Wannabe Big Government Strongmen in Both Parties

Fred Thompson is not your garden-variety Southern conservative - he actually opposes Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and abortion.  Why?  A little belief that once had some currency in Republican circles - federalism.  Contra the wannabe big government strongmen in both parties, Federalists recognize that some issues are better addressed at local or private-sector levels.

I'm no conservative, yet I question at times the hope that many democrats put into the supposed power of government to fix all of our problems.  I don't want to denude our federal government of its power, but I think we liberals can benefit from  localizing our activism and strategies for changing the direction of our country.  It's not all about neo-hippie marches on Washington, with cameras rolling.  Sometimes we need to march on our local school boards or zoning commissions, far from the reporter's microphone.

I need to do some homework on Martin Luther's understanding of the role of government.  He believed in a strong government that establishes order, restrains evil, and provides for the common good - but at the local, state, or federal level?  Of course, I doubt he had much to say about what we Americans would describe as a federalist distribution of governing authority.  What might be legitimate adaptations or appropriations of Luther's view on government in our American context?  This could be an interesting discussion.

Hat tip to Dick Polman's American Debate (a must-read political blog) for his look at Fred Thompson .

Comments

[Diane]

Well, regarding Luther, remember the Peasants' War. I think he can be of some mixed usefulness. I think he lived in a REALLY big government, in some sense.

I hear you re: government solving all our problems (not) and also getting involved on the local level.

I'm still looking for the citation for this because I heard it on the radio, but I did hear once that it was Teddy Roosevelt that first envisioned government getting bigger. He did this because of what he saw as the growing influence of corporations, and thought government needed to be bigger in order to balance that out.

Partly because he was a rich guy himself, he just didn't buy the idea that rich corporations were at all times and at all places going to do the right thing by the people.

I think (in true Lutheran fashion) that the issue of big/small government and what we do for ourselves versus what we assign to government is not an either or but a both and. The trick is to discern when is the time to advocate for something, whether it is a stop sign (locally) or a law protecting children from abuse, or a law re: what a corporation can do, and when is the time to realize that this is not an issue for government to solve, but for individuals.

Also, it helps to realize that, in truth, in a democracy, the government is US. (by the people, for the people, of the people).

[liz]

Have I ever recommended mirrorofjustice.com to you? It's a blog by a group of professors (several of them former profs of mine) from Catholic law schools who often blog about these issues. I really like the conversations going on over there.

They also write a lot about the (supposedly Catholic in origin) notion of solidarity, which is based on the idea that you are supposed to effect change in the smallest possible social unit. So, social change begins in the family. When the family needs help, it asks its neighborhood. When the neighborhood needs help, it asks the city. And so on... municipality, county, state, federal govt, etc.