There's No Such Thing as 'Government'

Conservatism's task is to distinguish between what government can and cannot do, and between what it can do but should not. -- George Will

I am glad more and more people are reaching out to grab a strap on the Anti-Gerson Trolley to Political Sanity Land. But let's please not let the helpy hero crowd (ack! They've expanded into a crowd?!) abuse the discourse such that "government" means nothing but that thing emanating administrative control out of Washington, D.C.

Among the tasks facing conservative Americans, none perhaps is more important than distinguishing among localities of government and not simply types.

The size of these United States (and, only as subsidiary considerations, their population and the fact that the states preceded the union as the sovereign units) has always made federalism necessary to political liberty. De Maistre railed that the dice of history would never roll LARGE REPUBLIC (his caps); only federalism made it possible here. Mere subsidiarity, on the Catholic model, cannot substitute. Locality doesn't just mean 'government' 'empowering' 'people' to do stuff in their own neighborhoods. It doesn't mean permission to 'build community.' It means actual local administration, in geographically specific and unique spots in the United States, in ways that will inevitably and purposely not be the same across jurisdictions.

There will be more suffering in some spots than others. And if you feel like being a helpy hero you will God forbid actually have to move within two hundred miles of the jurisdiction in question and get involved. What a cro-magnon-ishly primitive throwback to not dictating the lives of others from the comfort of the cosmopolii! But that's federalism, folks -- snatching liberty from the jaws of experts.