Positive and Negative

Sometimes we use "positive" to mean "good" and "negative" to mean "bad". I'm not using them that way here. I want to talk about positive and negative government.

The Bill of Rights illustrates what I'm calling "negative government". This type of government primarily takes a "hands off" role. The purpose of this government is to allow freedoms without restrictions. It defends rights already in place. This view of government doesn't have the government giving rights, but recognizes rights already in place. So if the government does nothing and I have the right to the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, and the right to bear arms, that's a negative. The government didn't positively act to give me those rights nor to restrict them. In this mode, then, the role of the government to act is to protect rights. If a person or an entity tries to infringe on those rights, the government would step in and stop the infringement. But in terms of individual rights and freedoms, that would be a "negative". From the individual's view, nothing happened. The government acted outside the individual do defend existing rights.

Well, of course, the concept of "rights" has greatly expanded in our day. While the originators of the Constitution had 10 amendments on the subject of rights, Americans have vastly overgrown this list. We used to have a right to freedom of religion and speech and bearing arms and such and now we also have a right to healthcare, education, and much, much more. As this list and the concepts behind it grow, the government has to shift modes. It needs to step away from a negative operation and into a positive operation. If the people have a right to quality healthcare, then the government will need to secure it. It will do so by forcibly taking funds from citizens to ensure this right is satisfied. And the "positive" sense here is that it applies funds where funds were not before applied. The government is supplying what was not supplied before. The same is true for education. While education was once thought of as a privilege, it is no longer thus. It is a right. Today's youth are arguing that a college education is a right. More money taken from the people applied to the problem. And, of course, everyone has a right to a living wage and food and housing, so ... you guessed it. More money.

Gradually we have shifted from a negative government, a small entity put in place to secure rights we already had, to a positive government, a large and growing entity responsible for the care, feeding, and nurturing of its people in so many aspects. At some point, considering the growing list of "rights", it will become necessary to remove all money from all people and allow the government to distribute it as needed to satisfy the rights of those with less. Of course, at this point, "those with less" will be moot. That's a government operating in the positive.

No, we're not there. But it doesn't seem like we're headed away from such a structure. Indeed, it seems not only that we're headed toward it, but headed toward it with vigor. At this point it isn't so much about which candidate will get us there. It's the people that are flooding in that direction. It's the "rich" who are the bad guys and those with "less" who are not being afforded their "rights". Those with more are not doing "their fair share". This is the popular language of the day. And personally I don't think that's a positive thing.