America - A Failed Republic
By Ted Lang
Exclusive to Rense.com
8-23-6
America's Founding was initially devoid of political philosophies and focused more on the intentions of our Creator. This is easily noticeable in our first and greatest founding document, the Declaration of Independence. But in citing "self-evident" truths, the Whig philosophy ascribed to John Locke attempts to identify the intentions of our Creator as being those of life, liberty and property, the latter changed to "pursuit of happiness" reflective of the conflict regarding slavery. This was combined with the expressed concept of the people's right to create and disband governments, as well as the renunciation of the divine right of monarchs replaced by the God-given unalienable rights of individuals.
I became aware of the work of history professor Joseph J. Ellis one rare Sunday morning a few years back, probably after rejecting all those worse-than-useless Sunday morning political talk shows on the networks and FOX. Thoroughly bored, I channel surfed and landed on C-Span 2. I don't know why I don't spend more time watching C-Span. Although TV is now even more "a vast wasteland" than when Newton Minow described it as such, C-Span, more than any other media entity, does its best to assess the pulse of the public interest and bring meaningful programming to the viewing public. On that morning, a video broadcast of Professor Ellis speaking to a live audience was aired promoting his most recent book on the life and times of our greatest general and first president. I read his book, His Excellency: George Washington, and found his analysis, prose and general delivery beyond excellent.
But on that Sunday morning, what piqued my interest most was Ellis' blow-by-blow synopsis of his account in the book of the battle of Brooklyn. Hailing from New York City as I do, the early accounts of our armed rebellion in the New York-Long Island area fascinated me. And I have always held Washington, the man, in the highest esteem; he will always receive my vote as the most important and best of all American Founding patriots. My favorite American patriot is Thomas Jefferson. This is because I value ideals above action. Although our nation could never have been launched without Washington's active leadership, I find Jefferson's concepts regarding individual liberty my most flavorful cup of tea. This is because he tried to grasp the meaning and purpose of humanity, the very basis of our revolution.
After Ellis' initial presentation, a question-and-answer period followed in which Ellis fielded questions from the audience. The deciding question for me was: "Professor Ellis, who do you believe was a greater president; Abraham Lincoln or George Washington?" When Ellis answered that Lincoln was the more effective, I lost much respect for Ellis' political posture. I had just finished reading Professor Thomas DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln and found his account both revealing and well grounded in fact.
Realizing that Ellis and I are at different poles regarding the eternal question of the individual versus government, I classify Ellis as a big government liberal. I, on the other hand, acknowledge what Ellis and Federalist Alexander Hamilton thought of Thomas Jefferson. Both can be quoted as referring to what they call "Jeffersonian utopianism." Liberals frequently lambaste Jefferson as an impractical idealist, who is long on what ought to be and far short in terms of reality. But I'll go with the old General Electric motto: "If it can be imagined, it can be done!"
Knowing Ellis' liberal big government bias, I nevertheless borrowed two of his books from my local library: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson and Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Again, aware of Ellis' political label and biases, he is all the same a great analyst and fabulous storyteller.
Where am I going with all this? Our republic has lasted 219 years, the oldest republic in history. It is about to come to its end. This behooves the analytical mind to inquire as to what precisely went wrong. And to establish a base for analysis, one needs to launch inquiry from a solidly established intellectual platform. Ellis explains both in "Sphinx" and "Founding Brothers," that the American Revolution passed through two phases. The first was the independence phase in breaking from a government yoke thought to be despotic. When compared to the tyrannical dictatorship today under Bush, George III's government would more approximate Jefferson's concept of political "utopia."
The second phase of the American Revolution took place late in the eighteenth-century and was concerned with creating a more focused, and therefore more powerful, central government. Ellis points out in "Sphinx," that Jefferson was basically "out of the loop" when the Constitution was being written because of his ambassadorship to France at the time of its construction. Jefferson's obsession with individual freedoms comprising his anti-big government stance comprising anti-Federalism was overridden by such powerful central government Federalists as Washington, Hamilton, Adams and Burr. Upon Jefferson's return to America, he was much dismayed by the turn of events.
Jefferson loathed and despised the political intrigue generated by both the Federalist and anti-Federalist camps. To be sure, this represented the beginnings of political parties that Jefferson also despised. Ellis elaborates on Jefferson's views of political parties, offering: "The most novel and wholly unforeseen development of the era was the emergence of political parties. Not that modern-day political parties, with their mechanisms for raising money, selecting candidates and waging election campaigns, were fully formed in the 1790s. (Full-scale political parties with all the institutional accouterments we associate with the term date from the 1830s and 1840s.) Nevertheless, what we might call the 'makings' of political parties originated during Jefferson's time as secretary of state, and he had a crucial role in their creation. The trouble was that the term 'party,' and the very idea for which it stood, had yet to achieve any measure of respectability. A 'party,' as the term was commonly understood, was nothing more than a 'faction,' meaning an organized minority whose very purpose was to undercut the public will, usually by devious and corrupt means. To call someone a member of a political party was to accuse him of systematic selfishness and perhaps even outright treason. The modern notion of a legitimate organized opposition to the elected government did not exist. Indeed it would have struck most members of the revolutionary generation as a contradiction in terms."
Ellis' copyright date on this effort, American Sphinx, was 2004. How rapidly things have changed in a little over two years. And what of Ellis' distinction between a political party and a faction? And note the transparency accorded back then between the terms "political party" and "faction." Wearing his Federalist hat, James Madison penned "Federalist Paper No. 10." The "Federalist Papers" were a series of pro-Federalist essays published in newspapers to convince mainly New York State to ratify the new Constitution. Madison's "No.10" identifies a faction: "By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."
Yet a "common impulse of passion or of interest" constituting a "special interest group," is considered a malevolent entity because it acts contrary to the interests of a nation's people. Madison underscores the dangers of factions in his opening statements of this his most famous paper on Federalism: "Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice."
Madison, for most of his public career, leaned towards Federalism, whereas Jefferson was America's staunchest anti-Federalist. But both Madison and Jefferson would agree on the threat factions posed to a constitutionally limited republic with guarantees and protections for individual citizen freedoms. Yet, by decrying factions, today being described as "special interest groups," a consideration of such factions and special interest groups addressed by both is missing; namely, the missing consideration is money. When a faction or special interest group starts spreading money around in order to buy influence and initiate the passage of legislation favorable to the faction's special interests and agenda, the faction drops to yet another lower level of immorality. The faction can then be identified as a "lobby." Jefferson viewed lobbies as "dangerous machines" totally destructive of the interests of the people and their nation.
It is of great value that we now take the time to assess the impact of the money-spending special interest factions of today in their own right comparing them to today's "business-as-usual" political campaign contributions and their penchant for wining, dining and entertaining our corrupt self-serving politicians who make up our government. And when one understands the foreign nature of paying factions or lobbies relative to this nation's Founding, please consider what now establishes itself as the most powerful lobby in America: "The Israel Lobby" as described by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Lobby power is not measured by the number of members; in fact, it cannot even be measured by the wealth of the lobby. AARP undoubtedly has more members and more cumulative wealth than the NRA and the NRA has 4,000,000 members. But AIPAC, with only slightly over 100,000 members, is indeed the most powerful lobby in America because of its total control over two branches of American government.
As I and Professor Ellis are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, he embracing societal righteousness as administrated by big, powerful, centralized government, while I believe in the basic goodness of the individual, Ellis is comfortable with "Goliath" government and blinded by the ease by which such government can be brought under the control of one totalitarian dictator, and then how that immoral dictator can be brought under the control of a foreign government faction. Madison envisioned a large republic as ours as being an excellent filtration unit for factions. Yet Madison's vision has now been proven horribly wrong. The lobby of a foreign nation now dictates BOTH our domestic and foreign policy and controls BOTH the White House and the Congress.
Here's Ellis in his Founding Brothers on the eternal conflict between the individual and a massive conglomeration of individuals, namely government, and how he views the Constitution's magnificent ambiguities that have thus far allowed our republic to succeed: "There is also truth in theclaim: that the Constitutional Convention should be called 'the miracle at Philadelphia,' not in the customary, quasi-religious sense, whereby a gathering of demigods received divine inspiration, but in the more profane and prosaic sense that the Constitution professed to solve what was an apparently insoluble problem. For it purported to create a consolidated federal government with powers sufficient to create obedience to national laws in effect, to discipline a truly continental union while remaining true to the republican [individual freedom] principles of 1776. At least logically, this was an impossibility, since the core impulse of these republican principles, the original 'spirit of'76,' was an instinctive aversion to coercive political power of any sort and a thoroughgoing dread of the inevitable corruptions that result when unseen rulers congregate in distant places."
Ironically, it is precisely these fears of the "inevitable corruptions that result when unseen rulers congregate in distant places" that lends itself well to Adolf Hitler's condemnation of parliaments and legislatures in his 1925 Mein Kampf.
With all this as background, and when considering the destructive nature of factions, factions Madison averred would be transparent due to the size, breadth and diversity of our republic, and considering also the "coercive political power" of our "consolidated federal government with powers sufficient to create obedience to national laws," now please reflect upon what our elected politicians and the Bush administration have brought forth upon our republic's soil.
Our elected politicians have not only allowed a foreign faction to control all our government in matters both foreign and domestic, but have taken money from this foreign faction calling it a "lobby" and have allowed them, by proxy, to engage US in a war that may lead directly into the greatest war ever visited upon mankind. Nuclear weapons will be used for the first time to achieve tactical advantage.
Our elected politicians have allowed this lobby, the Israel Lobby, to shape both domestic and foreign policy, and allowed them to control our nation's internal elections process [e.g., McKinney, Edwards and now Hillary Clinton] by their financial reward of those whose legislative support are favorable to Israel while sabotaging the careers of those who aren't.
Our elected politicians have refused to demand that the Israel Lobby register as agents of a foreign government, and have continuously allowed them tax-exempt status while at the same time permitting IRS intimidation of Christian religious entities that speak out against the war in Iraq the Israel Lobby demanded.
Our elected politicians haven't even attempted to hold the Israel Lobby, AIPAC, accountable for deliberate acts of espionage against our country.
Our elected politicians have attempted to further restrict the access of American citizens to their God-given right of free debate by considering "hate crimes legislation," to silence American citizens who wish to criticize Israel and AIPAC by defining such criticism as "anti-Semitism."
Our elected politicians have been oft-quoted sympathizing with "Jewish" sentiment concerning the Holocaust perpetrated by the German nation against Jews, yet voted 410 to 8 to allow Israel to perpetrate precisely the same behavior against the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish people in Lebanon.
Our elected politicians have refused to investigate the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, now increasingly being suspected as having been perpetrated by elements inside the Bush administration. Simple "yes" or "no" answers to whether or not "stand down" or "simulation" drills were being conducted that day to render US vulnerable have never been asked or answered.
Our elected politicians have refused to override our so-called "Justice Department" gag restraints placed on FBI informants and others who are capable of shedding light on the criminals in the Bush administration that planned and perpetrated 9/11.
Our elected politicians have given dictatorial war powers to a president who has been proven to have knowingly lied US into an unwarranted, unjust, and totally unnecessary war, costing this nation an unknown number of military dead and wounded because he has refused examination of the statistics establishing the correct death and casualty counts.
Our elected politicians have allowed President Bush and members of his administration to expose a secret intelligence operative during a time of war, an act of treason that has compromised our intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction and activities in Iran, which he and his administration intend to attack next precisely because of this lack of intelligence.
Our elected politicians have allowed President Bush to break both the FISA laws that Congress had established to facilitate undercover warranted searches, and has allowed him to engage the National Security Agency, now under military control, in illegal spy activity on any and all law-abiding Americans.
Our elected politicians have allowed President Bush to violate the Geneva Conventions, carpet bomb defenseless civilians, support Israel's Lebanese holocaust by supplying precision weapons of mass destruction, and have allowed him to use torture in our military operations.
Our elected politicians have allowed President Bush to negotiate treaties with geographically contiguous foreign nations without informing either the people, their representatives, or without relying on the advice and consent of the United States Senate.
We, the unrepresented people of the United States of America, offer the foregoing as well as the Founding context preceding these itemized outrages, to convey that we no longer consent to being governed by "representatives" who allow and condone such high crimes and treason against our Constitution and Founding. We find, that when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to remind Washington D.C. of their responsibilities, and that we hold the following truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We further advise our non-representative elected politicians, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men and women, deriving their just powers from the consent of those governed, and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that a people are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
© 2006 THEODORE E. LANG All rights reserved
Ted Lang is a political analyst and freelance writer. |
