debate up to and until Citizens United, which is another issue. And those on the left have wanted to publicly rein these essentially public grants and publicly-backed institutions, whereas those on the mainstream right value their semblance of privatization and their accumulation of new "rights" granted them. It's an absurd position, IMHO. They're totally public/private coops these days, but yet the right today is still accepting of these fascist mish-mashes more than the founders ever were. The needle still shows how big we are, how big we've become.

Like I said upthread, these aren't new movements, and people back at the founding would be appalled at institutions this large and with the imprimatur of government force. They're felt in impact by their bigness and their actual government involvement, and again we see anti-federal sentiment stomped at the behest of efficiency or what wikkid was getting at, personal greed and luxury comforts.

Regardless, just a diatribe for Christmas morning.

Final verdict: The percentage of people accepting this sort of system is much larger, and in favor of much larger institutions, than what was once felt on both sides of the aisle. It's a huge disconnect with political ramifications. 

Happy Holidays, all!

 

[Ditkaless Wonders]

I might join in. Later though. Playing golf today.

I always enjoy reading your thoughts on government.

 

[wikkidpissah]

THank you,1960s congress

?

 

[Long Ball Larry]

?

specifically, I was referring to the first half of your post, though I guess I realize now that you were talking much more about business and corporations that I initially interpreted:

Government wasn't designed to be the answer. It was supposed to be the referee, the mediator but, when technology exploded feudal roles and provided the possibility of personal dignity for the individual, business still had no interest but exploitation and govt found greater & greater difficulty mediating between corporation & individual. It chose to provide answers itself and the individual has voted for more of that ever since. That grew our institutions of power to & past the size of our institutions of money

I was thinking about more like the "tale of three liberalisms" as described by George Will in his recent book:

American politics can be considered a tale of three liberalisms, the first of which, classical liberalism, teaches that the creative arena of human affairs is society, as distinct from government. Government’s proper function is to protect the conditions of life and liberty, primarily for the individual’s private pursuit of happiness. This is now called conservatism. Until the New Deal, however, it was the Jeffersonian spirit of most of the Democratic Party. FDR’s New Deal liberalism was significantly more ambitious. He said that until the emergence of the modern industrial economy, “government had merely been called upon to produce the conditions within which people could live happily, labor peacefully and rest secure.” Now it would be called upon to play a grander role. It would not just provide conditions in which happiness, understood as material well-being, could be pursued. Rather, it would become a deliverer of happiness itself. Government, FDR said, has “final responsibility” for it. This “middle liberalism” of the New Deal supplemented political rights with economic rights. The New Deal, the modern state it created, and the class of people for whom the state provided employment led to the third liberalism, that of the 1960s and beyond. This “managerial liberalism” celebrates the role of intellectuals and other policy elites in rationalizing society from above, wielding the federal government and the “science” of public administration, meaning bureaucracy.

 

[wikkidpissah]

specifically, I was referring to the first half of your post, though I guess I realize now that you were talking much more about business and corporations that I initially interpreted:

I was thinking about more like the "tale of three liberalisms" as described by George Will in his recent book:

Will has always been my favorite Tory, though he invariably fails to factor the necessity of the liberation of emerging classes into his classical chains of event.

 

[rockaction]

American politics can be considered a tale of three liberalisms, the first of which, classical liberalism, teaches that the creative arena of human affairs is society, as distinct from government. Government’s proper function is to protect the conditions of life and liberty, primarily for the individual’s private pursuit of happiness. This is now called conservatism. Until the New Deal, however, it was the Jeffersonian spirit of most of the Democratic Party. FDR’s New Deal liberalism was significantly more ambitious. He said that until the emergence of the modern industrial economy, “government had merely been called upon to produce the conditions within which people could live happily, labor peacefully and rest secure.” Now it would be called upon to play a grander role. It would not just provide conditions in which happiness, understood as material well-being, could be pursued. Rather, it would become a deliverer of happiness itself. Government, FDR said, has “final responsibility” for it. This “middle liberalism” of the New Deal supplemented political rights with economic rights. The New Deal, the modern state it created, and the class of people for whom the state provided employment led to the third liberalism, that of the 1960s and beyond. This “managerial liberalism” celebrates the role of intellectuals and other policy elites in rationalizing society from above, wielding the federal government and the “science” of public administration, meaning bureaucracy.

Negative rights to positive rights to a reduction of rights writ large, I say.