Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch is a constitutional scholar. Gorsuch was instrumental in repealing the Chevron Doctrine.

Chevron, passed in 1984, amassed incredible powers to the office of the president, his Administrative State, and bureaucrats.  The entire regulatory apparatus grew like a cancer and spread the disease of a more powerful central government at the expense of individual freedom.

Senator Chuck Schumer and other prominent socialists, communists, Marxists, fascists bemoan the fact that Gorsuch halted their efforts to attain unaccountable government power through regulatory excess and bureaucratic fiat.  Schumer’s latest attack is in support of the government-employed bureaucrat, not the citizen who works in the private sector.  His attitude is typical of any and all bigger-government types, Democrat or Republican.

Who pays for the government worker?  You do, through taxes and debt.  And if you are crushed with excessive taxes, debt, and regulatory burden, how will you continue to generate income that is taxed to pay for these bureaucrats who work in the government?  Schumer’s argument is self-defeating.

This argument raises deeper issues.  Namely, do you, as an individual, have any right to ownership of your property?  Further, if you worked for that property, is it yours or the government’s?  Herein lies the entire purpose of our Constitution and our nation’s founding.

Let’s ask another question: if it’s okay for you to decide, of your own free will, to donate money or property to a cause, is it also okay for the government to take, against your will, your money, your property, and allocate it to others?  And if you would prefer to allocate your property, the money you earned, for the safety of your family, are you greedy or wise?  The fact is that not only was our nation founded on the concept of the individual and his free will, but our founding documents mirror the Creator’s intention when He manifested the individual person.

The big-government types would try to convince you that you are guilty of greed — that by taking your property, they are actually helping you.  The methods they use are taxation and regulation.  Just how much is too much?  Just how effective are all these government programs?  Is education better today?  Now that we have Obamacare, how is your medical health?  Have we won the war on drugs or poverty?  We’ve tried the more-government-is-better way for 100 years.  Maybe it’s time to try a better way.

Chevron moved us closer to government control through one person — namely, the president and his Administrative State.  Chevron and people like Schumer are the antithesis of the inalienable rights noted in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the ownership of property.  Those individual rights gave rise to the most powerful economy in the world.  That economy is defined by the term capitalism, which is free trade between individuals without outside interference.  Capitalism is enlightened self-interest. 

In order to protect the rights of the individual, our founding fathers created the rule of law, the Constitution, to control our national government.  They realized that the greatest threat to individual freedom would come not from outside our borders, but from our own government — in particular, sick men who would use the power of our government to amass even more power for themselves.  This is not exclusive to one party or the other; it is the real danger we faced then and today. 

We are not at the end of the line.  And critical as last week’s election was, it’s not the be-all-to-end-all.  We individuals have our free will and a Constitution to protect it.  Our nation has survived world war and civil war, depressions and recessions, the worst that communism can throw at us.  We prevail because the power of the individual is based in the eternal.

Jay Davidson is founder and CEO of a commercial bank. He is a student of the Austrian School of Economics and a dedicated capitalist. He believes there is a direct connection between individual right and responsibility, our Constitution, capitalism, and the intent of our Creator.

Image via Picryl.