The election is now over, and the winner was a candidate with a clear history of support for expanding government. We can count on the next four years bringing more government programs, more government spending, and more government involvement in our lives.

I could have written that paragraph before the polls closed; in fact, I could have written it last year, or ten years ago for that matter. The sad truth of American politics is that government growth is here to stay. Neither Bush and the Republicans nor Kerry and the Democrats had any intention of restoring limited Constitutional government.

The fact that these two candidates paid nothing more than lip service to this principle is bad; that the vast majority of my countrymen appeared not to notice is equally troubling. It is clear that democratic socialism is winning a gradual victory over individual liberty and self-governance in America. What, if anything, can be done to reverse this trend?

I suppose one idealistic answer is that at some point an electoral victory by a small-government candidate could turn the tide. But not only does that appear more unlikely with each passing day, it has been suggested that the rise of big government is reflective of the moral character of the populace and no political solution can rectify it.

Are We Wasting Our Time?

If an ever-expanding state is coming from the moral decline of the American people, than there will never be a return to limited government until that moral defect is corrected. Until that time, the people will continue to support one statist politician after another. Unless a change of attitude takes place, we will keep right on going as we have.

We already know that both Presidential candidates largely ignored the question of liberty. And we can catch a glimpse into the hearts of voters by looking at how various ballot initiatives did in this last election.

Californians voted down a proposal to fix the more draconian aspects of their three-strikes sentencing law, cigarette smoking was banned in parts of Ohio, and new minimum wage laws were passed in Florida and Nevada. Maine shot down a proposal to cap property taxes and South Dakota stopped an effort to remove taxes from groceries. In blue states and red, new taxes were erected, new government programs created, and new hurdles put in the path of personal autonomy.

I don't mean to be pessimistic; there were some victories and the fact that some of these things were on the ballot at all is a good sign. Still, some of the results from Nov. 2nd were downright disheartening and they suggest that there is still overwhelming support for government coercion as the chief means of organizing society.

Perhaps there is no political solution to the growth of the state. Maybe trying to form political parties and elect political candidates is a waste of time at this point. What if it is all meaningless until we redress the moral and philosophical base that is producing the drive for collectivism?

A Paradox for Liberty

Of course, perhaps I'm guilty of putting the chicken before the egg. A person cannot hope to act morally unless they can make a choice between the moral and the immoral. So long as the state continues to proscribe societal action, so long as it continues to script more and more of our lives from start to finish, it serves to hinder moral development.

Giving increasing amounts of state aid to single mothers has correlated to a rise in the number of out-of-wedlock births in the past four decades. This is one example which illustrates that government "safety nets" can remove the negative consequences for certain actions and increase the likelihood that they will be repeated in the future. The effect of state intrusion is a less moral environment.

Therefore, to cast aside attempts at effecting political change is perhaps unwise. It ignores the connection between how moral a people are and what kind of government they live under. Given today's leviathan state, is it any wonder that people prefer democratic relativism to moral principle? That they reject persuasion in favor of coercion?

Government schools are always going to strive to be secular and amoral, thus ensuring that future generations will be morally malnourished. The state will generally strike out at organized religion, wherever it exists, lest subjects disobey political authority in favor of a higher power. The family, another source of moral instruction, is also suffering from an overindulgence of state power.

How often do Americans debate deep moral questions in a way that really matters? Many of the moral debates that take place occur on a purely superficial level. Rarely does anyone get into why something is right or wrong and then apply that principle more broadly. For too many people, state force and majority will serve as an easy way out, a quick fix for tough problems that demand moral resolve.

I believe it is a fundamental truth that self-governance is tied to morality—only a free people can truly be moral and only a moral people can long be free. So the question becomes, how can morals be strengthened when the government salts the soil from which morality springs? And if moral development is thus retarded, how can the political system ever change to allow for the environment in which morality develops?

It's a paradox for which there is no easy answer.

Scott Kauzlarich is a professor of Social Science at Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, IA. He can be contacted at: