Coming to grips with Trump

4. Individual rights

"Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely – what our Constitution calls the Blessings of Liberty."

Action on these four fronts, Roberts claims, will decide America's future. Whilst Trump has not given official recognition to the Heritage Foundation scholarship, it is reasonable to assume that it will have a profound effect on his administration. A similar project in 1971 had a major influence on the policies of Ronald Reagan.

The consequences of elite rule

When we pass responsibility to bureaucratic experts, we create a myriad of problems.

The more the state provides for us, the more it will want to control us.

If the state provides education, then it will want to ensure that its own ideology dominates, that its curriculum is taught. If it supports the media, then it will want to ensure that information is not misleading - that only its views are presented. Satire will be verboten. If it supports the arts, then it will want to control the exhibition of pictures and plays, determining which are pornographic, obscene, or blasphemous. If the state provides health care, then it will want to legislate to restrict behaviours that endanger our health – not only hard drugs but also alcohol, tobacco, and sugar.

During Covid, states mandated vaccination, restricting access to employment and social gatherings for the unvaccinated. In Australia, the government famously stopped world tennis champion Novak Djokovic from competing in the Australian Open. In the USA, the government coerced the social media companies into censoring the Great Barrington Declaration.

This is the reality of modern democracy. Societies are ruled from afar by an elite clerisy. Frequently their rule is accompanied by an irritating assumption of their own intellectual and moral superiority. They are sure that they know what is best for the masses. They create new laws and regulations in such profusion that citizens cannot possibly be fully informed of their obligations. Moreover, influential citizens use the state to impose their views and preferences or gain financial favours in return for political support.

Throughout the world, democracies are failing. So many issues have binary solutions with no possibility for compromise. Governments are finding it impossible to satisfy the irreconcilable differences between their citizens - Brexit in the UK, Abortion in USA, The Voice in Australia. Everyone wants their opinion heard and legislated. Those in the minority are obliged to accept laws and regulations which they regard as anathema. Wide-spread discontent ensues. People on opposite sides of key issues regard their opponents with contempt. This is not a sound basis for a good society.

Subsidiarity

The antidote to these errors is the principle of subsidiarity, a concept embraced by thinkers as diverse as G.K. Chesterton, Alexis de Tocqueville, Pope John-Paul II, and Ludwig von Mises.

Subsidiarity is the principle of devolving decisions to the lowest practical level, that what individuals can do, society should not take over, and what smaller societies can do, larger societies should not take over. We do whatever we can ourselves, with our family, friends, and neighbours. We form voluntary organizations – businesses, clubs, and societies – so that like-minded citizens can achieve their common objectives. We keep government activity as local as possible, jointly funding only those activities that the group agrees to be valuable, keeping citizens closely involved in what is relevant to them.

Subsidiarity facilitates a wider range of solutions, quicker and more informed decision-making, and the personal involvement of more citizens. Because there is a diversity of solutions there is less chance of one bad decision causing a systemic failure. Because there is more responsibility for one's actions there is less opportunity for moral hazard.

Pope John-Paul II captured the essence of subsidiarity in Centesimus Annus (1991):