The Recovery of the Constitution

"What is the nature of the choice [between two ideas of government]?"

1) "The same thing that makes us need laws, makes it necessary that those who administer the law also live under law and restraint."

vs

2) "A government really about progress, about history, about changes over time.  The claim of that kind of government is, we've advanced to a place.  And science and technology and organization and knowledge so that we can actually take control of everything.  That means the government can be big and needs to be because it can do so much more than used to be possible. And because so much more in a modern, complex society is needed to be done. And the old restraints are in the way and they impede us from being what we can be.

Those are the two claims. They are not compatible with each other.  You can have one or the other but you can't have both.  And that's the choice that's pending."

(Larry P. Arnn, "The Recovery of the Constitution" lecture 10 in a series from Hillsdale College)


Update 2016-06-22

My FB Comment

Any new law may be a new infringement on a natural right.  

The central issue is whether humans are flawed and must live within checks of our tendencies to abuse power or if we are innately good and therefore government made of people is innately good, ergo more laws would be good.