Liberty is Null and Void April 18, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: 10th amendment, 9th Amendment, Dr. Robert Owens, Nullification, Repeal Amendment
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America was founded as a Federal Republic. This means our nation was designed to have two levels of sovereignty. The States which pre-date the central government and which created the central government is to be one level and the central government they created was to be the second. The separate States first combined to found a central government when they drafted and ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781. This combination was strengthened and expanded in the writing and ratification of the Constitution in 1789. However, in both of these new beginnings it was always stated and assumed that the States were the building blocks out of which the whole was built.
The Anti-Federalists sought to safe guard the inherent rights of the Sovereign States in the face of a proposed national government which concentrated power and superseded the primacy of the States. The Anti-Federalists are often dismissed by those of succeeding generations who have been educated by the victorious philosophical descendants of the Federalists, as mere obstructionists and people of no-account. However, their ranks were filled by some of the greatest names of the Revolutionary times such as Samuel Adams, George Mason, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson.
Another well-known leader of the Antifederalists, Patrick Henry, questioned the very legitimacy of what are possibly the most famous words in the document: “We the People” when he said, “I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to say, We, the people? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, Who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the people, instead of, We, the states? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great, consolidated, national government, of the people of all the states.”
Once the Constitution was maneuvered through the ratification process most of the Anti-Federalists faded into the background. Forgotten were their war time services and forgotten were their warnings that a central government once established would inevitably grow in power to eclipse the States.
In the early days of the Republic the former Anti-Federalists attempted to keep alive the idea that it was the States which had created the central government and that the States therefore had the authority to determine if the central government had overstepped the authority which had been delegated to them by the States. They proposed to do this through a process known as Nullification.
Nullification is the process through which they believed a State could suspend a federal law within its borders. In opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of the Adams Administration Thomas Jefferson and James Madison first enunciated this concept in1798. The tactic was accepted as a legitimate tool of the States by the Hartford Convention in 1814. It was seen as a logical and legal protection against the encroachment of the central government upon the sovereign rights of the States.
The idea that a state or a combination of States could nullify what they perceived as unconstitutional laws passed by the central government which exceeded the delegated powers granted to it remained a point of contention until it reached a crisis in 1832.
The enactment of tariffs which were believed to be advantageous to the rapidly industrializing North and injurious to the agrarian South brought the question to a head. South Carolina led the way by adopting an Ordinance of Nullification which stated that the tariffs, “are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”
This was countered by President Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832. In this proclamation President Jackson stated, “I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”
Immediately after the President issued his proclamation Congress passed the Force Act. This law authorized the use of military force against any state resisting the tariff acts. The President being the man of action immediately sent warships to Charleston harbor and ordered the strengthening federal fortifications there. The situation staggered towards war as both the central government and the government of South Carolina prepared to dispute the Doctrine of Nullification on the field of battle.
It was at this critical juncture that Henry Clay who had not been able to find any other State willing to join South Carolina earned his reputation as the Great Compromiser. On the same day the Force Bill passed, Clay negotiated the passage of the Tariff of 1833. This law provided for the gradual reduction of the tariff over ten years until it reached the levels which existed in 1816. Jackson signed both measures thus priming and holstering the Federal power at one time. In response South Carolina repealed its Ordinance Nullification while at the same time reaffirming its belief in the legality of Nullification by nullifying the Force Bill. President Jackson knew he had won a victory and sought to move on by ignoring this face saving action.
After this crisis the issue of nullification died down. However, the belief that this was a viable and legal recourse for the States did not disappear, it instead evolved into the belief that the States which had created the Union could or should be able to nullify the union itself. This in turn led to the secession of Southern States beginning with South Carolina.
This next crisis precipitated the Civil War. This most deadly of all American wars destroyed the balance. The power of the States was crushed by the overwhelming power of the central government. Since that time the central government has grown, and grown, and grown until today it has become Leviathan. Not the sea monster referred to in the Bible but the soul crushing all controlling political and social government described by Thomas Hobbs.
Today this debate over the relationship between the central government and the States has resurfaced. As an administration moves aggressively to transform America beyond any semblance of a federal structure into a centrally-planned and totally controlled socially engineered society citizens from sea to shining sea are searching for ways to return to the limited government won by the Revolution and supposedly safe-guarded by the Constitution.
One of the most revolutionary proposals is a direct descendant of the Doctrine of Nullification. The Repeal Amendment is supported by citizens and their representatives in every State and in the Federal Congress. This proposed amendment states, “Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.” As of today, no State has passed the Amendment, and it has not gained enough support in Congress to advance past the proposal stage.
This proposed amendment is designed to restore the validity of the 9th and 10th amendments which have been fundamentally supplanted and submerged by the ever growing power of the central government.
The 9th Amendment states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The 10th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Unless we rebuild the reality of a balanced federal system we will soon find ourselves locked in the embrace of an all-powerful central government. This Leviathan will seek to regulate the smallest details of our lives and the spirit of totalitarianism we spent the last half of the twentieth century fighting will win by default as the change our fellow citizens voted for brings the death of hope.
Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
The Heart of the Problem is in the Heart April 12, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Douglas MacArthur, Dr. Robert Owens, Noah Webster, Principles, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Virtue
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Benjamin Franklin told us, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
Socialism is a debilitating confidence game dressed up as an ideology used by demagogues and want-to-be dictators to fool its victims into believing it is possible to have your cake and eat it too. Those who fall under the spell of the charlatans singing this siren song actually come to believe it is fair and just to force some people to labor for the good of others. This is the same type of sophistry and rationalization that was used by the clergy and philosophers of the Antebellum South to justify unending human bondage for an entire race of people because it was for their own good.
This twisted tool of central planners and bureaucratic tyrants teaches those who have not that it is fair and just to take from those who have and re-distribute the plunder as the government decrees. This is not fair! This is not just! To teach that it is raises up generations of people who believe they have a birth-right to that which is not their own forfeiting their true birth-right: the opportunity to succeed through their own efforts. The products of such an educational system are citizens without virtue voting pawns without honor. Not because they have made a personal decision to live without these two attributes but because they have been programmed to believe taking the fruit of someone else’s labor is permissible as long as it will be given to someone else. Theodore Roosevelt said, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”
Those who drank the Kool-Aid dispensed by the government schools learned that this type of theft is not only permissible it is laudable. They were told and they believe that this is what Robin Hood did: steal from the rich to give to the poor. However, in reality the legend of Robin Hood tells of a fighter for liberty and the sanctity of personal property who robbed the stolen wealth of corrupt government officials so that he could return it to its rightful owners: those who produced the wealth in the first place. However, the leaders of America today have turned the world upside down demanding that people objectified by the name “Millionaires and Billionaires” need to pay their fair share. Yet they never say what that fair share is or when enough will ever be enough. According to Noah Webster, “…if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded.”
We look around us and we watch as our beloved United States of America crumbles. Our elected leaders act as if it is their goal to spend us into oblivion. The only way to understand the pronouncements and actions of this administration is if we consider ourselves a conquered people and the Washington-centered oligarchy as an occupying power. We, the silent majority who labor, innovate, and produce are treated as subservient beasts of burden needed and appreciated more for what can be extorted from us than for who we are. Samuel Adams once said, “No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.”
It is no wonder that we see such a sorry collection of second-rate scoundrels prancing about on the stage of power. They sell their snake oil of class warfare indoctrinating their victims to be needy and then promising to fill their gnawing need with loot legally taken from others. This immoral process breeds a population without the virtue of self-reliance or the honor of being independent. The soul sapping addiction to eternal government support leads to a nation neither adapted to nor deserving of liberty. When a birthright has been sold for a bowl of stew it cannot be regained by demanding more. Thomas Jefferson said, “Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”
We the present day guardians of America must stand before the tsunami of anti-education that leads our nation away from virtue and into unrighteousness. We must serve as examples working to earn what we receive and refusing to either play the victim or accept the self-imposed victim-hood of those who seek to expropriate the fruit of someone else’s labor. We must stand for righteousness or we will fall before the juggernaut of socialism’s final assault upon the land of the free and the home of the brave.
In the coming election we must choose wisely. We must find someone who is virtuous and who adheres to the principles of constitutionally limited government which alone can protect personal liberty, individual freedom, and economic opportunity. Samuel Adams instructed us in this basic truth, “Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.”
Douglas MacArthur warned us, “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”
Finally, looking to the ultimate source of wisdom Proverbs 14:34 tells us, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Supreme Contempt April 5, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Obama Constitutional Scholar, Obamacare, Saul Alinsky, Supreme Court
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Recently President Obama made this remarkable statement, “Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” For someone reputed to be a former professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago this statement is hard to explain. Any high school student in a sophomore American History class knows there are many precedents for the Supreme Court making laws passed by Congress null and void. As a matter of fact, in the system of government tradition has delivered to us overturning laws as unconstitutional has been an important power of the Supreme Court for more than two hundred years.
And if the primary content of the President’s statement isn’t strange enough the supporting information is wrong. Obamacare wasn’t passed by a strong majority in Congress. In reality the final vote in the House vote was 220 to 215. Every Republican and thirty four Democrats voted against the law. In the Senate the vote was sixty Democrats and Independents voting for and thirty nine Republicans voting against. The Democrats, even though they controlled both houses of Congress knew they would lose enough of their own members that it was going to be a close vote so they moved the bill outside the regular order of business and used a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation to avoid giving the Republicans the opportunity to filibuster the law.
What is the context of these current pressure tactics being used by the executive branch on the judicial branch?
Soon after taking office in 1829, President Andrew Jackson a long time Indian fighter spearheaded one of his signature pieces of legislation through Congress: the Indian Removal Act. This act gave the president the power to negotiate treaties with the various tribes which still existed in America East of the Mississippi. These treaties, often accepted either under duress or under questionable circumstances seized the lands of the tribes and forced them to move West to the Indian Territory in what is today Oklahoma. The time for fighting had passed and most of the tribes quietly left their ancestral lands.
One tribe decided to try another route. The Cherokee Nation had adopted the ways of the Europeans. They devised their own written language and wrote their own Constitution. They had their own plantations, printing presses, and businesses. They also had their own lawyers and instead of going on the warpath as their ancestors had done they went to court to fight the orders from the State of Georgia which dispossessed them of their land.
In two cases; Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the United States Supreme Court considered whether or not it had the power to enforce the rights of Native American nations in disputes between them and the states. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to review the claims of any Indian nation within the United States. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court ruled that only the Federal Government not the states, had the power to regulate the Indian nations.
What the ruling in Worcester v. Georgia meant was that Georgia could not legally seize the Cherokee lands. It was at this junction when referring to the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Marshall that President Andrew Jackson made one his most famous statements, “Mr. Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!” Instead of enforcing the ruling the Federal government joined in and the result was the Trail of Tears as the Cherokee lost their lands and moved west.
Franklin D. Roosevelt legislating Keynesian economic philosophy in the New Deal sought to end the Depression through government spending and central control. With massive majorities in both houses of Congress the president’s agenda was enacted as quickly as possible. Then less than three years after the New Deal began to transform America the Supreme Court began overturning some of the central portions of Roosevelt’s program
In response to this resistance to his vision for what should be done FDR decided to pack the court with Justices who would support his laws. What he proposed was that for any justice over the age of seventy who refused to retire, the president could appoint a new justice to sit beside the current justice and do his work. If his plan had been adopted and none of the then current Justices retired he would have been able to appoint six new Justices. Since he couldn’t force the conservative justices to retire he sought in this way to outnumber them and thus change the ideological complexion of the court. As the president moved ahead in his attempt to pack the court the Supremes started ruling in his favor which eventually stopped the need for his effort to influence the court through overwhelming appointments. Then time and attrition did what he had tried to do with legislation. By 1941, four justices had retired and two had died consequently by the end of his presidency seven of the nine justices were Roosevelt appointees.
Now we come full circle to President Obama and his obvious attempt to belittle and intimidate the court. Should anyone be surprised? This is nothing more than standard operating procedure for a Chicago politician. It is also a normal technique for a community organizer who has been trained in the tactics of Saul Alinsky. No, we shouldn’t be surprised but we could have expected more of anyone who has been entrusted with the highest office in the land. It is just such crude strong-arm tactics such as this which open Mr. Obama up to charges of being a typical South Chicago thug. If he wishes to avoid such charges he needs to avoid such actions.
The above brief review clearly shows that this was not the first attempt of a president to influence the court. However coming from one who is constantly extolled as a constitutional scholar it is certainly disquieting. As a constitutional scholar the president would obviously know what he said was incorrect leaving no other interpretation to his words than a conscious effort to alter the traditional system of checks and balances and the power relationship between the separate branches of the federal government.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Where Does the Supreme Court Get Its Power? March 30, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Commerce Clause, Dr. Robert Owens, individual mandate, judicial review, Supreme Court Obamacare
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This week the eyes of everyone concerned with the continuance of limited government were riveted on the Supreme Court. For three days the nine Justices heard arguments by the Solicitor General in favor of ruling the individual mandate which is the keystone of Obamacare constitutional. They also heard the representatives of twenty-six States argue that it is unconstitutional. This is the first time that a majority of the States have combined to protest an act of Congress. Now We the People must wait while the fate of our Republic is decided in secret by our Black Robed rulers from whom there is no appeal.
How did we get here?
We elect our representatives and they enact laws which are supposed to be within the framework of the Constitution. It should be the expectation of Americans that those we entrust with our delegated sovereignty would craft laws in accordance with our wishes as expressed in the founding document of our government. These laws should reflect our desire for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.
And the unicorns danced with the elves until the cow jumped over the moon.
The perpetually re-elected who control the two houses of our legislature make law with no regard for the limits, the spirit, or the letter of our Constitution. In this case they have decreed not participating in Commerce is commerce, and that a penalty is not a tax, that is a tax, and then isn’t again. After years of stepping so far over the line they have forgotten there was a line. The Party of Power has finally legislated us to the point of no return. If the court of last resort gives this power grab the green light what limits are left?
Since the law was passed over the overwhelming rejection of the voters its validation would cement the dictatorship of the Party in the transformation of America from what we have known into what we would never choose. The Court appears to be our last line of defense. But where does the Supreme Court get its power?
The Supreme Court is principally occupied in a task that has no basis in the Constitution. The nine justices spend their time judging what is constitutional and what isn’t through a process known as judicial review. However, when the delegates of the thirteen original States drafted the Constitution they decided after much debate not to delegate such a power to the judicial branch or any other branch of the new Federal Government.
If the Constitution doesn’t give this power to the Court how did they get it? The surprising answer is that they assumed it unto themselves, and since no one stopped them they just kept doing it. The process began in 1794 when for the First time they declared an act of Congress unconstitutional. Then in 1803 they used a minor case Marbury v Madison to outline their justification for the process. Since that time the belief that the Supreme Court is the ultimate judge of the constitutionality of anything and everything has become such a cornerstone of the American System that the average person erroneously believes the power was granted in the Constitution. Thus the first power grab has become our last defense against what could be the final power grab.
In other words we who want to see the rebirth of limited government are hoping the Supreme Court will use an unconstitutional power to save the Constitution. We stand hat in hand waiting patiently to find out if the Commerce Clause can be stretched to give the central government unlimited power or will we step back from the precipice and wait for the Party of Power to try again.
Across the country we have watched as everything from abortion to gay marriage has been imposed upon us by the black robed tyrants of the Federal Bench. We have watched as popularly passed referendums were overturned, and common sense laws such as Arizona’s immigration statutes cast aside by activist jurists determined to force our nation into their mold. Unelected and almost unaccountable these imperious lawyers on steroids hand down pronouncements from Olympus on the Potomac as the sons of pioneers meekly accept the rule of tradition and the arbitrary decrees of men instead of the rule of law our ancestors fought and died to establish and preserve.
Now the arguments are over. The talking heads endlessly dissect what was said telling us what it means. For months we will hear rumors and hints as we wait until June for the word from on high. Is not purchasing insurance commerce? Does the government have the power to compel a citizen to enter into a contract? Is a contract made under duress valid? Does Congress have the power to make the purchasing of a product necessary to maintain the status of a law abiding citizen? If the answer to what should be rhetorical questions is not a resounding “NO!” we have strayed beyond the pale of liberty and are adrift in the seas of arbitrary power.
As we look to an unconstitutional process to save the Constitution perhaps we should reflect on the state of our Republic. I would also recommend a deep study of the works of our Anti-Federalist fathers. Since we are living in the world they predicted maybe we should take a second look at what they recommended as an alternative to what we have become?
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
We Know the Problem … What’s the Answer? March 22, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Cloward/Piven Strategy, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, rule without Congress
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This weekly column, which I have been privileged to submit for your consideration for the past three years, elicits many comments and questions. The most common of which can be summed up as, “I agree with your analysis, appreciate the Historical context, but how about some practical suggestions.”
If you are one of the many who have sent me those emails, posted those replies, made those phone calls, or asked me in person this column is for you.
To fully address these questions we have to look at two levels: the macro and the micro. We need practical suggestions for the very large and the very small. We need practical suggestions for the societal and cultural level and the personal level.
First of all we need some historical context for our current situation. In some ways we are unique, we are America after all. And in some ways what is happening to us has happened many times before. As I have often said in these columns if History doesn’t actually repeat itself it does rhyme.
The French Revolution occurred between 1787 and 1799. It was the first to try to replicate the phenomenon of the American Revolution which overthrew the age old tyranny of divine right kings and landed aristocracy replacing it with a federal republic operating on democratic principles based upon limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.
The American Revolution inspired the French to believe they too could break free of the chains and breathe the fresh air of freedom. However, it lost something in the translation. Perhaps because the French didn’t have the centuries long tradition of limited self-government and human rights which had grown up in England since the Magna Carta had been forced on a reluctant King John in 1215. Perhaps it was because the French had endured centuries of the cruelest servitude under the most absolute of absolute monarchs.
Whatever the reason once the French broke free of the cultural, societal, and personal restraint of the Old Regime which had persecuted and exploited them for so long the French people sought to exact revenge. They sought to cut the former ruling class out of society and while they were at it establish a completely new regime in its place. The French, always famous for philosophers, had produced one who had a tremendous influence on the thinking of the Founders of our country and the Framers of the Constitution: Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
However, Rousseau had two sides. On one he eloquently expressed the idea that government was established upon a social contract between the rulers and the ruled and that to have any legitimacy government must base itself upon the consent of the governed. Thus empowering the governed to decide when that contract has been violated and giving them a philosophical basis for change. Our forefathers based their work upon this side.
On the other side, Rousseau argued against private property. And that it is the role of the state to impose freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state regardless of the view of the majority. Thus empowering a minority to decide what constitutes freedom, equality, justice, and justifying the use of state power to mold society to fit the vision of the few. On this side Rousseau is considered the father of modern socialism and communism. This is the side that the leaders of the French Revolution chose to follow.
Another difference is that by 1787 France had been a highly centralized nation for centuries. The local governments served at the pleasure of the central authority and they could be established or overthrown upon the whim of the ruler. In America we had the experience of thirteen separate colonies each with their own particular history and each with their own particular traditions. In America this led to the establishment of a Federal republic with sovereignty resting in the states and only delegated to the central government.
These differences led to the corruption of the French Revolution into The Terror. This was a period between 1793 and 1794 when France was surrounded by enemies and pressed on every side. The Leaders of the Revolution felt as if there were agents and sympathizers of their enemies everywhere and they proceeded to execute thousands of their own people in order to secure freedom. The Terror eventually led to a military dictatorship which evolved into an Empire with a monarch at least as absolute as the one they had overthrown in 1787.
Unfortunately for humanity suffering under the yoke of absolute rulers and their crony elites, subsequent revolutions have tended to follow the French model instead of the America. The Mexican Revolution (1810-1821) was part of a wide ranging revolt against the once great Spanish Empire (1808-1826). From the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego revolutions cast aside the foreign rule of Spain and established homegrown republics. All of these republics modeled their initial declarations of independence on America’s but the successor regimes all came to model some variation of the French. The people rose up in righteous indignation against an oppressive system and in the end found themselves under one military dictator after another. They fought to gain their liberty and merely traded one elite for another as the iron heel of tyranny maintained its stand on the throat of liberty.
Other revolutions, the Russian (1917) and the Cuban (1952-1959) are further examples of the trend. What begins as an attempt to bring the blessing of limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom to people ends up bringing instead a tyranny usually more cruel than what the people originally rebelled against.
As can be seen by this litany of subverted revolutions it is usually violence that brings the fall of the former tyranny and facilitates the rise of the latter. One example of a revolution that came about through an election would be the Nazi revolution in 1932. Another would be the current regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. A revolution by way of the ballot box, but a revolution none the less.
Today America is in the midst of a revolution. America has elected a President who has vowed to fundamentally transform America. He promised this to his adoring supporters before his election, and he has worked tirelessly to bring it about. He is an Alinsky style community organizer who is working to organize our community by occupying the center of power and the streets at the same time. He follows the Cloward/Piven Strategy spending us into oblivion in the name of saving the economy. He has seized major portions of the economy and shoved national health insurance, a financial sector take-over, and undeclared war down the throats of a passive American public. Polls show that vast majorities do not want what he is selling but he is closing the deal anyway.
Right now Mr. Obama is campaigning day and night for another term, and a term that would be without restraint for a President who has already said he can rule without Congress. He would undoubtedly appoint at least one more Supreme Court Justice and solidify America’s passage from a federal republic to a European style social democracy.
That is the context, so what should patriotic Americans do now? As I said at the beginning to fully address these questions we have to look at two levels: the macro and the micro. We need practical suggestions for the very large and the very small. We need practical suggestions for the societal and cultural level and the personal level.
On the macro level we need to do everything in our power to make sure Barack Obama does not win a second term. We need to contribute our time, our talent, and our treasure to making sure he is defeated and defeated decisively in the November of 2012. Whom should we support? My advice is study the opposition candidates, and support the one who stands for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom. Choose the one that most credibly supports a return to constitutional government.
If after the primaries that candidate does not win the nomination of the Republican side of the government party, patriots will be faced with a dilemma. If we are forced to choose between Obama and the sure, sudden and, complete destruction of constitutionally limited government or a big government Republican who is in favor of more foreign interventions and a continuation of our role as policeman of the world what’s a patriot to do?
The problem with choosing the lesser of two evils is that you are still choosing evil. However in this instance with code blue on one side and a slow fall off a high cliff on the other we may want to choose the one who will drive us to the poor house a little slower. At least that way we will have more time to prepare and perhaps another opportunity to make the logical choice and vote for a return to constitutional government.
On the Micro level I am reminded of the many people I have met over the years who have escaped from any one of the hell-holes socialist revolutions have produced in the last hundred years. Whether it is Poland, or Russia, or Cuba they have told me over and over that they see the same things happening here that once swallowed their homelands. They have told me how they cry at night as they see central planning and social engineering consuming America. They have tearfully asked me, “Where can we go now? We escaped tyranny looking for freedom and now we see the same thing coming here?”
In answer to their questions I have asked one of my own, “How can we survive the coming darkness?” One by one they have all given me the same advice, “Get out of the cities, get yourself some land where you can grow your own food, and do all you can to protect your family and preserve the traditions of liberty.”
In other words, head for the hills and hunker down. Personally my wife and I have made this choice. We have decided to sacrifice whatever portions of our modern life styles and lucrative careers must be jettisoned to maintain what is truly important: our family, our lives, and our liberty. We saw this coming and made a five year plan which is now coming to fruition. Myself and many others have been sounding the alarm from the watchtowers for years.
Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of our nation. We must stand up for our heritage. We must do battle in the marketplace of ideas, and we must engage in the struggle at the ballot box, but we must also prepare to save some seed corn in case the winter does descend. We must preserve what we can so we can begin again. So “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Praetorian Progressives and Their Imperial Dreams March 15, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Afghanistan, Dr. Robert Owens, Imperial Presidency, Iraq, limited government, Progressives, Ron Paul
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Under President Obama we doubled-down in Afghanistan? We sent more of our fellow citizens to a long hard slog in a country whose synonym is Quagmire while announcing the eventual date of their withdrawal at the same time. In an unprecedented action Mr. Obama announced our attack as he heralded our retreat in a calculated political decision that has cost lives, squandered treasure and told the Taliban to wait in the wings for the second act.
As our economy was being outsourced, our debt monetized, and our infrastructure crumbled we meekly followed the leader deeper into a thankless nation-building campaign in the Little Bighorn of nations. A nation that is more of a Western construct than an actual nation-state, and the tribes which inhabit this mountainous waste have resisted and foiled every empire from Alexander to Moscow.
There is a fundamental difference between a republic and an empire. Republics are based upon the consent of the governed. Empires are imposed from above. Republics foster a community of equals each with the opportunity to achieve. Empires exalt the ruling class at the expensive of everyone else. Though settled by European kingdoms seeking empires the United States wasn’t founded to become an empire. Individuals fought against the empire building tyrants until their determination and resolve won independence against all odds.
It is time to re-think America’s international military commitments. It is our world wide web of foreign commitments and entanglements that has been used by the self-righteous Progressives and their cronies in the military industrial complex in their efforts to transform the United States from republic to empire. They have used the never ending wars for peace to regiment our society and create a centrally-planned bureaucratic mega government.
George Washington warned us to avoid foreign entanglements telling us, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world…” He warned us about allowing the military to grow to big, “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
Thomas Jefferson outlined the essential principles of our government which included this advice concerning foreign affairs, “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations entangling alliances with none.”
For the first 100 years of our existence we followed Washington’s great rule, “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”
The temptation to empire captured the American imagination in the 1890s: the beginning of the Progressive Era. This was a time when Europe was rushing to gobble up the last places open for colonization or carving up those areas unsuited for colonies into spheres of influence.
Under President McKinley the United States entered the scramble for colonies in the Spanish-American War winning Puerto Pico and the Philippines as well as a long war against those in the Philippines who wanted the independence they had expected when liberated from the Spanish Empire by the American Republic.
Teddy Roosevelt the great grandfather of the Progressives followed McKinley walking softly while carrying a big stick in the form of the Great White Fleet. He used America’s new found industrial might and military power for multiple intrusions into the sovereignty of Latin American countries. While better known for his war against business, or trust busting as it was then called, the first President Roosevelt extolled war as a means to national greatness, “No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war”
After being re-elected on the promise to keep America neutral President Wilson proclaimed America must fight to “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” An adventure which cost over 300,000 casualties and which actually expanded the empires of England, France, and Japan while sowing the seeds of an even greater war.
After Wilson’s war the Congress of the United States re-asserted control by rejecting the international entanglements of the League of Nations Treaty returning to the traditional American foreign policy of freedom of trade and freedom of action.
Under FDR America fought an undeclared naval war against Germany in 1940 and 41 and imposed draconian embargoes against Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. Once we were attacked we had to defend ourselves. However, when World War II ended with the defeat of German, Italian, and Japanese totalitarianism and the vast expansion of Soviet totalitarianism, the guiding light of America foreign policy seems to have been permanently extinguished.
As the British Empire sailed into the sunset we filled the void taking up the role of leader of the West in the Cold War. For forty-six years we faced the Soviets until they collapsed. Then instead of coming home we spread our wings even further embracing Eastern Europe. We made a vain promise to send young Americans to fight for Estonia and Slovakia. We coaxed color-coded revolutions all around Russia while our allies moved the EU to the East. All of this rebuffed the hand of the Russians and made them instead of friends bitter foes who realized America had exploited their weakness and attempted to surround them with enemies. This is the exact scenario which has haunted Russian paranoid dreams for centuries.
It is against the traditional principles of American foreign policy to establish and maintain an empire of far-flung outposts. Doing so has broken the bank and we cannot afford to be the Policeman of the world. We cannot afford to build nations for people who don’t want them while allowing our own infrastructure to decay. How did a peaceful nation of free citizens become the advocate of pre-emptive attack and endless occupation? How much blood and treasure did we invest in Iraq and what will be the result: a precipitous pull-out resulting in a Shi’a ally for Iran.
The war in Afghanistan was obviously defensive and retaliatory in nature given the Taliban’s support and collusion with Al Qaeda. But ten years later what’s it all about? Are we really dedicated to building a modern nation for tribal people who have no sense of nationhood? Have we blundered into the same trap that brought the Soviets to their knees?
And it isn’t only our current hot deployment that is problematic.
The United States has armed forces in over 130 countries. We’re committed to defend most of these countries against aggression. Where were these allies on 9-11? Where are they in Afghanistan? Why do we have treaties binding us to go to war to defend those who refuse to support us when we’re attacked? If these policies are counter-productive are there any alternatives?
Close the foreign bases and bring our troops home. Sell the bases and save the money. Station our troops on the borders to protect us from the on-going invasion of illegal immigrants who are overloading our systems. Let the maintenance of the bases and the spending of the troops contribute to our domestic economy instead of the economies of other countries. If we need to project American power, use the carrier battle-groups designed for that purpose. Protect America and rebuild our infrastructure.
When asked what to do with the American Military after World War I Will Rogers said, “Get ’em all home, add to their number, add to their training, then just sit tight with a great feeling of security and just read about foreign wars. That’s the best thing in the world to do with them.”
We must jettison the Empire to save the Republic! If we don’t the imperial power will swamp the republican nature. We will retain the forms our Founders gave us as we find ourselves under the jackbooted heel of the Praetorian Progressives and their imperial dreams.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Real Rebels and the Counter Revolution March 8, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: 2012 election, Bill of Rights, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Progressives, Sam Adams
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Think of America’s Founders. These were real rebels.
Sam Adams agitated against the imposition of taxes. He penned the petitions which brought forth the rallying cry “No taxation without representation!” While avoiding violence he led the effort to organize resistance to tyranny. He founded the Committee of Correspondence in Massachusetts and inspired its spread to the other colonies. He organized boycotts of British goods and the public trial of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.
In a world of divine right kings where the common man was a pawn to be exploited and demeaned James Madison made these revolutionary statements, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” And, “An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
Patrick Henry did more than say, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Before the Revolution, as a member of the Assembly in Virginia he led in the formation of a resistance movement against the tyranny of the British crown. During the Revolution he served in the Continental Congress that passed the Deceleration of Independence. After the Revolution he was not afraid to stand up against the desire of many to impose a Constitution without a Bill of Rights leading in the fight to maintain the greatest amount of individual liberty and the strongest limits to the central authority possible under the new Federal Government. As if he could see the convolutions which currently threaten to swallow the Republic Mr. Henry reminded us at the beginning of our national experiment in limited government, “When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.”
Today the world is turned upside down. The so called radical rebels of the sixties now own or control most things including the government. The anti-establishment has become the establishment and the silent majority is being told to remain silent while this progressive minority transforms our nation into what their collectivist programmers have taught them it should be. And yet they still see themselves as the rebels fighting a faceless bureaucracy for freedom never realizing they have met the enemy, and they are them.
All of this made me think about my old friend the professional revolutionary and something hit me. He has always considered himself a rebel. And considering he has made a living out of being a spokesman for the movements dedicated to destroying the America we have always known that kind of made sense at one time.
But in reality he is now and has consistently in the past loyally spouted the logical progression of the anti-American, anti-capitalist garbage that many of the teachers at our good old public High School tried to shove into our young skulls full of mush. He also sounds exactly like all of our contemporaries who have spent a lifetime drinking at the well of the Corporations Once Called the Mainstream Media. Though they see themselves as deep thinkers it has always been obvious they receive their programming, their news and views from the major networks, and the transcripts in the print media. They spout the same anti-traditional values pro-socialism talking points time after time.
Their representatives have spent decades chipping away at the America we love in the movies, on television, and in songs. They have gained control of one component of society at a time: education, the media, the board room, the Congress, and finally the White House. Through patience and planning they have gained control of the entire federal government and the elites of most areas of society. Therefore I cannot see why we should continue referring to them as rebels merely because they see themselves that way. When you listen to their current spokesmen such as the Daily Show, Bill Maher, or any of the MSNBC line up they come off as so hip and so cutting edge when in fact they agree 100% with the current administration and its collectivist anti-life New Age agenda. What’s rebellious about that? That’s like saying Pravda was a radical spokesman for change when they parroted whatever the leaders of the former USSR had to say.
Today my friend the professional rebel is actively helping recruit and train the brown shirt Occupy troops? They may rail against Wall Street but that same Wall Street promotes and funds the very people these protesters vote for. Someone is being used for something, but they never seem to wake up to ask, “Why should we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain?”
I can no longer consider myself a conservative. What is there left to conserve? I am a radical and a rebel, because I advocate for limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom. These 1960s retreads who continue to advocate for the progressive collectivists who have won their revolution and now occupy the seats of power are faux rebels: organizational apparatchiks spouting the party line.
Look at how revolutionary some of our real rebels still sound today:
Sam Adams said, “The Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” And “The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.” He also said, “Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.”
Patrick Henry said, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” And, “We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power… the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” When thinking of his most famous statement we should keep it in context and recall the whole quote, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
So the next time the nightly faux news shows are filled the antics of the faux rebels demonstrating for more government power, or the next time one of your relatives or old friends wants to fill your ear with their oft repeated mantras for the collectivist establishment tell yourself, “This is the time for real rebels and the counter revolution.”
And if pointing out the transparent hypocrisy of the faux rebels of today should ever be considered too rebellious for the faint of heart let me share one more quote from Patrick Henry, “If this be treason, make the most of it!”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
The Forbidden Word Impeach February 23, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: 2012 election, Dr. Robert Owens, Impeach Obama, Impeachment, Libya, recess appointments
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What does History tell us about the impeachment of an American President? It has only happened twice.
Today Lincoln is an icon. His Roman style temple and oversized statue dominate one end of the National Mall. But in 1864 he was an embattled president caught in a war he couldn’t win and running against George B. McClellan, a popular general who said he could end it. Even History was against Lincoln. No president had won a second term in over thirty years. Mr. Lincoln needed all the allies he could muster to win. So the first Republicans led by the President tried to split the opposition. They changed the party name to the National Union Party and chose a Southern Democrat as a running mate. In a surprise to everyone including Lincoln, he won re-election positioning Johnson one heartbeat away from the Oval Office.
After the worst mistake by a Southern sympathizer since the attack on Fort Sumter, the assassination of Lincoln, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency and almost immediately ran afoul of the Radical Republicans who had a three to one majority in Congress and who wanted to punish the South. Johnson was the only Southern Senator to remain loyal to the Union. He served as the Union imposed military governor of Tennessee until chosen to run for Vice President. A mere forty one days into Lincoln’s second term Johnson was sworn in. When he sought to allow the South a path back into the Union that re-imposed limitations upon the freed slaves and ensured the rise of ex-Confederates to power, he was impeached for breaking a law concerning the firing of appointees. After a contentious trial he was acquitted by one vote.
Johnson and his presidency survived, barely. He was afterwards relegated to irrelevancy and served as a mere caretaker until General Grant came along to become the face of Reconstruction. In this first impeachment battle the President was acquitted, but Congress won.
If you ask the average person who lived through the national ordeal President Clinton was impeached because of his scandalous tryst with a young intern in the Oval Office. Though this was a shameful betrayal of trust, it was not the reason he was impeached. He was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a legal matter that had nothing at all to do with Monica Lewinsky. And even though Clinton was later found in contempt by a federal judge for lying under oath and was later disbarred for ethical violations it was the leadership of the House that impeached him that paid the political price. The Senate which on a strict party line vote (all the Progressives voted to acquit), came out relatively unscathed. Today we are constantly told by the Progressive Press Mr. Clinton is a beloved elder statesman.
Etched upon the memory of the Republican wing of the party of power is the knowledge that unless there is a Senate willing to convict there is no glory in being a House ready to indict.
Republics rise and republics fall. They rise due to the explosion of creativity and production which always accompanies freedom, and they fall when demagogues convince a majority that they deserve a free ride at the expense of a minority. The good thing about History is that if we are wise enough we can learn from other people’s mistakes. And if we aren’t going to allow History to instruct us we should at least be wise enough to allow it to warn us.
Our History teaches us that the impeachment process is possible to initiate but difficult to consummate. So what are we to do if History warns us that what we are witnessing is the fall of our republic? Have we learned enough from History to navigate our way through to a safe harbor, or are we helpless in the face of a hurricane of transformation?
Due to the information developed by the American intelligence community and the bravery of Navy Seal Team Six we learned that the leader of Al Qaeda, the fraternity of terrorists America finds itself endlessly destroying, was not hiding in a cave. He was instead living in a compound barely 1,000 yards from the military academy of our principle ally in our decade long undeclared war. Today’s Hitler is dead, yet the war goes on as if nothing has happened. We have victory after victory with no conclusion and no peace in sight.
Looking at our current economic and social situation America appears more like an occupied nation than the victor of the Cold War and the sole remaining Super Power on Earth. Perhaps it is time to conceptualize the idea that our existential enemy is not a rag-tag group of malcontents dedicated to turning back the clock by six centuries. The enemy that poses a mortal threat to our way of life is instead the homegrown Progressive Movement that has labored for more than a century to subvert our education, corrupt our politics, and evolve their way from constitutionally limited government to central planning and total control.
The visible head of the Progressive Movement today is President Barack Obama. As portrayed by the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media he is not just an Alinsky style community organizer, he is a constitutional scholar. We are told endlessly that he was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Leaving the reality of these claims aside suffice it to say that this constitutional scholar professes to believe that the constitution is a flawed document because it does not provide for positive rights such as guarantees of housing, jobs, etc. The kind of rights that the constitutions of the Soviet Union did and of Red China does provide its slaves, I mean citizens. Not to worry our constitutional scholar-in-chief also believes that our Constitution, written to set strict limits on the federal government is a living document that each generation is free to interpret: that is, change at will.
President Obama has presided over the most calamitous decline in American prestige and influence since his fellow Progressive Jimmy Carter disgraced the office. Mr. Obama’s apology tours, his over-the-top spending which are nothing less than cross generational theft are eclipsed by his blatant assaults upon the very core of his responsibility: the integrity of the Constitution.
The president of the United States is sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, but instead Mr. Obama has trampled upon the letter as well as the spirit of this document meant to define the perimeters of federal power.
Unconfirmed Czars rule like potentates over shadow departments dispensing huge budgets while creating a parallel government outside of citizen scrutiny or control. Appointees at the National Labor Relations Board work at subordinating the nation to organized labor. A rogue justice department provides guns to Mexican cartels, refuses to prosecute obvious instances of voter intimidation, gives a pass to Islamist groups, and stonewalls Congress, while aggressively going after peaceful pro-life demonstrators and America’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio. They sue states that try to enforce immigration laws they ignore and seek to try the perpetrators of 9-11 in a New York trial that would parade itself through our national consciousness like a Broadway production of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Superstar.
Beyond these abuses of power there are two glaring examples of the type of blatant transgressions of clear constitutional limits which, if not addressed set a precedent that may stand in the future as signs of the times that were missed at the time. If not addressed, they will point accusing fingers at a generation asleep at the switch when the bounds of limited government were finally breached.
Ruling by decree from Chicago-on-the-Potomac our Leader has taken us to war without even consulting Congress and made recess appointments while Congress was in session.
Mr. Obama has said he can rule without Congress because he can’t wait. He travels the country at tax payer expense campaigning for four more years to seal the deal, inflaming class warfare, and dispensing government giveaways to buy votes. These two egregious affronts to the Constitution lie at the feet of the Washington Monument passed over by the media and explained away by the government’s propaganda arm. And what does the loyal opposition do? They huff and they puff but actually they do nothing.
Only two Congressmen had the integrity to point out that presidents are not allowed to take us to war by whim. And only one had the courage to point out that making high level appointments without Senate confirmation while the Senate is in session is more than bad form: it is unconstitutional and more compatible with a dictatorship than a republic.
We stand before the yawning maw of collectivism presided over by a self-proclaimed transformational president seeking to change us from what we have been to what he thinks we should be. Mr. Obama is supported by what amounts to a personality cult in the media and a legion of fellow citizens addicted to either distributing or receiving the dole. The Republican candidates are standing in a circular firing squad working hard at allowing the Progressive Media make them look like the bar scene from Star Wars. At the same time the media gives the President a pass for everything from gas prices to artificially deflated unemployment figures. If America as we have known her is to survive, we must elect a Congress with enough courage and enough votes to do what must be done. The Congress we have now is passive in the face of serial provocations and outright illegality. They will not call Mr. Obama to account on anything so he feels free to do everything.
If he wins again we all lose unless we replace those who merely go along to get along with those who are willing to speak the forbidden word…Impeach!
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
The Man Who Would Be King February 16, 2012
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: 2012 election, Dr. Robert Owens, Obama re-election, Ron Paul, Stimulus, TARP
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In 114 BC, Rome was a democratic Republic. Representatives elected by popular vote filled the Senate, and the Senate ran Rome. The Empire was conquered in the name of the Senate and the People of Rome, symbolized by the ever present SPQR seen on every Roman standard in every gladiator movie you have ever watched.
At the beginning of the first century BC sovereignty in Rome resided in the People, which may have inspired the most famous attribution of sovereignty in American History, “We the People” as the proclaimed authors of the Constitution. The power in republican Rome resided in the people. In a revolution that was by then legendary, they had banished their kings and established themselves as a free republic where the people assembled together to elect the Senators, the magistrates, and made all major decisions such as whether or not to go to war. And far beyond mere words much of what was early Rome was the target the Founding Fathers shot at when they established our later day republic.
And yet, by 14 AD, when Augustus died, popular elections were but a memory. Power was no longer located in the people, or in their assemblies, or their representatives in the Senate, instead power was concentrated in an Imperial Palace which was guarded, unapproachable, and foreboding.
How did this revolution occur? What led the freedom loving Romans to lay down their liberty and put on the yoke of oppression? Later Romans who longed for the freedom their ancestors had discarded pointed to 133 BC when a rich young man named Tiberius Gracchus bought his way into the office of Tribune, an executive position one step below magistrate that was meant to protect the interests of the poor. Gracchus used his office to curry personal power by giving bread and circuses to the people paid for by the public treasury. Eventually he hit on a very popular plan. He proposed to seize the lands of the rich and give them to the poor and he imposed this under his own authority, an authority he lacked under the Roman constitution. Later when he put himself forward for a second term in opposition to custom and law he was assassinated by a group of Senators.
Several generations of corrupt politicians using the same formula sought to buy personal power and popular adoration by looting the public treasury to give the people ever increasing benefits. Finally another rich young ruler arose by the name of Julius Caesar. He rose through various public offices eventually gaining the office of Proconsul or Governor of Gaul (France). He knew that to be a true Roman hero and paramount leader he needed to be a successful conqueror, so that is what he spent the next nine years doing. He conquered not only all of Gaul but much of central Europe even leading the first Roman expedition to Britain. While he accomplishing this he sent back well written dispatches to Rome which were published and widely distributed recounting his bravery and skill as a general.
All of this was too much for his political rivals in Rome. They gained enough votes to have him branded a traitor which meant little in Gaul where he had absolute power thanks to his well trained and veteran army. His rivals promised his arrest and conviction if and when he returned to the capitol. However Caesar was not to be denied so he compounded the accusations of his treason with a treasonable act leading his army across the Rubicon River to Rome.
With his troops behind him Caesar secured all power and after many adventures to suppress the forces loyal to the old order he had a compliant Senate elect him dictator for life. As his grasp of power solidified it became clear his rule would be the end of the republic. Breaking completely with tradition he began to wear purple, the color of royalty in public. Finally when his chief Lieutenant, Anthony, publicly offered him a crown it was too much and just as with Gracchus one hundred years before, Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators.
Caesar was followed by Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome who was never called Emperor. He was instead known by the republican sounding title of princeps, or first citizen. Kings were hated in Rome. The traditions of the Republic ran deep. Both Gracchus and Caesar had been killed because people thought they would make themselves king. The genius of Caesar’s nephew and successor was that Augustus made himself king in all but name while keeping the outward forms of the Republic. The elections were rigged, the Senate only did what they were told, and the people were kept happy by giveaways from the public treasury and kept in line by a smothering blanket of laws and regulations.
Fast forward to the 20th century and two other would be kings include Mussolini who decreed that calendars in Italy should begin again with October 29, 1922 the date he assumed power as the first day of year one. He proclaimed the Fascist Era was the dawn of a new age. And Hitler who said his National Socialist Nazis would reign for a thousand years.
In America today we have a leader who campaigned on a platform of cutting taxes and regulations. A man who when the economy melted down said if he didn’t solve the problem in three years he wasn’t worthy of a second term. In a classic example of bait and switch he walked over his promises to restore American greatness and suddenly announced five days before the election that he would instead transform America.
Presidents are elected to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. Nowhere in the job description does it mention anything about transforming America. He was elected to do one job and decided instead to do another. TARP was passed to clear the toxic assets out of the banks and restart the system but instead was used to seize controlling interests in AIG, GM and Chrysler and in general assert government ownership over a significant portion of the American economy. The stimulus was passed to re-energize the economy but instead it became a gift bag for the President’s supporters and a slush fund for his re-election.
Mr. Obama, with the corporations once known as the major media clearing his way and covering his tracks, compares himself to Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Reagan and God, ridicules those who cling to the old ways, and decrees that he can rule without Congress because he can’t wait. His spending has impoverished future generations and will eventually sink the ship of state. His foreign policy ignores our allies and empowers our enemies. Instead of uniting our country to get out of the hole dug by generations of failed Progressive boondoggles and giveaways he incites class warfare while the welfare rolls expand daily.
Whether we are dealing with one man devoted to personal aggrandizement or merely a teleprompter reading front man for a well-oiled CABAL we are face to face with someone who has been positioned by the generosity of American voters to do irreparable damage to our nation. We have one last chance to save the republic as we have known it. The Republicans who operate as the other half of the party of power seek to nominate another big government operator who promises little more than driving us to the poor house a little slower with new wars along the way.
What we need is a man who will work as president to re-impose the limits of the constitution. We need a man who will educate Americans as to what a constitutional government is and what it should do and not do. We need a leader who will reverse course and take us back to the days of individual liberty, personal freedom, and economic liberty. We need a leader who isn’t afraid to jettison the empire to save the republic. Now is the time for such a leader. If only enough Americans will recognize the signs of the times and rally round the flag they will still call it America.
Just as the Rome of Caligula and Nero still called itself a republic so too in the coming era of Progressive centralization and control will our beloved country still be America. The Constitution will remain on display in Washington. However, in the world turned upside down liberty will be circumscribed by political correctness and freedom will be defined by government regulations. Our schools and media will assure us that we are the most free and prosperous nation on earth while other countries that have gained their freedom pass us by. History as it is taught in America today tries to tell us that socialism works. It doesn’t. It leads to a stunted, shabby future where everyone sinks to the level of the lowest common denominator. What we need is a rebirth of republicanism with a small “r” and a big dream.
Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the Historian of the Future and the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 