Americans’ freedom was eroded by a series of gradualist incursions. We became habituated to governmental intrusions upon previously private spheres. Each was introduced delicately, a mere camel’s nose under the edge of the tent. Each was unctuously justified as “necessary” and “for the greater good.” And each was a bridge to far more sweeping, costly, and tyrannous measures.
But what’s passed from one generation to the next, politically, is seldom critically reassessed.
Unfortunately, gradualistm — what Isabel Paterson called the “ratchet action” of government — only works in one direction. It cannot be effectively opposed by a program of counter-gradualism. For the import of the “camel’s nose under the tent” tactic is that by getting the citizenry to accept it, statists establish State supremacy over all things as an unchallengeable principle. After that, the game is lost.
It’s strict-construction Constitutionalism or tyranny. There are no other choices. Unfortunately, strictness of any sort is currently frowned upon as “insensitive,” or “not sufficiently multicultural,” or some such, so tyranny is what we’ve got.
