“Occupying” Mentalities

Photo from UPI/John Angelillo

Publicly expressing grievances in a lawful, respectful, and peaceful manner is a delicate and precious attribute of Liberty that all American citizens equally possess, wholly appreciate, and jealously cherish.  It is a welcomed event whenever any citizens decide to gather and publicly profess their self-interests, personal passions, and political grievances.  Every law-abiding American should always warmly welcome a public redress of grievances, no matter the repugnancy or legitimacy of claims, or the physical appearance of the claimants.

Self-government is a rare human treasure.  It demands active civic participation from the proprietors, that is, every citizen who elects servants to represent their particular interests.  An apathetic, cynical, and ill-educated citizenry cannot govern themselves; they are prone to participate in their own enslavement, or willingly enslave others. 

American citizens, and public servants alike, have a solemn responsibility, and hold a common, sacred, and noble trust - bequeathed to all of us by the ancestors of America’s freedom and independence - to live equally under, and have respect for, all the laws we enact through our popular assemblies.  Our various legislatures, state and federal, are the only legitimate mechanisms for our prosperity as free and independent citizens.  America is a nation governed by reasonable laws and equitable justice.  Both principles enable each of us to contend with the abusive conduct of our legislatures by reckless majorities and obstructive minorities.  If any American laws prove incompetent or unjust, citizens, after mature public deliberation and experience, acting through the ballot box and their elected officials, properly design a remedy.

It is a misguided notion to assume all the inherent excesses and deficiencies exhibited by our free society, legislative assemblies, its structural processes, and institutional intricacies, can simply disappear by enacting legislation.  Yet the American system is the best human invention devised, so far, that enables this proud nation of more than three-hundred million free people to protect Liberty’s flame.  Only in this American system will social tranquility grace our society with the peace, happiness, and repose deserving of a free and independent Republic.  Tranquility can only spring from our careful maintenance of Liberty’s fragile flame, managed through the honest, just, and transparent operation of our governing institutions.

Patrons of discontent that “occupy” Zuccotti Park - a publicly accessible, and privately owned, outdoor space in downtown Manhattan, New York - manifest extreme social philosophies that are not new additions to American political discourse.  The minstrel atmosphere of events, and ridiculously redundant denunciations, do not confuse, nor fool, this independent observer of fact and circumstance.  This chorus of “occupying” voices sings a clear “tune.”  You may even utilize a narrow brush to paint this small, loud and mostly youthful, troop of progressive flatterers with the radical left-wing colors of the Democrat Party.

Ironies are pouring out from the discombobulated morass of distempered Democrat revelers.  A relatively small group of protesters - brazenly “occupying” a private/public space, to combat the American system’s inherent unfairness, and, of course, the greedy corporations extorting labor and controlling our governments - have the audacity to disregard lawful and useful public ordinances, diminish and defile private property, using that property for monetary and political profits, distributing food to the public, attracting improper and unruly elements, which is not befitting of a peaceful public display of patriotism in a free Republic.  This behavior is more suited to the tempestuous nature of anarchy and despotism.  This little protest has morphed into a twenty-four hour a day public disruption.

What part of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” do the “occupiers” not understand? Breaking legitimate laws and public ordinances, duly enacted by elected public servants, suggest to this free citizen, at least, that a breach of the public peace has indeed occurred, several times, on a daily basis.  Laws still matter in America, even the minor ones governing human behavior in public spaces. 

Speech is a sacred right.  Public assemblages petitioning for particular redresses are fundamental rights.  “Occupying” encampment tactics are different species of expression, falling under an alternate category.  Several hundred people parading across the Brooklyn Bridge without a permit is in fact against the law, and the result was mass arrest.  This was just the spectacle many were looking for, and the fiendish favorites flocked for a fantastic feast.

In fact, the “occupiers” are an organization petitioning Wall Street, not Pennsylvania Avenue, for a redress of economic grievances that originate from the District of Columbia.  It is even more curious, and a rather absurd development, that the “occupiers” think they represent ninety-nine percent of the people in this country.  They, and certain media outlets, have created a neat little myth down there at Zuccotti Park.  To claim their Utopian General Assembly speaks on behalf of the American people is an extravagant notion. 

In case the “occupying” tenants of Zuccotti Park did not realize - maybe they only read their own newspaper and listen to Democrat propaganda - there is not a credible public forum, outside of the federal government, that speaks on behalf of all Americans.  “Occupying” elements consistently claim that the federal government is just a puppet of corporations, who enrich themselves by exploiting laboring classes.  This has been a Democrat tenet for more than a hundred-fifty years.  It is a paranoid conception, nothing but a conspiracy theory, which always assumes, without any exceptions, corporations will use our federal government to destroy American Liberty, yet, Americans receive the best wages for their labor and the highest living standards in the world, all this with many more corporations, and greater Liberty, then ever before.  This great trend of human freedom will persist as long as private property remains protected.

There is no legitimate assembly outside of the United States Congress, except for a Continental Convention, when actually called for by two-thirds of the states, which can claim they represent the interests of all the American people, and every state of the Union.  Every other entity is merely a particular interest group, most especially a group that considers itself an organization, conducting political demonstrations, accepting private donations, and receiving an assortment of items delivered to the UPS store nearby.  This assemblage of bold adherents to radical governing ideologies are nothing more than an organization comprising of a few well placed, and sufficiently staffed, professional groups, who are paid to further a perverse global agenda seeking to undermine law and justice in this nation, and other independent nations around the world.      

Who gave this mutinous allotment of malingerers – the fervent sympathizers of progressive governing philosophies - a special trust reserved for our public servants assembled in legislatures?  American citizens only use proper instrumentalities and forums available in this Republic.  What state assembly, in this great Union of Republican governments, granted a special designation to this minuscule population of roving vagabonds to speak for so many American citizens?  It is a great error of reason to suggest that “occupiers” represent ninety-nine percent of the population, just as erroneous as extrapolating from polling data the overall sentiment of America.  The only numbers that matter in America are the votes tallied after an election.  Everything else is irrelevant.

“Occupying” forces do not even come close to the thirty-thousand that showed up for the most recent Columbus Day Parade in New York City, which “occupiers” even protested, a favorite target of the extreme left.  The number of individuals actually camping overnight in Zuccotti Park is rather inconsequential, especially compared to the drunken masses on New Years Eve, in which the NYPD does an outstanding job, with 1600-pound horses, managing, defusing, and controlling rowdy masses.

It should be a lesson learned, for any private property owner, municipality, city, or state government not to allow protesters – much smaller in number than they appear– to pull out sleeping bags and air mattresses, erect crude structures, receive commercial deliveries, accept monetary donations, storing food, feeding themselves, and the general public, all on publicly accessible private property, with no permits or licenses at all to conduct such activities.  Are these people gathering overnight considered tenants of One Liberty Plaza?  If so, they should, at the very least, pay rent to the property owner, taxes to the city, for the commercial and political misuse of a space that is meant to be publicly accessible, and whose property owner, in the property description document, informs prospective tenants that the park plaza has nice views of the financial district, trees, and plenty of public seating. 

Well, the proper and legitimate tenants, the taxpaying residents and businesses of the neighborhood, and the public in general, can no longer enjoy that once tranquil space.  If a narrow path weaving through numerous personal encampment zones, articles of several descriptions strewn all over the seats, tables, and landscaping walls - not to mention they are killing mums, very Anti-Earth - is considered publicly accessible, a serious legal problem exists and needs immediate clarification. 

The rambunctious “occupants” rudely pushed aside the rest of the public, taxpaying residents, businesses, and tenants of One Liberty Plaza, usurping jurisdiction over Zuccotti Park, and even changing the public/private ordinances, nature, and name of the space.  There is even a continuous contingent of police officers being paid taxpayer money to manage this delusional demographic.  Police officers must have other important duties, rather than babysitting an unpredictable youthful crew.  “Occupiers” should just get out and go home already, start paying rent and taxes, or, at least, financially burdened by arrest, conviction, imprisonment, patient bills, fines, and fees for breaking several public laws governing reasonable human behaviors.   

“Occupying” tactics, condoned and legitimized by a few predictable lawmakers, and a well-paid celebrified breed, leads this free citizen, at least, to assume it is quite all right for other individuals to simply, and “indefinitely,” engage in similar activities in and on any other city space that is accessible to the public.  Nonetheless, the “occupiers” are continually breaking public ordinances, which do not really seem to be operating at all.  Should we suppose, then, as rational creatures of nature, endowed with unequal inductive and deductive capacities, that the public ordinances once applied to Zuccotti Park no longer apply to other public spaces in and around New York City?

Can the public, so long as they’re an invading horde of Democrat loyalists denouncing capitalism and corporations, “occupy” Central Park, Prospect Park, and Gramercy Park, or, even worse, march out anywhere from their squalid utopian citadel and descend on our own personal and private properties?  What is to keep this roving brigade of rabble-rousers from coming to a neighborhood park near you, or even visit your private residence?  Can this band of brutes merely obstruct commerce, and disrupt street and sidewalk traffic, forever, intimidating any pedestrian or private business they see fit, at any time of their choosing?  If wet and cold weather persists, since we are closing in on the depths of autumn, and soon winter, will these encamped Democrat dwellers suddenly become ill, and spread communicable diseases to the rest of the population, as they traipse through restaurants like McDonalds to use the bathroom.  There is, and will continue to be, depraved spectacles and enterprising ventures departing from Zuccotti Park on a daily basis, if they continue to persist, not to mention other subversive entities and splinter groups that will promote, spin off, co-opt, plot, and plan concerted efforts to escalate the propensity of physical conflict and violent altercations.      

The various, verbal and visible, messages are quite clear to this independent observer, who is all too familiar with their antiquated mentalities and intrusive tactics.  Enroll into any liberal arts degree program in private and state colleges and universities, you will find all of the “occupiers” sentiments prominently advocated and professed.  Our primary and secondary schools also have curriculum designed by union educators that inculcated this latest generation with the polarizing polemics of class warfare and the inherent unfairness of capitalism.  Progressively liberal demagogues, and their well-paid professionals, administer a highly divisive social re-education program that bombards Americans with unreal notions of government and economic power.  Democrats want the federal government to be the dominant redistributive power, and that is the problem.  Their hard-core radical friends want to expropriate all private property and resources to redistribute the proceeds equally to all. 

Even the most casual observer can easily recognize the democrat flavors, and repugnant Marxist mentalities, swirling around the “occupying” crowd.  The varying elements possess warped rationalities, paranoid conceptions, and corrupting cynicism, carrying union cards, regurgitating defective arguments that divide, distort, and distract popular sentiments, with a virulent strain that brings disease and disgust to our national character and public discourse.

Infectiously filthy propaganda is nothing new in our schools or the media.  It is quite funny, though, that the bastion of liberal propaganda runs a particular promo – really, it amounts to a Democrat spot advertisement - in which the New Liberal Left’s champion denounces the politics of division.  Yet, the same celebrified pundit, and all of her collusive colleagues, cheerily glorifies political division any chance they have, especially when it takes the crude form of a frenzied mass of sympathizing subversives squatting in Zuccotti Park, denouncing a particular segment of American society based on income, wealth, and occupation. 

The most prominent, and usual, democrat notables, from the private and public arena, fall all over themselves to highlight this liberal construction project erected for electoral advantage, trying to gain legitimacy for their cause.  It is a form of self-flagellation for the well-paid celebrified punditry to denounce their economic status.  They pay homage by making public pilgrimages to the “occupied” space, conducting theatrical displays, and making disingenuous declarations that make them feel better, and seem useful.  Always be aware of those that are quick to attach themselves to a cause, it is usually a sign of self-interest and opportunism.

“Occupiers” in Zuccotti Park have the same philosophical persuasion, and use the same tactical application, as those who unruly “occupied” the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin earlier this year.  Madison was a test run.  How far can the radical liberal left go before they self-destruct, or cause civic distemper?  The Madisonian partisan project, along with all the creatures of an elite arrangement, who used naïve student debtors, wanted the “occupation” of Wisconsin’s Capitol building to spread, and considered as another “Tahrir Square.”  This was a rallying sentiment in Madison, and now echoed at Zuccotti Park. 

Extreme progressives possess a perverse affinity toward the “Arab Spring,” which, followed out logically, really amounts to a radical social revolution, where the participants gravitate toward extra-constitutional remedies, whimsical governing philosophies, the allurement of demagogues, curious political tactics, and suspicious associations.  Suggesting revolution in America as a possible remedy, when this nation has not even exhausted all the constitutional avenues that remain open for necessary and legitimate alteration, is a highly dangerous maneuver.  There are many protesters suffering from a severe denial of reality, and ignore the dangerous consequences of such a proposition.  Do “occupiers” really want to carry this “Tahrir” tactic out to its logical conclusion?  Is “Tahrir” just a casual statement thrown about to get some sort of reaction?  It is plainly absurd even to suggest such a reckless remedy, especially before all the lawful constitutional avenues open to the people of America are not even tried. 

There is a great difference between what happened in Cairo and the events currently going on in Manhattan.  Comparing century’s long oppression of Egyptians, and other enslaved populations in the region, to America’s current situation is an extravagant proposition that should meet harsh rebukes, and not taken as a credible proposal.  If the events unfolding in Northern Africa impress the “occupiers,” perhaps they should consider self-immolation, then, maybe, they might get their point across, and attract even more supporters. 

However, if one carries out this dangerous revolutionary logic forward to its eventual end, it leads one to perceive the American system as so corrupt, and a complete tyranny, that the normal governing processes are no longer conducive or open to American citizens, thereby implying second Amendment and Declaration of Independence remedies.  Is this what the “occupiers” mean when they want a “Tahrir” style moment?  Do they expect that most Americans would simply want to throw away the American system and separate from our most cherished values of constitutional practice?  Maybe the “occupiers” want the Egyptian military to take over America, or something of a similar nature.  Do they really expect, or want, the police and other armed forces to join their “occupation?”  This is not putting the cart before the horse; it is shooting the horse and burning the cart.

This “occupying” sentiment ultimately takes a contrary path from the constitution, the Union’s sacred bond, and the Liberty and Independence they both stand to protect.  What is even more serious, with far greater implications for our liberties as an independent nation, is the foreign global flavor of their “solidarity movement” that seemingly recognizes no international borders, national sovereignty, or American rule of law.  Several adversaries of American freedom are emboldened by any weakness exhibited, even though the spectacle of “occupationist” tactics represents an extreme perversity of liberalism, and a distinct minority interest.  

Public discontent is the best vehicle for foreign adversaries, and domestic deniers of American Liberty, Independence, and Sovereignty, that would like nothing better to happen to America then to have citizens set out against each other.  Americans have, and will continue to possess, the most freedom in the world.  Nevertheless, we are not free to do away with all the precious rights, ancient privileges, common law traditions, and sacred benefits we all inherited from our ancestors, which are contained in our various charters of freedom.

“Occupiers” also want something akin to an ancient Athenian style democracy.  If America was a direct democracy - which is unconstitutional because it is not a republican form of government, guaranteed to every state of the Union - one-hundred fifty-five million people could rule, absolutely, and directly, with a mere majority.  The presidential election in 2008 only had one-hundred twenty-five million people voting, and the total US workforce is one-hundred thirty-nine million.  Only citizens who vote move this nation, many people do not even vote at all, and those who do, are evenly divided.  It is impossible to have most people agree on any issue, at any time, and sufficiently administer the nation at large.    

The few individuals encamped in Zuccotti Park, and other smaller groups corralled in a few spaces across this nation, would be lucky to muster one million people at any one time, in any one space, let alone tens of million, which would still be an insignificant portion of people in America, by no way constituting a legitimacy to speak on behalf of the whole American population. 

Maybe they can garner enough people to gain representation in Congress.  If this was the case, a re-settlement plan is in order, preferably based on the trail of tears model.  They can go to Wyoming, with seed from Monsanto, fertilizer from Potash, some agrarian machinery from Caterpillar, and see what they can do for themselves.  That is where they can set up their social commune, or phalanx, and get out of New York City parks.  If the “occupiers” are claiming they represent ninety-nine percent, they must be talking about representing ninety-nine percent of the radical Democrat platform.

A Continental Convention is the last constitutional line of defense for the survival of our individual liberties and national independence.  We are not there yet.  If the requisite states call for a convention, this free citizen would welcome it as a legitimate assembly having the authority to propose amendments for state ratification.  Of course, this constitutional instrument must come before any type of civic conflagration or violent revolution.  A convention is the only legitimate assembly, outside of Congress assembled, sanctioned by precedent and the constitution.  It is the best venue, uniquely attached to the people and their states, to remedy any material defects that the American system exhibits. 

A grand forum, such as a Convention of States, can gather and propose amendments for ratification by three-fourths of state conventions.  This is the last path to take before anyone suggests secession and any other extreme tactics that undermine constitutional restraints on government power and any majority or minority interest that encroaches upon the precious liberties we all possess. 

Any action taking a revolutionary route outside of our American system is treason.  Liberty is not a game.  This is not some frat party, or hastily arranged university experiment on the commons, or classroom discussion.  Stakes are high.  America is dealing with severe economic tepidness and designing foreign adversaries.  It is a matter of national and individual Liberty and Independence.  This free citizen will continue to denounce despotic perversities, identify radical innovations, unravel deceitful devices, and unmask dissimulative demagogues, every time they rear their brutal heads, and there have been plenty.  Remember, there are no constraints on a free mind, but there must be reasonable restraints on corrosive actions that abuse the rule of law, equal justice, and public decency.

A Retinue of Institutionalized Personages

The federal government is one large state government.  Expansion of federal duties increased tremendously, especially over the last five decades.  What is even more disconcerting is the rapidity at which federal authority and public discretion has progressed over the last decade.  This phenomenon is highly detrimental to our collective security and prosperity as a free and independent people, and nation, of the world.  Our Liberty and Independence depend on the active participation of wise and virtuous citizens.    

During the last decade, and for some time before, Americans have become all too familiar with the wanton acts of terrorism.  We are also dealing with the ambitious intimidations of foreign despots, who reign over antiquated regimes and broken nations with enslaved populations.  America is contending with these spectacular calamities of human depravity.  We are engaged in long and costly wars to extirpate the malicious radical ligaments, emanating from several complicit and non-complicit foreign nations, regions, and transient entities, which are degrading religion, and defiling individual liberty and dignity in their worrisome wake.  American commerce has the right to flourish with any global participants without intimidation, and accosted, by foreign belligerents.

Another curious set of domestic problems to contend with is the severe economic downturn that has accompanied the troublesome foreign forces we confront daily, which have contributed a great deal to our fiscal fragility and, rather sour, and increasingly dour, public sentiment.  One cannot entirely separate foreign wars, tax cuts, low employment, reckless spending, and disjointed global economies, from our general domestic economic tepidness.  No one wants any of these demoralizing aspects of human existence to last for too much longer.  America’s insatiable appetite for Liberty, and its formidable national character will defeat the most enterprising and designing adversaries of our freedom as a people and nation.           

The Federative Union, that is, the United States of America, has primarily national responsibilities.  Other than being a vehicle to secure our Liberty and Independence as free citizens, this Union of Republics most important duties are attending to the nation’s finances, securing the nation’s borders, facilitating and protecting its commerce and interests, while interacting with the other independent nations of the world, who all have their particular interests at hand.

Congress is distracted, or at least seems to be.  It is true, though, that the federal head has a mind-numbing propensity to address a myriad of political trivialities that inhibit national adequacies.  Innumerable federal inefficiencies and numerous wasteful disbursements of public treasure are the harsh realities that need a focused, unified, and practical remedy.  If the current trajectory of cunning charades and phantom prophecies proceed, it will bring disgust and disdain to our national character, and feed the ambitions of domestic demagogues and foreign adversaries, who will do nothing but clip the wings of the mighty American eagle.  More people and nations prosper with a free America, than there are people and nations who profit from American failure.  

Many duties and functions, traditionally handled by private citizens, their families, and their state and local systems, with their own resources, and popular councils, are now increasingly coming under the ineffective jurisdiction of Congress.  Congress can barely administer the ten square miles encompassing the District of Columbia, which they have absolute jurisdiction over, and, it is sad to say, has a horrendous record of accomplishment when compared to other major cities controlled by state governments.  More specifically, a federal bureaucratic regulatory apparatus, erected and extended over time, of course with the consent of the governed, sanctioned by legislation and judicial doctrine, is now a massive self-propelling influence in our most private and public affairs that actually impedes political happiness and economic prosperity.

Most of what Congress does today, and its vast array of onerous instrumentalities weighing on individuals and private industry, was originally under the purview of state legislatures, and the American people themselves.  Federal authority has taken on too many diverse private and state responsibilities that are now diverting the nation from attending to our most pressing national priorities.  Do not be confused, this is not a call to go back to the social inequality that preceded modern civil rights.  It is a call to recapture the essence of equal protection of the law and proper federal boundaries.  

Congress is drifting away toward a multitude of natural, and, at times, it seems as if they are manufactured, maladies to micromanage and eradicate.  Utopian sophistry, whatever ideological quarter it emanates from, leads to a fantasyland, where totalitarianism and arbitrary power stands firm on the ruins of Liberty and Independence, where reason and logic succumb to the debilitating nature of fear and ignorance.  Federal responsibilities assumed over the last several decades inhibit Congress, and the ever-growing departments and agencies under its attendance, from adequately handling purely national objectives with the focused and unified approach required to address immediate concerns as they arise, while also trying to discern distant dangers on the horizon. 

There are burdensome hurdles placed in the path of prosperity.  They come from the private and public sectors alike, which stifle initiative, deter innovation, restrain competition, and drain personal independence, creating a languishing economic posture borne from fiscal disorder, political prostration, bureaucratic burdens, and inequities under the law, combined with the vast assortment of other unforeseen and unknown externalities that have no precedent to consult. 

Americans are trying to handle the baffling inefficiencies of entrenched structural processes that are resisting twenty-first century modalities.  The machines of self-interest have and will continue to manufacture good and bad results.  These are primitive motives natural to human behavior.  They have produced some of the most magnificent contributions to humankind.  Sometimes, self-interest manifests itself in the most disheartening and curious fashions.  The best scenario, of course, is when self-interest aligns with our Liberty and Independence as a nation, and a personal attachment to the Union of Republics that secures the dual treasures American self-government gives to each citizen. 

During certain times, and under unsettling circumstances, disruptive burs break free and grind down the gears of the manipulative machine of political profit and arbitrary power.  The slippage can occur with swift immediacy and drastic results, causing panic and turmoil, the twin winds of anarchy.  It can also occur gradually, with tempered efforts, slowly releasing pressure, so not to bind up this nation with the parochial obtrusions and invective injuries of narrow-minded ideologies that constrain the wheel of Liberty and Independence from spinning forward for all to enjoy. 

It is worrisome enough to contend with the naturally uncertain forces of human existence, and all the good and evil that accompany humanness.  At times, legislative and bureaucratic forces, which, of course, are human inventions, deriving their impetus from human activity, and, in fact, are necessary instances of an advanced society, can run quite retrograde in relation to the profound realities an enlightened, invigorated, and determined electorate is dealing with.  Congress is usually a lagging indicator, a reactionary institution by its complex nature, mainly focused on dealing with the immediacy of current events, as they happen, not the relative magnitude of distant consequences.  

Power and authority is penetrating and intoxicating.  Human beings possess a natural propensity and unique ability to abuse power, authority, and laws, especially when their freedom to do so is unchecked.  The fact is that overwhelming majorities of individuals do not abuse power, authority, and the law, and the few who do, with reckless abandon, will eventually face a dismal demise.  More importantly, most individuals do not possess the kind of power and authority that has far-reaching ramifications on hundreds of millions of personal lives here in America and around the globe.  Most people do not possess the amount of power and authority of elected assemblies, who are servants of a people.  These legitimate vehicles of self-government ultimately derive their power and authority from the consent, and assent, of the proprietors of government, and all power and authority, whether wielded by one person, a few, or many, needs scrutinizing by every liberty-loving participant. 

It is plainly certain, though, that abuses of power happen, and will continue to happen, within a full spectrum of gradations of abuse, and by diverse agents of disrepute.  It is not a fact, though, that an abuse of power will absolutely occur whenever a particular power is acquired or exerted.  In republican governments, when abuses do occur, they are, ultimately, and inviolably, the responsibility of citizens, the public at large, through their popular assemblies, and governing instruments, to address the breach of justice and the law as the general welfare may dictate.  This is a fundamental principle of republican government.  Every citizen that cherishes the privileges and immunities we inherited from our ancestors must correct, from time to time, any defects that arise from our system of government. 

America has various state assemblies, along with our federal councils.  They are strong and legitimate appendages of our Union.  Every one of our state systems arose during particular circumstances specific to its own creation in time.  All of our various governments, federal, state, and local, have reformed and altered constitutions, laws, power, discretion, and authority during their lives as civic laboratories in America.  We will continue reforming and adjusting our systems, so long as we remain free, and the numerous paths to reform remain known, open, and clear.  We will never arrive at a time where American citizens can just simply leave the governing structure alone, halting any future adjustments.  All of our governing systems have avenues for alteration.  This is a great republican principle that is alive and well, as long as the process remains free of obstructions. 

American citizens, for the most part, empower themselves through their local and state governments and economies, which, in turn, directly benefit the nation as a whole.  This arduous adventure in self-government commands that every citizen cast away any artificial distinctions, categorized caricatures, parochial traditions, bureaucratic hindrances, federal dependencies, and iniquitous notions sanctified under the law, and return this nation to the best principles of federalism, republicanism, civic virtue, and the great human precept of equality under the law.

Many of our federal laws, and we sure have many, operate in an unjust and unequal manner, which, for the most part, Democrat majorities have extended over the last five decades, with the help of many Republican minorities and few majorities, along with several willing presidencies.  All that one needs to do is look at the federal tax code to get an idea as to how favoritism and inequality pervades the whole system, and the corrupting tendencies that result from misguided policies constructed by, and for, special favorites.  What is even more serious is the rapid rate of federal extension over the last decade, conducted by majorities from both political parties.  We have seen an unprecedented expansion of federal jurisdiction and public discretion, most especially since the no-budget Democrat Congress took over the reins in 2007.

We need to first identify, then curtail, reform, alter, or abolish the most reckless innovations and insidious intrusions attached to the American system over time.  It is time to disinfect the Halls of Congress, and clean out all the diseased legal perversities.  There have been too many unnecessary additions to our federal arrangement.  We need to arrest and reverse the most virulent articles of corruption peddled by congressional majorities, popular minorities, and special interests, both of a private and public nature. 

An artificial apparatus, constructed, revised, and extended, by both prominent parties, over the course of a century, is now a self fulfilling professionalized machine of legal disease, executed by a retinue of institutionalized personages, their plundering subsidiaries, cottage industries, pensioneering profiteers, and many other precious little favorites suckling from the federal dispensary of taxpayer liquidity.  Even with the multiple domestic and foreign feeders eating away at our national treasure and security, distracting and diverting this nation from important objectives, we all have to contend with the elaborate political structure we possess, legally implemented, extended, and sustained throughout our nation.  America’s governing system arrived here through the corridors of law, and reform must follow the same path forward.  This unsavory system, prone to fickle deviations of a peculiar nature, flawed like all human systems of self-government, did not just form in a vacuum.  However, this is the best-flawed system on Earth, one that should make every citizen proud to be the proprietors of a continent of vast resources.

It will be very difficult to shape governing mentalities, and reform the sheltered political process, which planted itself in modernity more than a century ago, and has sprouted dense foliage that needs severe pruning.  A popular sentiment took root - most especially thriving during Democrat Captivity - that has as its leading tenet a misconstrued conception of federal jurisdiction and public discretion.  Academic institutions and popular corporate media outlets have studiously propagated, and increasingly inculcated, a warped and expansive notion of federal authority to the populace at large, while also heavily editing the historical identity of the nation’s most treasured principles.  These menacing and expansive mentalities have become commonplace ideas that will not suddenly disappear any time soon.  Many minds are infected and conditioned with the expansive and expensive notions of federal authority and discretion.        

What American citizens need to do is peacefully reduce the corrupting travails of an excessively liberalized conception of enumerated powers, and its scrupulous accoutrement of adherents, structures, and barriers.  It will take the concerted and active efforts of liberty-loving citizens, and the states and localities they reside in, to turn back an increasing federal jurisdiction that grows with every crisis - real, imagined, or manufactured.  Every elected majority, and minority component, that recklessly reaches its treacherous tentacles deeper into our most personal lives need to be vigorously halted by the lawful acts of American citizens, the proprietors of government.  Every citizen that holds this nations interest at heart should rebuke any majority or minority that impedes on our national interests, and encroaches upon our most prized privileges and liberties as a free people of the globe.

The American system is not broken; American citizens are not using the system correctly.  Citizens have delegated too much power and discretion over to our public servants.  They are now elevated to the station of master, turning a group of 545 citizens, most of them millionaires, into the special diviners of destiny.  Americans are slowly engaging the rapid expansion of national debt and federal budget deficits run up by our public servants.  This spectacle did not just spring up on us, although, it drastically proceeded at a great rate over the last decade.  Obviously, dangerous foreign dispositions and the exploits to reduce them, combined with domestic economic turmoil and paternalistic policies, are enormous catalysts exacerbating our numerous social stressors. 

What are Americans doing with our federal system?  What are our “public servants” doing for us? Are there any citizens other than the obnoxious opportunists taking advantage of civic discontent that wants to lead this great nation into the twenty-first century?  What are they doing for us, and the nation?  Our public servants are driving recklessly on the road of debt, one day, if the current journey persists, delivering America to the doorstep of insolvency and national disgrace, where America’s domestic detractors and foreign adversaries are waiting to take advantage. 

If anyone has forgotten, American citizens are the masters, and elected and non-elected public employees - who are citizens, and definitely a minority interest – are, in fact, the servants.  This relationship has eroded over time.  The status quo, the danger of complacency, and all the perverse purveyors perpetuating it, will not be able to prevail this time around.  They must submit to the legal and legitimate grievances of American citizens, or get out of the way, step aside, retire, find another vocation, so this nation can move forward in the twenty-first century, not cling on to twentieth century constraints, mentalities, and structures. 

Americans are actively pursuing all instances of federal jurisdiction, power, and discretion, and trying to curtail the horrendous deviations that have occurred over time.  One of the few duties of the federal government is our national defense, without which, we cannot give anything to future generations.  Debts do not matter if peace and liberty are not present.  We can only possess Liberty and Independence when we have sufficient defenses against foreign assailants, and our own menacing majorities and minorities.  When the extremes line up, American citizens unite and determine the mediating remedy, according to the various charters of freedom given to us by our ancestors, and woven into the fabric of common law traditions, and human history.  The arbitrary whims of tyrants and brutes ultimately wither away in the face of Liberty’s awesome light of freedom.  The varying extremes of majorities and minorities always end up yielding to the laws governing our republic, which enable us to have Liberty and Independence as a people and nation. 

Rebirth of Republicanism

After the signing of the United States Constitution, September, 1787, a Philadelphian approached Ben Franklin, delegate from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and asked the elderly patriot what he and the other delegates created during their lengthy service on that grand council. Franklin’s well-known response to the lady was, quite simply, “a republic, if you can keep it.”

This was not a temporary proposition existing for, and during, that marvelous generation of human history; it’s a permanent proposition strenuously carried forward by every generation since that founding forum of public servants put into place the governing structure we still reside in today. The notion of a republic is fundamental to this American system and our national character. In case you did not realize it, our Republic is not broken; honestly, for the moment, it’s not being used correctly by American citizens. We need to properly utilize and persistently pursue the constitutional mechanisms already in place to obtain national prosperity and personal advancement, according to the lawful dictates of the proprietors of this government, American citizens.


When the American Republic came into existence, and this unique federal arrangement was placed in motion, its primary purpose was to protect citizen liberties by attending to specific, and limited, national duties and functions. The rights and privileges the founding generation fought and died for have, thankfully, increased over the last two centuries, mostly for our mutual benefit and common national advantage, possessing greater suffrage now then ever before. Americans inherited perpetual immunities from their ancestors, as laid forth in the founding charters of freedom, to keep them safe from arbitrary power. The first American citizens sanctified this system with legislative precedents and the noble deeds of many participants. The American Republic requires a moderating administration. It must be administered by a vigilant and wise citizenry, drawn from our diverse state systems, to prevent the corrupting tendencies democratic, tyrannical, regional, and anarchical innovations have on the precarious flame of Liberty.

At a moment’s notice, amidst popular discontent, radical intrusions descend upon Liberty’s light of justice, inhibiting the flame’s substance, keeping the rest of us in darkness, where we can’t see our similarities, wearily groping for meaning and truth, until the light is suddenly turned on once again. The American experiment in self-government is a genuinely conservative endeavor to control the corrosive, but natural, excesses a free society exhibits. Too much government is as dangerous to a free people’s Liberty as not enough government. These extremes require adequate responses from tempered citizens who hold true to the sound, steady, and moderate principles of American republicanism.

Liberty is a liberal concept. There are devastating, but very natural, elements that come with freedom. Determined extremes prosper in an unregulated and unchecked atmosphere, where law and morality are disregarded with impunity. Fear and distrust create an environment for pain and suspicion to thrive in, producing timid dispositions in the people’s spirit that cowers in front of perplexing adversities, always willing to gravitate toward the blissful allurement of demagogues and rogues playing on paralyzing apprehensions. Liberty’s naturally occurring extremes ravage reason and logic. They formulate premises based on ignorant prejudices, lazy inquiries, arriving at false assumptions, and arrogantly determining who gets Liberty, and who does not.

These unregulated instances of social folly and personal depravity are as ancient as the flame of Liberty itself. True American conservatism is not housed in, or currently attached to, any one particular individual, party, or entity. The American people are the superintending vehicle for securing our Liberty. We have not surrendered our sovereignty as a people or a nation to any constituency other than our national interest. Liberty is our only constituent. Our sacred benefits must be conserved by an enlightened band of virtuous citizens peacefully participating in humanity’s greatest civic project, conducted on a daily basis, right here in America. In order for this cherished adventure to be successful there needs to be a clear and principled political philosophy, articulated and enacted by serious and credible citizens fervently adhering to the best tenets of republicanism, aligned with national interests, not with parochial hindrances.

The idea of Republicanism, having nothing to do with any political party, per se, is a unifying concept. It crosses state and party lines, and follows in the light of freedom, justice, and mercy. Every citizen has the same solemn obligation, and a profound duty, to protect, preserve, and extend Liberty’s flame so it shines for posterity, not turned into an enraged inferno, or a smoldering ember, yielding nothing but instability. This is civic virtue, citizens acting selflessly for the betterment of the nation and the liberties of all people. Any citizen that diminishes liberties, and weakens the bond of Union, should be shunned. Each and every citizen possesses equal rights under the law. We do not possess a right to equal physical and mental faculties derived from nature, nor an equal possession or distribution of property. Republicanism contains a great, yet difficult, end to obtain: to keep and preserve every citizen’s life, liberty, and property, while remaining an independent people and country of the globe. Until there are just and proper voices in America, there will cease to be a legitimate vehicle to conserve Liberty’s precious resources that we have graciously cultivated for two centuries, holding them very dear in our hearts and minds.

It seems, at least to this independent and free mind, that our social dialogue is fatigued. The campaign mentality is never ending. It is mired down in a maniacal maze of caricatures, cynically constructed by a self-interested and highly influential element, administering an elaborately well-arranged popular structure that distorts the American narrative, filling it up with specious assumptions, partisan dissimulation, contorted history, demonic denunciations, and profuse fiscal and moral profligacy by public servants, elected and not elected. All of these disturbing public and private spectacles are blatantly occurring out in the open for all eyes to witness. This noble nation and the sacred liberties it stands to protect, blows in the brutal winds of political profit, as we contend with increased fiscal disorder and dangerous foreign dispositions. These troublesome symptoms emanate from the dismal, yet fleeting, source of discontent and confusion that follows a leaderless people, dwells in a vacuous public discourse, and invites civic inactivity.

For the last fifty years, the Democrat Party has virtually controlled both Houses of Congress. This ruinous reign is the cause of our current duress. Since 1960, Democrat majorities controlled twenty congressional House sessions, forty years, and roughly sixteen Senate sessions. Democrat experiments with our governing institutions have brought us too close to national disgrace and insolvency. The Democrat Party deserves blame for increasing federal power and jurisdiction, our shameful propensity to borrow, tax, and spend, and all the inequities built into the tax code, along with all the other unnecessary and wasteful incidentals embedded in every federal department and agency. Democrats deserve praise for increasing liberties, but, for the most part, they, and the American people in general, needed severe prodding. Democrat majorities, and all their active and passive participants, were the grand facilitator of this pernicious incremental federal expansion of discretionary power. They enacted bureaucratic entanglements that inhibit efficiencies, dispensed public disbursements that nourish an unjust system, which has risen to great heights, and reaches into the depths of our most personal activities. This expansive and expensive system can no longer be sustained under current policy, and no longer conducive for prosperity.

The fifty year reign of Democrat majorities over the federal lawmaking branches, particularly the purse strings, sprinkled in with a few sympathetic presidencies, was set in place during a severe economic disturbance that was, at that time, the worst any citizen had ever witnessed or even heard about. Sure there were booms, panics, surpluses, and recessions along the way, but they were more cyclical and seasonal in nature, temporary instances of supply and demand imbalances, and all of those volatile times worsened public perceptions and confidence at some level. However, the Great Depression that settled in - most severely three years after the Crash of 1929, which was preceded by a decade long rapid growth phase after Word War I – created a national economic dislocation, more global in nature, with more lasting and devastating effects, in which American citizens and their governing and economic institutions did not have adequate capabilities and responses to contend with the scope, magnitude, and ferocity of events.

Reactionary measures to this massive societal disruption swiftly altered the relationship between citizens, states, and the federal government. A major shift in the balance of power occurred, in some areas welcomed and warranted, and, in other areas, intrusive and misguided.  This was all done with the consent of the governed, and majorities of Congress. Of course, there were not as many people back then that were allowed to participate in governing decisions as there are today. This is a great enhancement of Liberty that is well appreciated. This generation should consent to the peaceful and tempered diminution of federal authority and public discretion, especially in those areas it was not intended to have jurisdiction.

Enter the new and improved Democrat Party. Raised from the ashes of the Confederacy, Democrats gained more national prominence during the depression era, and the new leader of the party, Franklin Roosevelt, assumed and held office during one of the most harrowing episodes in American history. There were no easy, clean, and simple ways out of the national turmoil of the 1930’s. Academic disputes still rage over the many reasons for getting into, and out of, the Great Depression. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that the stock market returned to 1929 levels, which came with enormous capital destruction, and the devastation of so many lives during World War II and the Korean War.

What did occur during the most chaotic social atmosphere since the American Civil War was that Democrat majorities grew, nationally and in states, and those majorities were able to enact very expansive and extensive instances of federal power, and a structure to further its aims, at, possibly, the greatest rate than at any other time since the American Civil War. By 1960, the wave of Democrat power and arrogance took over the federal reins.  Many of the expansionist mentalities and programs from the depression era were in place by 1960.  Since 1960, Democrat control over Capitol Hill, and our individual lives, dramatically increased, and is now being challenged.  American citizens need a Rooseveltian leader espousing the great principles of republicanism to every citizen, so we can have fifty years of conservative mobilization to undue the most heinous alterations enacted by Democrat hegemony, and advance our common Liberty further along.

The challenge for Americans today is to dismantle the most ruinous innovations erected by a number of Democrat majorities, and their willing associates, in and out of government. This is not to say all and every policy emanating from the Democrat stranglehold over the national legislature was ill judged and extra constitutional. It will not take one or two congressional sessions to reduce the awful private and public obstacles and dependencies extended over the last half century. It will take at least a generational effort, with difficult and tempered curtailments of congressional power and discretion, to refine, restructure, and remove the frigid fetters and special favorites that our varying governing systems perpetuate and protect.

Today, the Democrat Party is controlled by a radically inclined political philosophy, inculcated most zealously throughout the last three decades. The philosophy is enamored with, and devout to, an excessively liberalized notion of federal power, and an agenda that seeks to perversely redefine the relationship between the federal government, its citizens, the states, and foreign entities, dangerously altering the balance of power, once again, in this republic. The old guard and entrenched Democrat elite - who are slowly, yet loudly, passing into the pages of history to teach the future what self-aggrandizement and arbitrary power looks like, when left unchecked - combined with current political careerists and salaried bureaucrats, have nurtured a social alliance between government, education, labor, and the media.

We are in the unfortunate position of living in an era where a new generation has taken over the Democrat party, and it is one that was cultivated by a curious social realignment initiative that was put in place, and up and running, over the last forty years. That once proud party of Jefferson and Jackson, who actually increased federal jurisdiction, has become the fertile nesting ground for an even more radicalized stream of consciousness. More recently, within the last half century, it is the Democrat operation that has controlled congressional power for decades before the Republican Party even sniffed a meaningful majority inCongress.

We are now witnessing the horrible realities of Democrat Captivity, which is slowly, but surely, coming to an end. What kind of an end is to be determined by the wise and virtuous citizens, on one hand, who cherish Liberty and savor Independence, and on the other hand, the ignorant dupes, flattering minions, and powerful partisans that will gladly lead the rest of us into abject Slavery and degrading federal Dependence. Don’t look to Europe, or any other country, for that matter, because they don’t have the answers, nor the level of freedom we have in America.

There are a few holdovers from the age of Democrat zealotry and control. Even some Republicans tried to lose the ineffectual practices of a minority stained by an inept ability to grow into a respected and sustainable governing majority. However, coming from such powerlessness for so many decades, Republicans learned how to get along by going along, so did the American people.  By the time the Republican Party found itself in control of Congress for the first time in decades, they showed too much deference to a burgeoning governing bureaucratic structure, a mentality of largess and entitlement, created by their predecessors, possessing no effective leadership to spread a cohesive conservative governing platform that actually rectifies the perverse projects conducted by Democrat majorities.

Republicans have often worked within the ever growing federal system, instead of dismantling the multi-layered intrusions instituted over time. Democrats have drastically increased and expanded federal power. Republicans, for the most part, went along with the intricately designed system they inherited. Certain discouraging Democrat sentiments have rubbed off on the Republican Party and the American people in general. The Republican Party must not be turned into a bastion for radical ideologies like the Democrat Party, imposing a rigid social order just as paternalistic and parochial as the one we find ourselves dealing with at this juncture in time.

This American system of government was intended to protect all of our liberties and privileges, not decide who gets special protection and benefits, as if Liberty is some switch that is flipped between constituencies every time power exchanges from one party to another. Never in American history - in all of human history at that - have more people been enfranchised with the gracious benefits of Liberty and Independence as the people living in America. Once a free citizenry enacts laws that only operate on certain citizens, for any reason, at any time, we cease to be equal under the law. The awful result is that justice, the rule of law, and due process, will ultimately suffer, bringing disgrace to the whole population of America, infecting our popular sentiments and mentalities with a poisonous virulent that deteriorates the precious bond of Liberty that binds every American to this Union of Republics.

Americans arrived at this social predicament, and the fiscal stressors that accompany it, with the help of our ancestors and contemporaries. Some day, we, too, will be ancestors. Now we are contemporaries. In order to provide for posterity, we must provide for ourselves, at this very moment in time. We must not be damned by a future generation for inactivity and indecisiveness. We must preserve and secure our own rights today, so posterity will be rewarded tomorrow. There will be a future generation of American citizens fifty years from now, let us try, today, and everyday hereafter, to leave future generations a workable republic, unified by the fabric of Liberty and the bond of Union that Americans love, and have cherished, for so long. Let the bright light of Liberty warm the hearts of patriots, and scorch the venal practices of all tyrants and brutes that assail human freedom, dignity, and independence.

During this point of fiscal distress and diminishing confidence in our governing apparatus, we do not need to start relinquishing more liberties and privileges to an increasingly centralizing force that has crept in over the last few decades. Our collective energies derive their life source from the level of Liberty we possess as a people and a nation. This republican system ceases to be a republican system if power becomes skewed to such an extent, and at such a rate, that it recognizes no boundaries, or is unjustly assumed, and kept, in one or a few segments of this vast federative Union. Power acquired by any particular entity does not automatically undermine law and justice. Menacing mentalities of majorities and minorities exerting more influence and power than they deserve are actual threats to a republican form of government when they make unusual approaches on our rights and privileges.

Liberty is the overarching objective, the prime mover, a keystone for the people of America. Republicanism is the political philosophy that explains it, and the motivating impulse that drives it. Liberty is not a special blessing dispensed by, and for, a few prodigious participating agents that determine the eligibility of the group of adherents. Liberty is a blessing for all human beings that roam this Earthly paradise of free will; not a privilege handed out to some; but, certainly, an objective embraced by all. American citizens are the lords of a vast realm of republican governments, not servants to a special caste of masters.

American citizens have more gracious treasures, avenues of expression, and an abundance of fabulous rewards and resources than any other people, of any other nation, at any other moment in human history. Americans are the largest free population in the world. We have the full capabilities, legitimate authority, and exacting fortitude, required of a free people, to handle any inconveniency hurled at us by the unforeseen consequences of our own actions, and the actions of malicious adversaries. Societal perplexities will always spring up along our common journey to live in political peace and enjoy personal happiness, among ourselves and with our neighbors, which is only possible when Liberty’s interest reigns.

All the ancient rights handed down to us over the centuries, we equally posses as citizens, and all of our rights and privileges can be considered collective. Do not be confused, we are merely a collection of independent citizens that retain the fundamental rights of speech; of religious worship; to be armed; to vote; to be secure from unwarranted invasions of our persons, places, and papers; to have a trial by jury; to confront witnesses and have the assistance of council; to have due compensation for property taken for a public purpose; the right not to be punished in cruel and unusual manners, without due process, and not to be held on excessive bail, or have habeas corpus revoked. American citizens enjoy these awesome rights - and the many more not mentioned here - equally. No single right is more important than any other. All of these rights exist so we can live in freedom.

We The People are a collection of individual citizens, from our respective states, who, on their own, or in any group, a majority or a minority, whenever constituted, can’t infringe upon any of these collective privileges and immunities, or act upon any law abiding individual who cherishes and protects these consecrated tokens Liberty has to offer each of us. It’s unconstitutional on its face for a people to even consent to the abolishment of any of the liberties that protect us from arbitrary power. American citizens need a rebirth of republicanism and civic virtue in order to conserve the flame of Liberty.

A Dense Cadre of Public Pilferers

     Madison, Wisconsin                                                  Associated Press


The political events unfolding in Madison, Wisconsin, and other states of our American union, are really bestial blows against a republican form of government. Certain elected public servants have brazenly abandoned the civic responsibilities entrusted to them by Wisconsin citizens. The whole electorate has an expectation, and rightly so, that public servants perform their duties, not avoid them by running away to a neighboring state. A relatively small number of deviant servants have obstructed due process by boldly evading parliamentary proceedings, neglecting the public trust temporarily placed in their hands. At the same time, another worrisome sect of non-elected public servants, aided by young and impressionable patrons, dressed in Soviet colors, and espousing antiquated anti-capitalist sentiments, captured the Wisconsin capitol building in a most brutish and despoiling manner, blatantly disrespecting the public’s property, as if these mobocrats were actually the true agents of all the wise and virtuous people of Wisconsin.

This is not the Paris Commune of 1848; it is somewhat similar to the Haymarket Riot of 1886, thankfully without the lead and dynamite, but plenty of anarchists to go around. There is more than enough room outside the capitol building, or in the ballot box, to peacefully assemble and assert first amendment rights in a proper manner that ascribes to the best tenets of civic participation and republican principles. Partisans have crowned themselves lords of the realm up there in Madison, Wisconsin, intimidating, disgracing, and exploiting the governing process. Their names should not even be mentioned, because they do nothing of value. The deed defines their creed, and resides in the public forum for all to dissect.


Wisconsin turmoil is not about protecting or advancing democracy and labor rights, as some of the well paid celebrified punditry, streaming through various mediums, choose to frame the debate; it is actually the last embolden strokes of a threatened bureaucratic elite, and the internecine fractures of an entrenched aristocracy, and both of these societal elements are pulling the rest of us in perverse directions. There are too many odious and long-standing practices that have nestled in our governing systems, taking a contrary path to the one that is clearly and legitimately marked by the rule of law, civic virtue, moral responsibility, and national interests. These four human conceptions converge to protect and promote the general welfare of the whole community, with an emphasis placed on the whole community. Right now, we have splintered factions in our midst that think they represent the whole community. What do you expect when there are many American citizens who do not vote and do not participate in this noble governing experiment? There is nothing virtuous or civic, good or just, about any of the licentious political displays, distorting combinations, and subversive natures that have manifested themselves in Madison, Wisconsin, in other state capitols, and inside the District of Columbia, generally.

We should not reward the misguided conduct of a few well placed participating actors; but, in fact, when they do manifest themselves in such a crude form, corralled in a public forum, for all of us to witness, every law-abiding citizen that cherishes common decency, tempered approaches, and a proper decorum should harshly condemn it when it rises above the law, and makes unusual and intrusive approaches on individual liberty. More importantly, the unlawful individuals maneuvering in the shadows deserve more scrutiny, but are harder to see than the public appearances, because the activities are conducted under the cover of darkness.

At the moment, the whole population of Wisconsin is being rudely pushed aside by narrowed political interests, seen and unseen, which serve an elite cast of characters. This is a microcosm of our current political perplexities. An upsetting and unduly influential crew has breached the public peace, engaged in political manipulation and subterfuge, only to advance an insolent, paternalistic, outdated, and financially fatigued social agenda. The despicable denizens of absolute democracy that emerged in Madison disregarded the lawful pursuits of legal elections, abandoned the proper course of normal legislative procedure, and repudiated republican principles.

In Article Four, Section Four, of the U.S. Constitution, you know, that quaint piece of parchment ALL citizens, elected and non-elected, are bound to abide by, “[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” You may ask yourself what is a republican form of government? This notion will be explored with greater specificity in a future addition to this blog site. But, for the time being, there are many individuals who confuse the concepts of democracy and republic. They are not interchangeable governing systems, although, one may find superficial similarities between the two. When we begin to peel back the layers, specific differences are revealed between them, and the contrast becomes clearer to the enquirer.

A democracy, in the truest sense of the concept, is the absolute rule of a majority, whenever constituted, whether enlightened by reason or enraged by passion. A republican form of government attempts to hold majorities and minorities accountable to the rule of law, which maintains equal justice, to prevent any constituent component of our vast federative union from becoming too powerful and influential. If America was ever turned into an absolute democracy – as it was, momentarily, when marauding protestors in Madison took over the capitol building, acting like a troop of wildcats in heat - a majority could simply write any law, erect any procedure, appropriate any sum, perform any action, simply according to the sheer force of numbers, at any time a majority is conjured up, irrespective of how many assembly seats are occupied. It is slightly similar to a tyranny, not residing in a single person, but in a despotic rowdy mass. A republican form of government inserts several barriers of checks to avert democratic, tyrannical, and anarchical perversities from grinding away the fundamental rights and privileges bequeathed to us by our ancestors.

Spectacles of moral depravity conducted by public servants, and private citizens, are not new, and will not suddenly disappear from the human species, but they are real blemishes, nonetheless, when they occur. Private individuals do enough harm to society. If our public officials harbor these natural dispositions, and their actions are driven by distempered passions, it is a dangerous and unsteady proposition to contend with, and it will only end up tarnishing America’s national character, eventually bringing all of us disgrace, ultimately diminishing the sacred blessings of self-government that enable us to enjoy Liberty and Independence.

Most of our republican governments are snagged in a burdensome budgetary web. Various participants, active and passive, past and present, seen and unseen, have steadily increased its sticky grip, and the tacky fibers are being felt by many of us. Virtually all of our republican governments around the nation, particularly at the state and federal level, are trying to extricate themselves from an intricate fiscal entanglement. This feeble fabric of insolvency was first woven several decades ago. Many of our most notable ancestors, and several of our most dearly beloved contemporaries, have erected a number of burgeoning bureaucratic fiefdoms, supposedly instituted for our own protection and well being, but they are really stifling economic innovation and personal independence. Every government - local, state, and national - extracts a great measure of tribute, in some form or fashion, to support and sustain a consortium of legislative, administrative, and regulatory instruments. It’s a sad bit of commentary to even suggest, though, that most taxpayers, who are not considered wealthy, or elite, are in risk of becoming the vassals of feudal lords.

American taxpayers, wealthy and not so wealthy, by any reasonable standard used to define such an abstract term, have been called upon to provide for a multitude of unnecessary services and functions, most especially on the federal level, that only prop up and protect a retinue of salaried pensioners and their suckling regimes. Not only does this prospect divert valuable resources from citizens and their respective state governments, it adds distracting duties to the federal government. It’s now up to vigilant and law-abiding citizens to run straight forward in to the difficult task of peacefully dismantling the most burdensome feudal structures and wasteful inefficiencies that have placed many tortuous obstacles, and cultivated several debilitating relationships, that stand in the way of our local, state, and national interests. We need to return the light of prosperity to the true proprietors of this republic.

Citizens and public servants have a special relationship. Each of them have solemn obligations to the other, and share the same rights, when they enter into the public contract. We arrived at this point of budgetary duress and tax inequities because of the people’s active and passive support throughout the years. Our federal structure, more specifically, has amassed a public workforce, and assumed too many state and private responsibilities, that are wasting, and diverting, valuable resources from the national purse. The federal government has become one very large state government, and is losing focus on primary objectives. We should not passively sit around anymore as our public officials make extravagant disbursements on a multitude of misguided social adventures. Policies, guided by sincere intentions and zealous ideals, are concocted and conducted by numerous profiting fiefdoms, fervently supported by a dense cadre of public pilferers, squandering taxpayer money, only to perpetuate a nefarious nexus of patronage and nepotism.

It will be very difficult to deconstruct the most ruinous governing fiefdoms, especially those that have been built up and supported throughout the decades. Many have become formidable entities of self-interest, and every day these bureaucratic bastions remind us of their wasteful existence, and the enormous misapplication of public discretion and treasure that denotes their activities. Every bloated block laid over the years eventually rose to a great height that is now struggling under its own weight. The inhabitants on the other side have buttressed the towering walls with a large amount of influence and power. They usually keep quiet in their privileged fortress, at least during tranquil times, and under normal circumstances, hoarding particular expertise and specific information, using it to gain even more budgetary advantages and political leverage.

A mote of long standing legal precedents, and misconstrued congressional authority, encircles these intractable territories. This veneer of legitimacy that our ancestors have neatly constructed has finally succumbed to the erosion of time and circumstance. A new generation is standing on the verge of the realm, looking forward to the challenge that is before them. They have placed the well funded fiefdoms under legal siege, trying to contain the menacing misconstruction of enumerated powers, and slowly reducing the awful ramparts that protect them. The precious and uncertain path of Liberty, on every strenuous step advanced by the human species, has witnessed fabulous rewards and gracious benefits; although, several times along the way, many societal travesties and curious conundrums have accompanied us on this never-ending journey, every time we dutifully surmounted them, and it was never precise, clean, and easy.

A daunting task is right in front of American citizens, as it always is. We only muster a solid resolve when something has smacked us in the face. Do you know the story about closing the barn door after the horse has left the barn? Well, the horse has galloped away, running aimlessly in the pasture, with no rider holding the reins. As for the barn door, it, too, no longer exists. It was unhinged and torn asunder by utopia’s whimsical winds. As a matter of fact, the horse left the barn through the gaping holes in the walls, and the fences are in such disrepair, they did not keep the horse contained. It should also be noted, the horse was afraid the roof would collapse, and did not trust the maintenance crew’s repeated claims to fix it, even though the roof only leaks when it rains.

American citizens are now being forced to take a good hard look at the structure, gazing into the bowels of their governing institutions, and they do not like the fiscal incompetence, neglect, contempt, and excessive misuse of power they see. A great number of non-essential and un-elected public servants, who were supposed to maintain the structure, and who constitute a small minority of the general population, have become a burdensome bureaucratic barrier to real political reform. Many governing officials have become a special caste of scribes, and are a powerful lobbying force that propagates ruinous regulations and sophisticated social formulas. They are a formidable and influential class of taxpayer subsidized plunderers. They possess all the remedies, can accurately predict future outcomes, and will easily deploy political gimmicks, to rid human existence of natural plagues. Wise and attentive citizens are now scrutinizing every budget item and public servant, elected and non-elected, and determining if they have any utility, purpose, and constitutional necessity. No longer will American citizens have their hard earned wages arrogantly depleted by a group of unaccountable servants dispensing taxpayer money to themselves, and the self-interested favorites peddling profuse platforms.