For the past few years, I’ve been arguing that those who like to be called “liberals” should instead be called statists. You know these people. They are the ones who, full of righteous indignation, speak incessantly of injustice and oppression in America. They also speak, in sentences full of smug self-assurance, as if they and only they possess the empathy and intellectual fortitude necessary to provide “solutions” to a host of social “problems” thrust upon a good people by a bad “society.”

Edmund Burke was talking about these statists when he said “by (their) unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. Men would become little better than the flies of summer.”

The American conservative today finds himself in a position of fighting a form of progressivism, which seems to have taken on a life of its own. When confronted with the myriad of changes occurring with such rapidity it is hard to see the common thread linking them all together. But if there is one theme, it is this: Equality.

Mark Levin is correct in saying that this passion for equality is driven by the statist’s deep sense of inferiority. For the passion for equality is, at its core, a passion for anonymity. When the fabric of society is woven together in such a way that one thread cannot be distinguished from another, no judgment is possible. That is why the economic Marxist prefers a guaranteed average outcome. And it is why the cultural Marxist is receptive to the religion of moral relativism.

The statist may well say that he rejects traditional religion because it provides an opiate to the masses. But there is more to his opposition to religion than his fear of a disincentive to revolt against ruling classes. He also fears that religion leads to judgment and intolerance – the kind that reminds him of his inferiority.

Not wanting to be judged, the statist rejects the notion that man is endowed by a Creator with certain unalienable rights. No longer convinced of the permanence of any rights, the statist gives birth to the idea that a constitution – like a right – can be “living” and “breathing” and ever evolving.

And this gives rise to a serious question: If rights are not bestowed by a Creator, then under what conditions do they exist? In other words, who bestows them?

The answer for the statist is, of course, the statist. The answer grants a license to lawless activism that is arbitrary and subject to rationing by the statist himself. It is the kind of lawless activism of which Justice Marshall boasted when he proclaimed “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.” It is a different way of saying “I don’t care what the Framers intended. I care only about what I intend.” Continued...