» The Survival of the Republic: A Second Reason for Reading Montesquieu - Big Government

» The Survival of the Republic: A Second Reason for Reading Montesquieu - Big Government

It is hard to see how republican government can survive in a world of unfunded and partially funded mandates in which the federal government systematically turns the state governments into instruments of federal policy. It is hard to see how it can survive in a world in which the legislative power confers on administrative agencies the right to make regulations that have the force of law, the right to enforce those regulations, and the right to establish courts to adjudicate disputes arising from the enforcement of those regulations. To an ever-increasing degree, decisions that affect our lives are made in camera behind closed doors by women and men who are unaccountable. That is, as Montesquieu once pointed out, the very definition of despotism.

The reason it is hard is BECAUSE we don't make our kids read Montesquieu, or Locke, or Madison, or Mill, etc.