I’m here from the government and I’m here to give you a hug.
That is an expansion of the six most terrifying words in the English language and it is one of the sentiments of President Trump’s upcoming State of the Union.
“Americans love their country,” the president will say according to early excerpts of the speech. “And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.”
But while his heart is in the right place, a loving Leviathan is not healthy.
Government, of course, exists to protect the rights of the governed. And perhaps the president is trying to express that sentiment. On the campaign trail, he rightly attacked a government that governed in the interest of the bureaucrat and the politician. And maybe also, when Trump says government he means himself. Unlike some of his predecessors, this president has a healthy affinity for the people he serves.
Those sentiments and habits are good. A benevolent big brother, however, is bad. When government starts getting touchy-feely, when conservatives start turning to Washington for expressions of their “compassion,” for instance, it grows. This sort of federal loving is antithetical to limited government and dangerous to freedom.
Government isn’t one big group date. It isn’t something we all do together. Our republican state is a cold, unfeeling system of check and balances designed to keep rapacious men from tearing each other apart. So, sorry Donald. It’s not you. It’s the Constitution.
