Our federal government has but one purpose: to secure those natural rights granted to every human at birth.  To meet that end, it houses a State Department to promote friendly relations with neighboring nations; a Defense Department to deter aggressive nations; a Treasury Department to coin a common currency; a Justice Department to administer fair and equal law.  And of course it houses our Congress, a bi-cameral legislative body granted with the power to demand execution of federal rules codified through deliberation, and our Presidency, an office granted with the resources to execute Congress’ demands. 

Beyond these essential functions, the federal government is relatively limited in its power.  Not by law, I’ll grant you, but by reality.  Take, for example, Hurricane Katrina.  Ignoring causes posited by both partisan hackery and the astounding level of stupidity within our citizenry, the federal government failed to mobilize relief efforts in a reasonable time because the physics of a large govenment make a quick response impossible.  As a nation, we’ve grown accumstomed to the federal government being a large, cumbersome, wasteful and inefficient body.  We rarely put our faith in the government to do the right thing the right way, yet we respond to its failures as if some blatant betrayal has occured.

This is not to say that the federal government did not critically fail the residents of New Orleans, because they did…decades ago.  Its failure did not subject only cities so poorly planned as New Orleans to disaster, but every city in every united state regardless of its dominant race, class, or religion.  And it all began when Emperor Roosevelt the Second, aided by the advent of air conditioning in D.C., blitzkrieged the 10th Amendment with his acronym campaign. 

I admire President Rooselvelt; his wartime leadership was superb.  But I’d be remiss if I were to ignore his presidential encroachments.  While attempts to pack the Supreme Court with judicial yes-men and his rejection of President Washington’s 2-term tradition shocked his contemporary pundits, they are minor blips in comparison to his expansion of the federal government.  And it’s no coincidence that the federal government grew exponentially during FDR’s reign and once air conditioning had been installed in the Capitol building.  The stifling heat and humidity of Northern Virginia’s swamplands, so unbearable that they were donated to the federal government, had done a remarkable job of cleaning the D.C. streets of panty-waisted legislators during the summer months.  Like a fever prevents the growth of a body’s infection, thick and sticky air prevented the growth of our nation’s government. 

But let us not forget that we continued to re-elect FDR and his now full-time Congress, because we allowed the red devil on our shoulder to drown out the white angel on the other with the persuasive but incorrect notion that our great depression was a result of capitalism’s and federalism’s failure.  We allowed FDR to create administration after administration, social program after social program, duplicating and relegating to obsolescence state programs serving the same needs.  And we said nothing, marched nowhere, and failed to consider the long-term implications of such an obvious and destructive erosion to the tenets of federalism.

As the federal government’s purview grew, the state’s shrank.  No longer would states be required to create systems of self-sufficiency, because a rich uncle had appeared on the horizon with deep pockets and a big stick.  We neglected to indentify an inverse change in state govenment size.  We did not recognize that a state government with drastically reduced responsibilities should shrink, not grow or remain unchanged, and we even allowed state legislators to convince us periodically that their bodies needed expansion and increased funding to deal with concerns already being handled by Washington. 

And so we’re left with what we’ve got now: an enormous federal government, bloated and rotund, reacting to crisis with the agility of a Turkish oil tanker overloaded with granite; 50 state governments, missionless and powerless, reacting to nothing and working with intenal disharmony.  Instead of being forced to fund a federal social program not authorized in the Constitution, I should be forced to fund only those social programs my state legislature has been mandated to enact.  Yet I am forced to fund a myriad of federal social programs, and my state finds itself with nothing but free time and excess revenue it can now use to create programs that serve few beyond the legislators creating them.

Those who formed this nation knew that we “are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right [ourselves] by abolishing the forms to which [we] are accustomed.”  They also believed that “light and transient causes” should not by themselves bring about such abolishment, that only a “long train of abuses and usurpations” upon our natural rights warrants revolution.  I disagree.  A single ant may not require expensive extermination efforts, but an endless colony of ants, each seeking a benefit gained only through confiscation of a crumb of personal property here, a grain of nautral rights there, will render us powerless against things bigger and more destructive.

I understand the necessity of evils such as governments, taxes, legislators, and laws.  Do not mistake my words as condemnation of our federal government or its leaders.  Problem is, I can’t find our federal government, and its leaders are visibly absent.  All I can see is an endless column of hungry ants and a colony growing quickly towards a critical mass.  Chew on that, Sandra Day.