Proper Role of Government

Liberals vs. conservatives part 2 taken from video series I'm doing with my son'

In our first installment we talked about one major difference between liberals and conservatives which was their ideas on the role that government should take in addressing the issues of the day. Today we will look a little closer at the proper role of government.

We'll start with a little story that I have adapted from someone else- let's say there is some land far from any city and outside of the boundary of any state.  We decide to move there because of the opportunity available in this land.  As several of us move there and start productive business opportunities a little community develops, but we don't have a government.  As individuals we have the right to guard our property and protect our families, but as time goes on we find that we have to spend too much time on protection.  As a result, we can't be very productive, so we get together and hire a sheriff to provide the protection of life and property and government is born.  We only have the right to delegate to the sheriff what we have the right to do for ourselves.

In our community, let's say that you have two cars and I need a car, and I think that you should give me your extra car.  I have no right to demand that you give me your extra car.  Even if everyone in the community thinks that you should give me your extra car, we have no right to demand it.  If we don't have the right to demand that you give me your extra car, we also cannot rightly have the sheriff confiscate your extra car to give it to me. Again we can only delegate to the government whatever we have a right to do ourselves- anything more than this is tyranny. 

This short story illustrates the conservative constitutional view of the proper role of government- that government has delegated to it only the powers to protect our basic rights of property, life, and our own pursuit of happiness.

Ezra Taft Benson said “The government itself has no innate power or privilege to do anything. It's only source of authority and power is from the people who created it.”

Where do the liberals fall in this story?  Liberals believe that it is right for the government to confiscate your car and give it to me.  They teach that it is good for the government to forcibly take your possessions to distribute them to others.  In their view the liberals think that government bureaucrats can better determine where the product of you efforts should be directed.  They tell us that this is how you “care” for the needy by forcibly taking from some to give to others.

Ezra Taft Benson again said “Any attempt through governmental intervention to re-distribute the material rewards of labor can only result in the eventual destruction of the productive base of society, without which real abundance and security for more than the ruling elite is quite impossible.”

Does compassion for those in need have any place in this?  Yes. Conservatives believe that we are morally obligated to care for the truly needy, but that people must be free to choose to help.  Liberals also believe in the obligation to help those in need, but feel it right to use the government to forcibly take your possessions to hand out to others without any say from you at all.  Liberals have the desire to do good, but want to do good with other people's money.

We discussed the proper role of government from a conservative and liberal perspective. The conservative idea that government can only rightly do those things that we have a right to do ourselves vs. the idea that government is unlimited and can do and take anything that they choose.

Where do you stand?