Do you buy it, Pilgrim?

We have a government firmly committed to privilege and theft:

"Capitalism" is neither the Right-wing, crony-capitalism corporate-welfare economy, nor the anti-rich, wealth-redistribution social-welfare economy that we have today. In a truly capitalist society businesses never receive money or special privileges from government: they succeed if they please consumers in offering them what they want, and they fail if they do not. By the same token, in a truly capitalist society, individuals never receive special privileges or transfer payments. Instead, they have an abundance of jobs and of wages commensurate with the value of their work (more than a "living wage").^[1]

The Constitution offers no protection whatsoever.

First, a little background: the original federal scheme provided for in the Constitution was junked in the 1930s. (It was already compromised in other ways by that time but it is sufficient to consider here only this additional major subversion of the original scheme.)

Completely reversing 140 some years of its prior understanding of the Commerce Clause, the Supreme Court had a Great Karnak moment and arrived at a new “understanding” that the power of Congress to regulate “Commerce . . . among the several States” meant Congress could regulate “every @#$%g thing in sight.”

Who knew?

With few exceptions, the entire legal profession of the United States today treats the Supreme Court with a deference that ought to be nauseating to anyone who recognizes the betrayal that occurred in the 1930s. As a younger lawyer I was puzzled when Attorney General Meese said that the Constitution is what it says, not what the Supreme Court says it says. I had not yet come to the understanding I have now that the Court is no guardian of our liberties, the recent Second Amendment case to the contrary notwithstanding. Ever since the ‘30s, we have chosen to docilely accept The Great Betrayal and the subsequent congressional dilution of our liberties that it enabled. We assumed honor, which was a mistake.

Any way you slice it, the Court’s now on board for statism in a big way.

All of which is to say that the bastardized arrangement of deals, payoffs, exactions, takings, regulatings, posturings, and foreign adventurings that passes for the current U.S. “constitutional” system came about because the Supreme Court long ago threw in the towel on making principled interpretations of the Constitution and shows little inclination to ever cease from doing so. Clarence Thomas would have at it with a V-8 turbo Weed Eater^TM but there’s slight chance that originals like him will be appointed to the court to help out.

So we now have an all powerful federal government massively enriched by the income tax, unrestrained by a Supreme Court or by a Senate beholden to state interests, and backed up with an impressive panoply of federal criminal legislation that can distribute goodies to favored contractors and the underclass ad astra. The former reward the politicians with campaign contributions and the latter with their votes.

In short, we have a poisonous combination of unrestrained crony capitalism and dependency politics. Mostly the latter, though I suspect there's far more of the former than I or anyone has realized.

It’s not much of a trade for the system that the Founders set up but the Supreme Court and legal profession don’t shed any tears for its disappearance that I can see.

Why do we tolerate, even honor, the betrayal by the Supreme Court? Had it held to principle, the federal government would not have been in a position to do the grievous damage it has. Does ObamaCare have a constitutional basis? Nancy Pelosi thought it was an outrageously quaint question to ask.

One reason that we tolerate it is because we can’t see the underlying realities. The MSM is absolutely committed to preservation of political lies and the political class in general works hard to maintain illusions. Here, it’s the illusion that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution is principled.

There are other illusions it is vital to maintain. One is that the present economic system in the U.S. is “capitalist” whose miseries can be avoided by adopting statists rather than free market solutions. Far from being a system characterized by economic freedom it’s an economic system that’s hampered by bureaucrats and regulations of all kinds. But how would you know if you depended on the MSM?

Another illusion is that “fascism” is a “right wing” phenomenon, not the twin separated at birth from (leftist) totalitarianism. If “fascism” is right wing, then so is Nazisim, and real right wingers who say they value freedom are actually Nazis who want to enslave you and your family. Stay hard left, citizens! Baron Boddisey has an excellent piece over at Gates of Vienna on "false fronts" which deals with the same phenomenon.

Is the Supreme Court really entitled to the honor and respect we accord it? Do we really buy the nonsense about ours being a “living Constitution,” one that can be amended by five Supreme Court justices instead of by the constitutionally-mandate procedure in Article V? The latter requires a huge amount of discussion and persuasion and the votes of a lot more citizens then merely five of them. The “living Constitution” idea advocated by a great many educated citizens -- and now operative -- gives us back an aristocracy.

Do you buy that? Is this what you honor on the Fourth? Rule by your betters? By people who have stolen your sovereign political power?

Notes
^[1] "Give Capitalism a Chance." By Kel Kelly, Mises Daily, 8/4/10 (reviewing his own book The Case for Legalizing Capitalism).