It has been cried from the rooftops: “The Democrats want to nationalize the oil industry!” And it is true. But why should anyone really be surprised? The Democrats have long stated their desire to nationalize entire sectors of the nation. Recall the recent ‘debates’ about the American health care industry. And what is ‘Social Security’ but a nationalized retirement account? Public education is simply nationalized schools. Academia long ago succumbed to government largesse, as did organized labor—and neither of these could survive as they are without massive government intervention.
Nationalization is simply taking something from a free people and turning that thing over to the state, whether that thing is an industry or investments or property. The official reason behind such a ‘taking’ is the idea that the state—the federal government—can manage the thing more effectively. The state, as a reflection of the General Will of the people, will eliminate capitalist greed and corruption and run the thing efficiently.
The actual reason for nationalization is something quite different.
In modern societies there are three sources of power and influence, the family, religion and the state. Society is healthy—it is rational—when none of these usurp the prerogatives of another. The state has no business preaching a religion. The family has no business collecting taxes. Religion has no business running the military. And the fact of the matter is that society has nothing to fear from the family and from religion. Associations among these are entirely voluntary.
The state is a different matter. Nothing about it is voluntary. The reason is that it has arrogated to itself all the coercive power of society. It has developed a huge apparatus of law and bureaucracy. It agents are everywhere, in every city and in all fifty states. One hundred years ago it was rare for an American to encounter an arm of the federal government outside of the Post Office. Who can possibly say this today?
And if you really, really want an up close and personal encounter with the state, do not pay your taxes. You can leave your family, you can avoid tithing at church, but refusing the dictates of the state will cause you to lose your property, your freedom and sometimes your life. That, dear reader, is power.
Of course, one expects the federal government to wield power. That is its point, its only point. It is to use its power keep the seas free and to protect the property of its citizens. Nothing more—and certainly nothing less. Trouble ensues when it moves into the territory reserved for the family or religion. When the state gets into the business of telling citizens what sort of foods they can eat and what sort of cars they can drive, of forcing their children into schools of indoctrination, of telling them that they have to accept a new morality that allows homosexual marriage, you have a problem.
The writers of our constitution were not fools. They well understood that because government possessed the sole coercive authority in the nation, that it would tend to encroach upon every aspect of society. One solution was to limit and divide its power and to give each branch countervailing power over the other two.
They provided another solution, and that was the 2nd Amendment. This was not written to prevent crime but to serve as a last resort against a voracious, confiscatory and lawless government.
And ‘lawless’ well describes any action of our government to seize—to nationalize—the oil industry. One searches the Constitution in vain for such authority. In fact, one can search the Constitution for much of the things that our government performs as a matter of course—welfare, social security, public education and the like. It matters not at all that some or most Americans find such things desirable. What matters is if the power to institute them can be found clearly stated in the Constitution. If not, then such things are illegal. And once one admits to one illegal function of the state, the next is an easy thing to do—and the entire meaning and usefulness of the Constitution has disappeared.
Consider: When was the last time you heard some journalist or congressman or bureaucrat question the constitutionality of something the state wished done? As a reminder, nationalization of industries is what happens in such places as Venezuela and Cuba. The fact that such a thing can be mentioned here in the US as within the purview of the state is more than a little disturbing.
It is that the American government is claiming those same privileges, prerogatives and powers as those claimed by socialist and communist regimes. And all of this with nary a peep of protest from the movers and shakers of our nation.