The Last, Best Chance for Enduring Freedom

~~Andrew Packer, Grey Swan Investment Fraternity

“Is the law a help, or a hindrance to liberty?”

This question was posed by David Whalen, a professor of literature at Hillsdale College, at a symposium held last week in Florida. The topic: Freedom and Western Civilization.

Based out of Michigan, Hillsdale was one of the first co-ed colleges since its founding in 1844.

And when the U.S. Department of Education was created under the Carter administration, Hillsdale became one of the only colleges to reject federal funds. That’s allowed them total freedom in terms of what courses they can offer students.

That also gives them the opportunity to ask the really big, philosophical questions in life. About what terms like freedom and liberty even mean. (If those topics interest you, Hillsdale has several such forums around the country each year.)

Another professor, Kevin Portteus, reviewed America’s civic history. If you’ve read the Constitution, you know how government is supposed to run, at least on paper.

Yet, there have been three distinct phases to American history. The Founding Era gave way to the thinking of the Progressive Era just over a century ago. And today’s Modern State is about having an unelected, ruling bureaucracy, getting away from both the Constitution and representative government.

When you look at it that way, you can see that it’s now or never. Donald Trump has one shot to strike a blow against the ever-expanding administrative state.

That’s part of his agenda, of course. And it’s easy to see how Trump would answer the question Whalen posed. He spent the better part of the past four years filing in and out of courtrooms.

Trump was tried and found liable by a civil court for sexual assault claims dating back to the 1990s. The state of New York had to revise its statute of limitations to get the case to trial.

The Constitution explicitly prohibits this kind of activity, which is known as an ex-post facto, or “after the fact” law.

Trump’s business records case was similarly presented to the public. Prosecutors bundled a series of potential misdemeanor “you forgot to cross the T and dot the I” laws into a felonious package.

And prosecutors went out of their way to say that this type of situation wouldn’t be applied to other cases in the future, lest the state of New York accelerate its business exodus.

Following a guilty verdict, the judge’s sentence, occurring after Trump’s election win, was an “unconditional discharge.”

That’s one less legal challenge for Trump to deal with. And his opponents get to claim he’s a “convicted felon.”

Listen, whether you like Trump or not, he’s shined the light on the rise of “lawfare.”

It’s happened in a big, flashy way, as with many things Trump. But it can happen to you. In much more mundane ways.

For instance, the EPA has had broad latitude in declaring what is or isn’t a wetland. Not Congress. The IRS has been interpreting its tax laws for decades, not Congress. And many bureaucratic agencies have created their own court systems to interpret their laws. And Congress has been fine with that, too. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has recently shifted the law away from this runaway unaccountable behavior.

Freedom carries with it responsibilities. As the poet Homer describes it, the “yoke of necessity.”

It’s time to take freedom seriously again. And in the age of the ever-expanding bureaucratic state, it means it’s time to shrink government.

Trump can make some moves through executive orders. Hopefully, he’ll make wise choices based on the findings of the self-proclaimed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

But Congress needs to exercise its freedom to legislate properly, too. And it needs to make decisions not based on what bureaucrats desire, but on making sure that the law remains a help, not a hindrance to society.

While it’s unlikely that Trump can rein in the administrative state to the level that Argentina has, Trump’s ability to appoint freedom-minded individuals, both in his administration and in the judiciary, can make a big impact.

Done right, the U.S. could be on the cusp of a renaissance. Shrinking the size of government at a time when advances in AI and robotics could mean a massive productivity surge that far exceeds that of the rise of the internet.

In 1997, William Strauss and Neil Howe released the seminal book The Fourth Turning. The book examines generational trends, with an eye toward a four-generation cycle that plays out over 80 years.

The Fourth Turning predicted that the 2020-2030 period would be turbulent and marked by significant crises. Given events like the pandemic, 70s-style inflation, and the runaway growth of government spending, not to mention the blatant lawfare, that prediction has been spot on.

The good news? This fourth cycle is much like winter, but after that comes spring with a sense of freshness and renewal. The end of this cycle is in sight, and if we play our cards right, we can not just avoid the worst “Black Swan” events, but set up the next few decades of American growth, leadership, and prosperity.

~ Andrew Packer, Grey Swan Investment Fraternity