In the conclusion of his essay, Pierre Lemieux examines the impact the crumbling American ideal has had on the rest of the world, and on Canada in particular.

Dangers of the State

How could a state - the American state - founded on the ideal of individual liberty become so powerful? How could a state embodying the idea of America become so anti-American? It is true that all Western states have followed the same route during the 20th century, and that their citizens have lost many of their traditional liberties. But how can we explain that this also happened in America? In many areas, the conditions of individual liberty and privacy have become even worse than in other countries.

Consider a related paradox. Canada remained a British dominion while America became an independent country. The Canadian state (federal and provincial governments) was in theory unlimited; the American state was trusted with the sacred mission of protecting liberty and was formally constrained by the Bill of Rights. Now, look what happened. At least during the 20th century, virtually all slippery slopes started in the U.S., many years, sometimes decades, before being imported into Canada. The U.S. federal income tax was established in 1913; in Canada, it started in 1917. The U.S. feds introduced unemployment insurance in 1935; the Canadian feds in 1940. The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913; the Bank of Canada in 1935. The American New Deal was imitated by a Canadian Conservative government after a lag of a few years, and much resistance. Born in 1934, the SEC predates its first Canadian sister by 11 years and, even then, securities regulation remains, to this day, a provincial jurisdiction north of the border. Money laundering legislation was introduced in American law in 1970, and plagiarized in Canada only in 1991; the more severe American laws of the 1980s and 1990s were imitated by the Canadian federal government only in 2000. Up to the 20th century, even the right to keep and bear arms was, in some respects, as well protected in Canada as in the U.S.

The creeping up of government ID papers, mainly the driver’s license with photograph, started in the U.S. a few decades ago, before being imitated in Canada, during the 1980s and 1990s. The ubiquitous use of the Social Security Number in the U.S. predated by ten years or so the proliferation of the Social Insurance Number in Canada. The war on drugs, the catch-all crime of domestic violence, the feminist legislative agenda, the environmental craze, the corporate governance witch-hunt, the prosecution of sexual harassment writ large, the anti-smoking jihad, the fat hunt - all these crusades started in the U.S. and were only later embraced by Canadian governments.

There are glorious exceptions where Americans remain freer, but it is seldom completely black and white. Taxes are lower in America than in Canada, but this is only since the 1960s. Self-defense, the right to keep and bear arms, and free speech have resisted better in America, but have also been under attack. Private health insurance is not prohibited in the U.S. as it has been for a few decades in Canada, but 40 per cent of health expenditures come from the taxpayer (compared to 70 per cent in Canada) and the industry is tightly regulated. At any rate, it is only since the ’60s that individual liberties have been under heavy attack in Canada. It is as if, in Canada, the state had simply forgotten to legislate, to regulate, to control, except for importing tyrannical fads from elsewhere, including from the Land of the Free.

How could a country founded on the ideal of individual liberty, with a state devoted to the mission of protecting it, slide down the road to tyranny as fast as, and sometimes faster than, other countries? The economic analysis of politics suggests some explanations. With hindsight, the Founders probably did not take seriously enough the danger of the state, as illustrated in Madison’s argument for a federal government that would be kept in check by the States and the will of the citizens. Perhaps the state is so dangerous that trusting it with any glorious mission is looking for trouble, even if this mission is the protection of liberty. Consider France and America. In both countries, the typical citizen thinks that his is the country of the rights of man, and that everywhere else in the world people are in chains. In both countries, the state has become an irresistible force for surveillance and control - more advanced in one country or the other depending on the people’s capacity for resistance and the vagaries of history and culture. Compared to these two monsters, the mission-less Canadian state remained humble for a long time, and protected individual liberty by its lack of ideas and initiative.

Failure and Hope

We must admit that the idea of America is, if not dead, in great danger. Can you imagine that any of the admirers of America I have cited, or any of the Founders, would see today’s America as a free society? It is certainly less unfree than many other countries in the world. It may or may not be less unfree than other Western countries, depending on which area of human activity is considered. But it is far from the idea of America.

Not all hope is lost. Some barriers to power remain in America, and some powerful symbols of the idea of America survive. The right to keep and bear arms seems to have recently regained some lost ground. Freedom of speech is still better protected in America than anywhere else. More importantly, it is in America that the advancing steamroller of the state is meeting the most resistance.

If liberty and civilization have any future, the world needs the idea of America.

Regards,

Pierre Lemieux
for The Daily Reckoning

Source: The Idea of America, Part II