No other country throughout the history of the world began its existence with a charter focused on limiting the power of government and maximizing the freedom of its individual citizens.” — Charles Murray, By the People
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Washington, DC (May 12)— American liberty is under assault. Whether working in industry or finance, running a small business, signing up for health insurance, preparing lunch for school-age children, sending a kid to school, or setting up a holiday display, the everyday lives of Americans are being changed by government regulations and decrees. Government knows best these days, and most of us have felt powerless and unable to do anything about it — until now. In BY THE PEOPLE: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission (May 12, 2015, Crown Forum), Charles Murray, author of the New York Times bestseller Coming Apart, offers a provocative manifesto on how to turn back the government’s assault on its citizens.
Murray, a social scientist, first shows us why we can no longer hope to roll back the power of the federal government through the normal political process. The will of the people is constantly being thwarted, whether by executive orders, consent decrees, or corrupt legislative maneuvering. Political processes, meant to check federal power, have been broken, and legislative debates have become stultified and ineffective. The Constitution is being neutered by the courts, and a fourth branch of government — a regulatory state enforcing laws that it has made up on its own — has been created.
At the same time, the federal government has grown at a dizzying rate, and current federal spending accounts for 24 percent of GDP. The American ideal of limited government is on life support: Twenty million Americans now work for the federal government, and federal funding amounts to a quarter of all state and local revenues.
Murray wants to put government back in its proper box by shaping the future, not restoring the past. He points out that there is good news beyond the Beltway: Technology is siphoning power away from sclerotic government agencies and putting it in the hands of individuals and communities; furthermore, people across the political spectrum are increasingly separating from the regulatory state, which nakedly serves its own interests rather than those of ordinary Americans.
Federal government has a fatal weakness, explains Murray: It can get away with its thousands of laws and regulations only if the overwhelming majority of Americans voluntarily comply with them. To regain control and protect the American project, Murray proposes a program of systematic civil disobedience underwritten by legal defense funds to defend ordinary individuals against government overreach. It would make large portions of the 180,000-page Code of Federal Regulations unenforceable through a targeted program that identifies regulations that arbitrarily and capriciously tell us what to do.
In BY THE PEOPLE, Murray recognizes the need for varied perspectives in reshaping the nation. The book’s hopeful message is that rebuilding our traditional freedoms does not require electing a right-thinking Congress or president, nor does it require five right-thinking justices on the Supreme Court. It can be done by “we the people,” using America’s unique civil society to put government back in its place.
Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. To arrange an interview, please contact Meg Cahill at meg.cahill@aei.org or 202.862.7155 or alternatively mediaservices@aei.org or 202.862.5829.
RELATED ITEMS:
EVENT: Rebuilding liberty without permission: A conversation with Charles Murray
INFOGRAPHIC: Charles Murray’s field guide to civil disobedience
VIDEO: Charles Murray and Jonah Goldberg on civil disobedience in America
PODCAST: Charles Murray on By the People
Q & A: By the People: A Q&A with Charles Murray
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