Just what is a statist? My dictionary describes statism as the "concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government," and a statist as "an advocate of statism." I think, however, that definition has been expanded in practice, and that today's statist sees the government (the state) as the means of ushering in the millennium age. In essence, the state replaces God as the savior of mankind. We are seeing this evidenced more-and-more in the government's animosity toward the practice of religion, specifically Christianity.
This, necessarily, creates a few problems for those who hold to a biblical view of history. For where we view the individual as of primary concern to a Creator God, the statist tends to view the "collective community" as the entity in need of redemption. To the statist, all actions must be in the "common interest." Supposedly, this will also be in the interest of each member of the community as a whole. As usually happens when man interposes his views, the difference between theory and actuality is measured in miles and not millimeters.
While the statist often speaks of the sacredness of individual freedoms his actions and his policies belie such a belief. The "common good" is a term the statist loves. It is difficult to argue against the common good. Anyone who does so immediately has some label attached that brands him as an undesirable and an enemy of the people. Another term the statist favors is "equality," and its many variations. Again, it is difficult to argue against the concept of equality. To do so brands one a racist or a bigot, labels that today carry a greater stigma than gangster, crook, thief, liar, etc.
Fascism, Nazism, Communism and Socialism are all forms of statism. All eventually lead to tyranny, as must any form of statism. For contrary to its claim of being for the masses, statism elevates the elite ruling class that controls state functions. It concentrates all powers into a few hands, always a recipe for the abuse of power and an invitation to the dictator and to tyranny.
Our Founding Fathers had a good understanding of this problem with governments and sought to prevent it happening here by the separation of powers they built into our Constitution. Unfortunately, we have witnessed the crumbling of that separation and now see a judiciary that has joined with the administrative branch to usurp powers from individual states and from the people. Powers that our founders never intended a central government to have. In addition, we find complicity among the Congress to such an extent that it has become totally incapable of exerting the kind of action needed to return us to constitutional government.
Many people today think our liberties are granted us by our Constitution. Not so. Our Declaration of Independence (which must be considered in interpreting our Constitution) clearly states those liberties are God given, and that governments are only established to protect them, that when governments fail to do that, and become tyrannical, it becomes the duty of the people to cast off the bonds that bind them to such a government and declare themselves independent and free. Which is what we did in 1776.
Over the last fifty years or so we have seen the gradual decline of the Republic and the gradual encroachment of statism. How has this happened? There are a number of strategies that have been used to accomplish this goal of the elitists, and perhaps we can discuss these in future articles, but one of the very first things that had to be done was to convince us we live in a Democracy and not a Republic. You see, a Republic, while having a form of democracy, does not rest all decisions with the masses. It is a controlled democratic process that allows input from the people but provides reasoned analysis of issues before converting desire into action. Before power could be transferred to a central body, it first had to be placed in the hands of the indiscriminate masses, where immediate gratification is of greater concern than the welfare of future generations. Once the vote was turned over to the masses, it became easy enough to sway those votes through public giveaways.
When the final chapter is written on the great American experiment in democracy, I'm afraid the fallen nature of man, greed, and the desire to get something for nothing will prove to have been its undoing.