Irish Government’s Confusion about its Raison d'Être

A complete list of the misconceptions and illusions that the Irish government entertains about its role in society would be excessively long for an article on the subject.

Of all of such misconceptions, by far the most prevalent is the idea that the government should micromanage and police every aspect of the lives of the citizens.

This idea, at least implicitly, runs through the vast majority of elected representatives as well as the non-elected permanent government in the Civil Service, quangos and other agencies of the State.

But worst of all, many people have come to accept that it is their lot to have their entire lives monitored and regulated by the government.

And a large proportion of the media, the fourth estate, who one would expect to alert society to this lurking danger, have instead become a veritable fifth column in imposing it on the citizens.

There is literally no limit to how this tendency in government manifests itself. A recent and rather extreme example is the compulsory micro chipping of dogs. If God intended dogs to have been fitted with microchips He could have done it Himself.

While it is true that stray dogs can be a nuisance, and dogs do get lost, making it compulsory to microchip them, like all such nanny-state type legislation, essentially transfers responsibility from the citizen to the State.

But while a ludicrous example like that is illustrative of how far we have deviated from the natural order, it is in the tyranny of everyday regulation of the lives of the citizens that we are being asphyxiated by an overbearing State.

And, before long, microchips in dogs will be found by government to be so useful and convenient that they will want to have them implanted in humans as well.

It is bad enough that the government thinks it has to regulate every aspect of the economy, about which its members and agents have little or no clue as to how it works, much less an ability to predict the potential outcomes of its interventions. With respect to this, suffice to recall the well known assertion of Milton Friedman:

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”

The veracity of this assertion is ever more evident the more intensive involvement by government in the day-to-day life of a people fails to produce positive results. It is as if government sets out with the object of proving Friedman’s dictum to be correct.

But State intervention in the economy is far from the only area in which government action is excessive, nor is it the worst.

Even on issues that have nothing to do with State revenue, raising taxes and controlling public expenditure, our government still seems to believe that it has the duty to control them.

This is especially serious when it involves regulating what the citizens are allowed to say or even to think.

So, for example, we have incitement to hatred legislation which effectively judges the intention behind any words uttered. One of the many problems with this kind of legislation is that any such judgement is necessarily arbitrary as there is no standard reaction, no uniform way of feeling about what people say, nor how offended any sector of society will or won’t be by a statement.

And, by the way, government ministers and others who support the statist line can be entirely disparaging and contemptuous of the citizenry without any apparent risk of prosecution.

Equality legislation and the newly announced anti-trolling legislation being proposed by Senator Lorraine Higgins are along the same lines of excessive government regulation of what are essentially moral issues – how we treat our neighbours.

It would be hypocritical in the extreme for a government that legislated to allow the killing of the most defenceless person in society, the unborn child, to expect its citizens to be nice to each other on their own initiative. Being nice and killing defenceless babies are not really all that compatible.

Instead of trusting the citizens to treat each other with respect, the State will force us to be nice.

From a moral, and even a social, perspective, sincere feelings of respect and goodwill are preferable to the legislatively induced version thereof. Or, for that matter, even sincerely held hatred is less objectionable than State enforced fake niceness.

Our government seems to be oblivious to the fundamental contradiction between, on the one hand, its delusional admiration of and subservience to the international environmentalist lobby which promotes a tribal lifestyle as the ultimate expression of human freedom, and on the other hand, its own hyper-regulation of its citizens.

Among other misconceptions about the purpose of government that are dearly held by our political leaders, we often hear, especially from Enda Kenny, about how various government initiatives will be sending a message to other governments about how Ireland has advanced, evolved or is well disposed towards them. How can anyone take seriously a political leader who thinks that legislation is to be used to send messages rather than to solve problems?

If he wants to send them a message, he should write them a postcard or an email rather than abuse the legislative process for this purpose.

Legislation can indeed send out powerful messages, and for this reason it needs to be used with great restraint, and carefully analysed with respect to its consequences before being enacted.

A large proportion of the Irish public has long since reached the conclusion that the message actually being sent to those who wield power and influence beyond our shores is that, considering how compliant our government ministers have been in enforcing the political, social and economic agendas and ideologies of various transnational bodies, they should be considered for well paid positions to some unelected office when the Irish people expel them from Government Buildings in the next election.

And then there is the illusion expressed in relation to family legislation as well as numerous other areas, that government’s role is to reflect the realities of life in Ireland today. In so far as the government has a role in relation to the realities of life, its role is to restrain the excesses and errors of these realities, and to promote and facilitate their good aspects. But that concept would be lost on our present rulers.

In fact the realities of life are well capable of continuing to exist without the need of a government or legislation to reflect them. Such foolish ideas coming from prominent people in government only serve to bring the very concept of government into disrepute, and leave to the populace with the mistaken idea that they don’t really need a government at all.

To fully appreciate how ridiculous it is to legislate to reflect the realities of life, try applying the same “principle” to every reality of life in Ireland today – for example, murder, burglaries, suicide, violence, organised crime, fraud and political corruption.

But probably the worst type of misuse of the legislative process is to use legislation to directly undermine democracy, as was the case with the Children and Family Relationships Act, which was rushed through the Oireachtas in order to influence the upcoming referendum on the redefinition of marriage.

So, if the purpose of government is not to micromanage the citizens, and not to enact legislation to send messages to the world, and furthermore not to bring legislation into line with the reality of life, nor to influence the outcome of referenda, what else is there?

What is the role of government? It is to promote and defend the common good.

While there isn’t universal agreement on what constitutes the common good, most people (at least those ordinary folks who aren’t part of the government or state apparatus) would probably agree that government control of every aspect of life to the point of choking off all basic freedoms is not in the interest of the common good.

For far too long we have outsourced all our interests and responsibilities to a government that has less interest in our welfare than we do, as well as less of a clue how to facilitate it. The decline of our civilisation is an acute consequence of this.

But the question is: why? Why do government and opposition parties alike zealously unite to usher in such profound and almost irreversible changes to society? What sense does it make?

We can only guess the answer.

Once government loses sight of its raison d’être, that is to serve and promote the common good, it must find a new motive or ideal by which it will be guided. And almost always, on abandoning its responsibility to serve the common good, that new motive, a new ideology really, will be the perpetuation of the State.

Rather than ruling benignly and essentially by consent, the State and its agents in government now prefer to rule by raw force. It looks on its subjects with disdain and suspicion.

When government is directed towards the common good it prefers strong and responsible citizens, strong families, strong communities. It doesn’t fear strong regional government.

However when the government becomes statist, its preference is for weak citizens, families and communities, because weak is easier to keep under control.

Statist rulers tend to centralise all powers in the hands of the executive. They diminish the power of local government, or rather they absorb that power into the executive of a centralised government, as is happening in Ireland today. 

One only needs to look at the plan to abolish county and urban councils. At the same time, small Garda stations are being closed, while the force is becoming ever more centralised and militarised.

And while this is going on the family is being undermined and weakened through legislation. Communities are being destroyed by crime – which the government shows little interest in, or intent of, stopping.

So much for the concept of the balance of powers, of which some of our public representatives speak a lot, but do nothing to put the concept into practice.

Delicate at the best of times, this balance of powers is being systematically demolished under our current government.

The principle of subsidiarity  is essential to the proper functioning of society. We have heard much about subsidiarity from the EU, which claimed to uphold and promote it, even while systematically suppressing it.

According to this principle, social problems should be resolved at local level, only depending on higher authority for support when, and to the degree that, the lower authority can’t resolve them.

What this means is that local and regional authorities should be able to resolve their own problems, without unnecessary interference from the State. And this doesn’t just apply to local government. Families, associations of businessmen or of workers, as well as any groups that represent local or specialised interests, should be free to resolve their own problems as far as possible.

For this to work would depend on the government having at least some degree of confidence in the people. But, ironically, they don’t reciprocate any of the unlimited trust they expect from the citizens.

We would perhaps be a happier society if the government tried to foster more of a sense of responsibility among citizens rather than reducing us to a demeaning subservience.

But to encourage a sense of responsibility may require them to acknowledge a moral law higher than that of the State. Are they likely to do that?