We Can Trust Us November 25, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: 2012 election, Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Dr. Robert Owens
1 comment so far
Listening to the lies of the politicians as presented by the prattle of the biased it is easy to lose hope in a secular sense. My hope in an eternal sense is founded on the rock of an unshakable faith in Jesus and so it cannot be shaken. However, in the secular resting, as it must upon the shifting sands of man in America today, hope as a measured commodity is all too often hopeless. Seeking for hope in current events, a diamond among the discards and a point of light in a sea of darkness, is seeking something positive among the gathering gloom of an empire in eclipse.
I don’t know about you but I cannot focus on the negative trends of our current situation for long without at least contemplating depression and I don’t mean the economic kind. I am thankful I have a peace that passes all understanding and a hope that cannot be taken away, and I am also glad that I have a sense of History which gives me a context to frame the Now. For if all we have is the Now it can always be changed with the next headline, the next news bulletin or the next press release. Having a historical context brings things into focus fitting the events of today into flow of time from yesterday to tomorrow.
Truth often becomes the victim of expediency. For what seems true at the moment may end up as the lie of the hour. Politicians bend truth like gravity bends light: the heavier the perceived need the greater the unperceived distortion. Lies can become so widely believed that truth is swallowed in truism. As lies become the accepted wisdom of professional pundits chattering endlessly supporting that which ultimately must fall for those who seek to surf a tsunami into a safe harbor. The news is filled with half-truths and as my second favorite philosopher, Anonymous once said, “Beware of half-truths, you may have gotten the wrong half.”
We live in a twilight time. Twilight by definition is a time when two sources of light pierce the gloom, that quivering moment when both the sun and the moon hold back the darkness. The darkness of confusion is dispelled by the brightness of the sun of truth but it is disputed by refracted light of the moon of opinion masquerading as truth.
Casting about for something solid in the midst of the swirling fog of conflicting facts, shifting observations, and contradictory visions in the secular sense I must focus on one thing: the people. I trust the American people. I trust them to make the right choice when presented with unvarnished reality. I trust them to do what must be done to preserve the bequest of our forefathers for the inheritance of our posterity.
The Declaration of Independence was written to proclaim the righteousness of the actions of “One people” with the courage to declare to a world sold into bondage that our liberty was founded upon truth. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We the People wrote the Constitution in order to perfect that which had been founded upon the truth. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
It is to this one people, this “We the people” that I look for secular hope, political peace, and the eventual solution to our current cultural conundrum. The popular definition of a conundrum is a problem without a solution. However it also has another meaning, a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun. Since I am referring to the second meaning I will present the riddle, “How is liberalism the solution to the problem of liberalism?”
In our through-the-looking-glass world politicians use actual truth to obscure the obvious truth. Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank scandal said, “They gave me a book of checks. They didn’t ask for any deposits.” While I’m sure it is true he was given a book of checks, obviously one needs to make deposits if one is to honestly write checks. In this same manner the leaders of our free country promote socialism as the solution to the problems socialism has caused knowing that you cannot honestly write checks if you don’t make deposits. Capitalism makes the deposits and socialism wants to write the checks. As Churchill said “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
We are awash in polls. Every campaign and every major news source constantly trumpet polls many of which contradict each other. No matter what the polls say I believe that the American people still believe in freedom. I believe they still believe in the equality of opportunity and the opportunity of equality. We all aren’t the same. Each of us is born with a particular set of talents and each of us uses those talents in a certain way. It is my belief, that given the level playing field of individual liberty and economic freedom, the vast majority of Americans will work hard to earn what they deserve. This is my secular hope. Heaven on earth is not possible but given individual liberty and economic freedom inherently promised in the perfect union we the people sought to create we can at least avoid remaining in the hell of socialism the Progressives are currently foisting upon us, and as Churchill also said “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Oh, by the way, the answer to the riddle is that Classical Liberalism promotes the general welfare by promoting the limitation of government and the liberty of the individual in order to better serve the whole. Welfare Liberalism erodes the general welfare by expanding the government at the expense of the individual in order to better serve the individual. Thus Classical Liberalism is the solution to the problems caused by Welfare Liberalism. And that’s the truth which brings me to one last Churchill quote for the day, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is.”
Don’t be discouraged by the blather of the pontificating politicians or confused by the conflicting ruminations of the professional talkers. When all is said and done we can trust us. We the people will eventually come down on the side of truth, justice, and the American way.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Let’s Conversate about the Argubate November 11, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: Compromise, Dr. Robert Owens, gridlock, Progressive tactics
4 comments
A negotiation is the formalized give-and-take side of a conversation. The blending of the two, a negotiation with the less formal tone of a family discussion, is aptly termed in the dictionary of the way we speak as “to conversate.”
A debate is merely an argument dressed up in its Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. So whether we should call our current national dialog a debate or an argument depends upon the sensibilities of the writer and the reader. For the purposes of fairness and inclusiveness I will therefore coin a new term, “Argubate.”
Has there ever been a time in American History when everyone at least seemed to agree on everything?
Yes, there was a brief interlude forgotten by all save Historians, a moment of forgotten peace in our raging sea of political passion.
In the overwhelmingly nationalistic years after the War of 1812 there was a brief period which saw a dramatic lowering of the heat in our perpetual political strife. In the Election of 1816, James Monroe a Democratic Republican defeated the last of the Federalist candidates. Monroe and his policies were so popular and so well received that he won reelection in the Election of 1820 facing no opposition whatsoever. This brief calm in the political storm is the popularly forgotten Era of Good Feelings.
Ever since that one brief lull in the ideological conflagration the battle has flared. First one side and then the other are in the driver’s seat while the other side plots its eventual return to power. It has only been by compromise that we have avoided a series of fratricidal wars.
Compromise today has a negative connotation for those on the limited government side of the aisle. 100 years of compromise with those who wish to progress past the limitations enshrined in our founding document have brought us to the strangulation of regulations and the oppression of an overwhelming central government. However, compromise is still the only way to avoid the abyss which lies beyond our current position on the precipice of mutually exclusive partisanship.
Compromise is the only thing that will preserve our country from either splintering into pieces all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put together again, a-la the USSR or sinking into the type of gulag from which the Russians are still struggling to escape.
Beyond the eloquent explanations and focus-grouped sound bites compromise is essentially everyone doing what no one wanted. Compromise can also be the tactic of any group that seeks to move ahead one step at a time. Gain a little here and a little there until one inch at a time you have moved across the street. And therein lays the problem. The Progressives have used this tactic so often and for so long that the silent majority finally woke up to find their elected representatives had sold the cow for some magic beans. It is hard to trust compromise when it has bargained away our heritage one new interpretation at a time. However, the looming breakdown in civil discourse prompts me to urge a renewed effort to find some way to preserve the peace while preserving our freedom.
Compromise has a long history in America for we were born in compromise.
It was only due to the Great Compromise reached in Independence Hall that we have a Constitution. The New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan were wedded to produce a compromise satisfying the desires of both the small states and the large states by creating a House of Representatives based upon population and a Senate with equal representation.
The Union was preserved twice by compromise.
By 1820 the division between the slave-holding South and the emancipated North was growing bitter. The debate hinged upon the even division of the senate. For every state admitted on one side the other side demanded a counterbalance. When it came time to begin carving states out of the Louisiana Territory the Southern side was the first to advance to that stage, but the North could not abide admitting Missouri as a slave state since there was no free state ready for admission. So the Missouri Compromise solved the problem and kept the peace.
Missouri was admitted as a slave state. Maine was separated from Massachusetts and admitted as a free state. A line was drawn along the southern boundary of Missouri. Everything North of that would be free, and everything South of that slave. Thirty years later a new compromise held off war for another ten years.
The Compromise of 1850 was designed to address the sectional rivalry over slavery which was tearing our young nation apart. It was in reality a series of five bills. The compromise brought in California as a free state. It allowed New Mexico and Utah to decide the slavery issue through a popular vote and gave Texas ten million dollars to pay its debt to Mexico for which it gave up lands claimed in present day New Mexico. It abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia and the Fugitive Slave Act which made it a federal crime for any federal official not to arrest a runaway slave.
This compromise only lasted four years when it was effectively repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act which once again opened the northern territories to the possibility of slavery and leaving the decision in the hands of the voters. This led to increasing hostilities between the two sides culminating in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and the Civil War: the ultimate break down of America’s process of compromise.
The Civil War did not end America’s use of compromise to avoid permanent division. Reconstruction, the occupation of the South by Northern armies after the Civil war, eventually led to an impasse with the threat of renewed conflict. War was averted when the Compromise of 1877 gave a disputed election to a Republican president, an end of Reconstruction, and various offices and political gains to the Democrats.
Except for the fleeting Era of Good Feelings and those unusual and brief times when the same side controlled all three branches of government, America has moved forward by compromise. For compromise, true compromise, not surrender dressed up in a palatable name, is the sweet spot where any group that is in reality two groups must dwell if there is to be peace, progress, and harmony. Make no mistake, since the beginning America has ever been the home of two sides: the Patriots and the Loyalists, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, the Democratic Republicans and the Whigs, and those two rabid beasts we all love to hate the Democrats and the Republicans.
Instead of just shouting our mutually exclusive slogans at each other what we need is a dialogue across the no-man’s-land which separates our entrenched positions. This article is an attempt to urge both sides to realize neither side has the support to dominate the other long enough to legislate let alone legitimize total victory. If we can get beyond shouting slogans at each other perhaps we can find our way to a compromise that will allow us to continue as the last best hope of humanity. If not, we may well slide into the shabby collectivism which shackles the rest of the globe.
Is there anything we can agree on? Is there any way forward? Can we at least conversate about the argubate? I say this realizing that in our current atmosphere of hyper-partisanship this call for compromise will probably make neither side happy. However, I am willing to be dammed if I do and dammed if I don’t in an attempt to preserve the peace if we can do so while preserving our freedom. 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 author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Who Votes for Democracy? November 4, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: democracy, democracy now, Dr. Robert Owens, Founders on democracy, Occupy Wall Street
3 comments
Democracy! Democracy! Democracy! This is the mantra that we hear from Tahrir Square to Yemen from Belarus to Wall Street protestors are on the march around the world demanding Democracy!
Democracy has long been the cover for all manner of despotic totalitarian regimes creating hellholes for their own people and nightmares for the rest of us. One needs only to recall that even though the popular myth of Hitler being elected is demonstrably false, he lost the only election he ever ran in, he was however appointed Chancellor in 1933 after his Nazi Party became the largest single party through democratic elections. His ghoulish regime achieved total power when 90% of the German people voted to make Hitler the Führer or undisputed dictator of their nation. And who can forget the many Democratic People’s Republics that have graced the world with their despotic presence, East Germany, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea. The cover of democracy and the votes of the people have been used to legitimize the most insidious forms of human depravity.
It is popular among conservatives to decry the nation-wide and world-wide demand for democracy as if it were something new under the sun. It is also popular to point out that the United States of America was founded as a representative Republic not as a Democracy. The representative nature of the Republic was enshrined in both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. The difference is proudly pointed out that we are a representative republic which operates on democratic principles NOT a democracy.
It is not quite as popular to point out that though our representative Republic has always operated on democratic principles in the beginning that democracy did not spread out very far. The franchise was restricted only to males of the Caucasian persuasion who owned a certain amount of property. The dirty little secret teachers of American History Survey classes fought for years to keep from their impressionable students was that even though Wilson led America into fighting World War I to make the world safe for democracy and FDR led us into World War II as the Arsenal of Democracy the Founders of our country went to great lengths to protect our Republic from the perils of democracy.
Examples of the Founders distaste for democracy are easy to find:
James Madison said, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
John Adams said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide” and, “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”
Alexander Hamilton said, “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
The circle of American democracy was at first drawn closely around the ruling circle of intellectuals, lawyers and men of property because they feared the tyranny of those unable or unwilling to learn the rudiments of History, Economics or Governance. However, as time passed spurred on by a combination of their desire to participate and the cajoling of those who wanted to rule them people began to agitate for an extension of the franchise and for one reason or another the circle began to expand until by the 1830s throughout the United States most Caucasian males could vote. By comparison in Britain at the same time less than 10% could vote.
The watchword in America became democracy, not in the speeches of the first Progressives in the 1890s but in the voices of their great grandfathers in the second generation after our Revolution. Within a generation leadership passed from Washington, Jefferson, Madison and other statesmen with grand visions of liberty and freedom to partisan leaders of political factions. The stirring and deeply reflective tone of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers was replaced by clever slogans designed to move the masses and win votes.
Alexis de Tocqueville is often quoted to show the high state of American involvement and participation in the democratic process. He is less often quoted in his assessment of that process, “The most able men in the United States are very rarely place at the head of affairs.” He pointed to the character of a democracy where people ignored important issues, disdained intellectuals who were informed of these issues and instead were moved by “the clamor of a mountebank [a demagogue] who knows the secret of stimulating their tastes.”
In the recent past President Bush in 2005 during his second inaugural speech declared the doctrine that bears his name by saying, ‘‘it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.’’ Since that time democratic elections have brought us Hamas as the elected representatives of the Palestinian People, Islamists have won the first post-Arab Spring election in Tunisia and who can forget that Hugo Chavez has won multiple elections in Venezuela and then there is our new partner in our latest military adventure Yoweri Museveni Uganda’s President-for-Life who was democratically elected as was his more famous predecessor Idi Amin Dada.
The democratic revolution which began in America a generation after the establishment of our representative Republic has grown through the roughshod years of Jackson, the tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect days of FDR and has morphed into the Occupy Everywhere movement currently polluting our cities and clamoring for the predictable goal of pure democracy, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.”
We are witnessing the tyranny not of the majority but instead of the majority of voters coming to fruition. In America in a typical election only 50% or less of eligible voters bothers to cast their ballot. Many congressional districts are gerrymandered into personal possessions, local counties, cities and states belong to good-old-boy networks and the Senate is the province of millionaire media stars. The uninformed elect the unqualified to give them what is unearned.
Or as our old friend Alexis de Tocqueville also said, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
The democratic revolution begun in America 200 years ago has circled the globe. The leaders of the Egyptian revolutionaries have come to New York to join the protesters at Zuccotti Park to chant, the mantra, “Democracy Now!” Looking at the paradise on earth replicated from New York to Oakland in these demonstrations supported by the unions, Democrats and the President I only have one question, “Who will vote for that?”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Those Who Read the Past Write the Future October 28, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.Tags: American experiment, Dr. Robert Owens, History, revisionist history
2 comments
Unfortunately most of what we are taught in History survey classes in American schools consists of simplistic formulas. Formulas designed to persuade those forced to attend the government controlled education mills that they should ride the same ideological hobby horses as whoever currently has the power to select textbooks and prescribe curricula. Whether it was the rabidly pro-American imperial History of yesteryear that pushed lines such as, “We never started a war and never lost one,” and “We turned a raw wilderness into a civilized nation.” or, if it is the rabidly anti-American propaganda of today spouting lines such as, “America was founded by deists who used serial genocide and economic fascism to steal a nation, pollute the earth, and poison the sea” neither are correct. Both versions are merely two sides of an extremely myopic view which does not seek to discover nor promote the truth but instead seek to mold the next generation into what they think will be foot soldiers in their own crusade.
History, if it has any value at all is that it fulfills two goals. First, the study of History should provide context. A text without a context is a pretext and we must have context so we can understand how we as a people became who we are, how the world became what it is, and where it might go next. Secondly, the study of History should help us learn from and hopefully avoid the mistakes made by those who have gone before so we can leave a better world to those who come after. However, as stated above, these are rarely the goals of History education. The reason why is summed up in a joke only Historians seem to get.
Objectivity.
Most people in the world believe objectivity exists. They act as if the stories presented in survey of history classes are “the facts ma’am and nothing but the facts.” I was once part of this blissful herd. I was a self-taught Historian before I took the plunge and studied to become a card carrying member of the profession. I was captured by the allure of History when I was nine years old. Nothing in the world made any sense. What I was taught and saw at home conflicted 180 degrees from what I was taught at church. What I was taught at church conflicted 180 degrees from what I was taught at school. What I saw on the streets appeared real because it seemed to be the way the world actually worked, but it was out of synch with my home my church and my school. Not knowing myself well enough to know that I am a person who operates best when things make sense and the world appears orderly I was confused and uncomfortable living in a world so out of joint.
Consequently when I learned in the third grade that there were histories of the world available I latched on to them like a drowning man latches on to a life preserver. I began reading History books every day. They became my raft in a swirling sea of confusion creating an orderly world of sequential reality that I used to build my bridge to the first positive value of History, gaining a coherent understanding of how we as a people became who we are, how the world became what it is, and where it might go next. However, I was a rebellious child. A child who never moved to the second value of History. I never learned to profit from the mistakes of those who went before. Following those in my family who went before I walked out of traditional education at age sixteen figuring I knew enough to make my way in the world. Twenty plus years of manual labor later I thought it might be a good idea to finish my education.
When I finished my Bachelor degree in History I realized that a Bachelor degree in History is good for two things, it can help you become the manager of the electronics department at Wal-Mart and it opens the door for a Master Degree in History. Since I was determined to become a History professor, I chose the latter. On my first day of graduate school this budding self-taught Historian had to grit my teeth as a professor told our class, “There are no facts, and History is only what Historians say it is.”
Of course I had to run up after class to argue, “How can you say there are no facts? Look at the Vietnam War. We know it happened. We know when it started and when it ended. Those are facts and we can know them!” After listening calmly to my impassioned tirade the professor quietly said, “Maybe there’s another side to that story.”
This rude awakening sent me on a journey of discovery: searching for the other side of the story. Along the way I contributed my first chapter in a History book. My research helped me realize there is more than one side to every story. There are often conflicting facts, overlapping timelines, and always another way to look at everything. The truth of this is displayed in an endless series of quotes. Napoleon once said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” Voltaire said, “History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.” Ambrose Bierce said, “God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.” And one of my favorite philosophers, Anonymous sagely added, “The certainty of history seems to be in direct inverse ratio to what we know about it.”
What is the purpose of this self-revealing stroll down memory lane? It isn’t for the purpose of either self-actualization or confession. Both of those goals were achieved long ago. It is instead my attempt to lead you my loyal reader (for those will be the only ones left after such a lesson in historiography) to the second value of the study of History. I am encouraged by the multitudes of people who are today engrossed in this study. So many of the recently awakened yearn to know the History of America, they long to know how our Constitution was written by whom and why. I am here to remind everyone we need to look at all sides, consider every angle, and remember everyone has a point of view, even Historians, and objectivity is in reality subjectivity in a grey flannel suit.
Remember that second value of History? It should help us learn from and hopefully avoid the mistakes made by those who have gone before so we can leave a better world to those who come after. If we merely exchange the unabashedly anti-American lenses of the present for the unquestioning pro-American lenses of the past we will be blind to what we really need to see.
The complexity of reality defies the easy interpretations of partisan politics. Has America always been right? No, the jingoistic refrain of “My country right or wrong” will lead those who blindly salute it into supporting what is wrong as easily as what is right. Has America always been wrong? No, the view currently used to indoctrinate the youth in our public schools which sees America as an imperialistic power that used genocide, racism, and naked aggression to build a hegemonic empire forget all the good America has accomplished. This view presents an America bent on maintaining the privileges of the rich over the rights of the poor and leads those who imbibe its venom into ignoring that America was founded as the world’s greatest experiment in personal liberty and economic freedom.
Both views are too simplistic for people who want to break free of the matrix and see the world for what it truly is: a struggle between those who wish to control mankind for their own benefits and those who wish to see man set free so he can become all that he may be.
This is a call for those who have taken the bread and circus blinders off their eyes not to replace them with another set. Today we don’t have to rely on what we have been taught. We can use the Internet as a portal into every perspective imaginable, histories beyond counting, and all the great works of mankind. Read broadly, study extensively and think for yourself. Don’t exchange the purveyors of self-serving pap on the left for the purveyors of self-serving pap on the right. Open both ears, hear both sides, use the mind God gave you, and find the center path.
America has done some things wrong. America has done some things right. When it all is brought to the scales, when enough is seen to grasp the big picture, it is the non-objective view of this Historian that America has provided more freedom for more people than any other country that has ever existed. It is also my opinion that powers of anti-freedom have sought to regain control since the Revolution, and if those who have been too busy working and raising families don’t spend enough time to learn what History teaches we will soon earn the reward for the failure to hold on to the past. We will lose the future.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Imperial Republics Fall October 21, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Afghanistan, constitutional government, Dr. Robert Owens, Iraq, limited government
4 comments
Historians spend their life looking backwards. Futurists spend their life looking forward. My goal has been to blend the two disciplines into one seamless endeavor.
When I was studying to become a Historian I came to a point where I had to declare a field of special study. This is where my obsession with current events intersected with my love for History. This is when I realized that current events are the forever unfolding always receding conveyor belt of reality. This is when I first verbalized the perception that as the future slides into the present and the present slides into the past our lives are the history of the future. Therefore in my writings I seek to frame the flow of today with knowledge of yesterday to create a window into tomorrow.
History tells us that Imperial Republics fall. We have the examples of Athens and all the other grasping Greek republics that followed her. We have Rome the example always deferred to of a republic that allowed empire to stifle freedom. The list however does not end there, we can look at Venice and the various republics of Renaissance Italy and of course the First Republic of France which was birthed in blood and died in fire. The siren song of empire has seduced republics down through history to trade in their freedom for power which eventually cost them both their freedom and the power.
Is it time to re-think America’s international military commitments? 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. Then, although the world was filled with despotic kings, our Framers gave us a Republic. However, it is worth remembering the exchange that took place between Ben Franklin, the elder statesman of the Constitutional Convention and an unknown woman. As he left Independence Hall he was asked, “Well Doctor what we have got a republic or a monarchy?” Appealing to his legendary wit Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” We and our ancestors have been blessed by the Republic for hundreds of years. We’ve benefited from the liberty to live our lives and pursue our happiness. Now we’ve arrived at the “if you can keep it” phase of our journey.
At the cost of hundreds of billions and thousands of lives we doubled-down in Afghanistan. At the cost of over a trillion and thousands of lives we conquered Iraq and deposed Saddam. We spearheaded the bombing campaign in Libya. Our drones strike suspected enemies far and near. Troops have been dispatched to central Africa. And the perennial war drums still beat at the very mention of Iran.
We have sent our fellow citizens to fight long hard slogs in countries whose names are the very synonym for Quagmire. As our economy was being outsourced, our debt monetized, and our infrastructure crumbled we meekly followed our leaders deeper into thankless nation-building campaigns in nation after nation including one that’s resisted and foiled every empire from Alexander to Moscow.
Instead of using our cruise missiles and stealth capabilities we fell into the trap announced and laid by Bin Laden. Whose strategy was as Lawrence Wright told us in his seminal book Looming Towers to, “lure America into the same trap the Soviets had fallen into: Afghanistan.” How did he plan to do it? “To continually attack until the U.S. forces invaded; then the mujahedeen would swarm upon them and bleed them until the entire American empire fell from its wounds. It had happened to Great Britain and to the Soviet Union. He was certain it would happen to America.”
There were twists and turns on our journey from republic to empire.
George Washington warned us to avoid foreign entanglements. 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 more than one hundred years we concentrated on using our liberty to build a mighty nation. Then the temptation of empire captured the American imagination in the 1890s, 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
Teddy Roosevelt followed McKinley walking softly while carrying a big stick in the form of the Great White Fleet and multiple intrusions into the sovereignty of Latin American countries. After being re-elected on the promise to keep America neutral President Wilson proclaimed America must fight World War I 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. After the 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 not with the defeat of totalitarianism but instead with the expansion of it in Eastern Europe the guiding light of American 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 promising to send young Americans to fight for Estonia and Slovakia among others, and so the sun never set upon the American Empire.
Not only is it against the founding principles of America to establish and maintain an empire of far-flung outposts, we cannot afford to be the Policeman of the world. We cannot afford to build nations for people who don’t want them. How did a peaceful nation of free citizens become the advocate of pre-emptive attack and endless occupation? How much blood and treasure will we invest in Iraq, and what will be the result? A Shi’a ally for Iran. The war in Afghanistan was obviously defensive and retaliatory in nature given the Taliban’s support for 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? Or have we walked into the same trap that brought the Soviets to their knees?
Currently the United States has armed forces in over 130 countries. We’re committed to defend most of these countries against aggression. Where were all 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. Station them on the border to protect us from the on-going invasion of illegal immigrants who’re overloading our systems. We can seal and secure the mountainous border between the Koreas and we can secure our own borders if we have the wisdom and the will. If we need to project American power use the carrier battle-groups designed for that purpose. Protect America and rebuild our infrastructure instead of everyone else’s. 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.”
If we want to save the Republic we need to lose the empire or we can cling to the empire and lose both.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
The Coming Contraction October 14, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: deficits, Dr. Robert Owens, National Debt, Occupy Wall Street
add a comment
The party’s over and it’s time to pay the bill. Our government has been on a spending binge for as long as I can remember. With Clinton and Newt’s slight-of-hand accounting back in the late 90s notwithstanding, which wouldn’t withstand the level of scrutiny we give a tab at our local burger joint, there have been yearly deficits every year since I was born back in the 40s. The debt piled up to a record amount under Bush the Younger, and under Obama it has sky rocketed to the point where people have actually begun to notice that the emperor has no clothes.
It isn’t that our nation is broke since our assets still outweigh our debt, but who wants to sell Yellowstone to satisfy the Chinese? It isn’t just our government who has buried us buying $640 toilet seats, $436 hammers, or a $797,400 outhouse. All of us have had an apple out of that sack. We have pushed our personal credit to the max, our plastic to the limit, and our “Gotta have it now” culture to the breaking point. It isn’t just the 51% who pay no federal taxes but seem to have an insatiable appetite for federal services that are to blame. Those of us who make enough to merit a tax target on our backs have also drunk deep from the government trough. Social Security, Medicare, disaster relief, and student loans have added billions if not trillions to the national debt transferring money to the middle class.
All of us have contributed to this problem. If not by accepting the money or services ourselves than by voting for people who’ve made careers doling out the plunder, robbing Peter to pay Paul, buying votes, and corrupting the system. The entire edifice of Western Civilization teeters on the brink of financial collapse due to the last three generations squandering the as yet unearned income of the next three. We invested the great grand kid’s future in Ponzi schemes so that we could play today and they could pay tomorrow. This is the national version of “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Our lack of interest allowed politicians to run amuck. Our personal greed and lack of restraint have all of us living in houses made of plastic cards. We look at Greece and ask for whom the bell tolls ignoring the answer that it tolls for thee.
The enemies of capitalism learned the wisdom of Alinsky that “Change comes from power and power comes from organization.” They followed gurus such as Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven two Columbia professors who advocated overwhelming the government bureaucracy with entitlement demands. They followed leaders such as Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd who have pushed legislation that created the bubbles and then strangled the recovery. Now these well organized and well financed Progressives have come to the end game. In the great tradition of all socialist power grabs now that the crisis has arrived they have taken to the streets.
The Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media are falling all over themselves trying to equate the current Occupy Everywhere movement with the Tea party. I’ve known the Tea Party. The Tea Party is a friend of mine, and this is no Tea Party. I have attended many Tea Party Events and they were all peaceful. They all respected the police, and stayed within the limits of lawful protest. When the events were over they left the areas cleaner than when they arrived. The only people arrested at Tea Party events have been Progressive street thugs who have attempted to disrupt a peaceful protest. The liberal version is trashing every place they lay their head and threatening violence. In all the Tea Party events over the last few years not one persona has been arrested. In the Occupy Movement in just a few weeks hundreds have had to be hauled away.
I personally know a professional agitator who glories in the title of the Rude Guy. He has made a lifestyle out of pushing for the socialist agenda he imbibed as a youth in public school. He has spent decades moving from protest to protest advocating an end to capitalism while supporting himself through the sale of his books and paintings. This Rude Guy has moved from the implosion of Europe to what some enemies of our nation are calling the American Spring seeking free room and board in New York to continue his work. Given the fact that Van Jones has spent years, George Soros has spent millions through his front groups, and that professional organizers are flocking in from around the world it is hard to buy the Corporate Media line that this Occupy Everywhere movement is spontaneous.
However, there are the Howard Beale types who want to scream “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” And there are also the young party people who are looking for an opportunity to have an experience, to recreate the golden years of the 60s when they fantasize the Summer of Love produced something of value besides a generational overdose and a rise in STDs. These naive sheep will be driven before the organizers into the police truncheons. It is these unengaged warm bodies being interviewed nightly. These are the ones who come across as unfocused, confused, and almost comical. They do not represent the well-oiled machinery behind the curtain.
The list of millionaire entertainers who stop by to step out of their air-conditioned limousine to shout, “Power to the people” as they shake their bejeweled fist grows every day. The union bosses express solidarity and send in their shock troops. Leading Democrats praise the movement. The Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has said the Occupy Everywhere Movement is more in the mainstream than the current crop of Republican candidates for president. This movement is not spontaneous, and it is not going to end well. In some places the leaders of this leaderless movement are calling for violence and socialism. In other places they are leaving the public square to march on private residences to intimidate and threaten. Is this organized anarchism or militant apathy?
Some of the issues their signs rail against: bank bailouts, corporate welfare, and other aspects of crony capitalism are issues they do share with the Tea Party. However, the Tea Party Movement has directed their anger at government which is the culprit as far as wasting our national treasure to support their donors. The Occupy Movement is focused on attacking the donors who have received the payouts. The people who invested with Bernie Madoff thought they had found the goose that laid golden eggs, and yes they did receive unrealistic and what are now called unearned payouts, but at the end of the day it wasn’t the investors who were arrested it was Madoff. The Tea Party offers concrete proposals: end the over spending, cut taxes and regulations, and free the economy to free the people. The Occupy Movement offers no solution besides more of the same government intervention that caused the problems to begin with.
As stated at the beginning, we have all had a hand in leading our great nation to the edge of the abyss. And it seems as if our inability to agree upon who the culprits are or what the answers are may push us over the edge. A great contraction in our economy and in our life styles is coming. We must choose. Are we willing to make the changes that will right the ship of state and begin to bail out the rushing tide of debt that threatens to capsize us? Or, will we continue to argue ourselves into paralysis until our creditors demand the austerity we dread?
The one thing worse than being poor is being poor again. Most of us individually and all of us as a nation have been living far beyond our means charging extravagance to a credit card that has reached its limit. We can either send back the steak and have a hamburger on our own now or eventually sit powerless as our card is cut up by the foreign maître. We can either change our menu from caviar to corn flakes now or end up eating rubber biscuits as we wash dishes in the back room.
One thing is for sure the contraction is coming, how do you want to deal with it?
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
How Do We Re-Industrialize America October 7, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Capitalism, Dr. Robert Owens, Mercantilism, monopolies, Report on Manufactures, subsidies
2 comments
Manufacturing in America peaked in 1979 when 19.5 million Americans actually produced durable goods. In the last 30 years our manufacturing sector has declined by 40% losing almost 8 million jobs. Nearly 6 million jobs have been lost since 2000 and since the Great Recession began we have lost an average 89,000 manufacturing jobs every month for the last two years. Due to this dramatic constriction America has fallen below 12 million workers employed in manufacturing for the first time since 1946 and is now below levels not seen since 1941. This dismal record portrays the stunning decline of America as a manufacturing superpower. And while a rise in productivity has helped America maintain a prominent position in the world this has not resulted in manufacturing continuing to be an avenue for upward mobility for Americans.
So how do we re-industrialize America? How do we get back all the jobs that have been exported in the last 30 years? What will be the consequences of taking the bold steps necessary to make America once again the engine that drives the world’s economy? What will be the result of failing to do so?
To set this discussion into its proper context first we must look at how America grew from a rustic agricultural nation on the edge of Western civilization into the greatest industrial superpower ever known.
In the interest of full disclosure I must confess that I am a life-long capitalist. I believe that capitalism is the only economic system ever devised by man that requires free choice as a necessary requirement. Every other system is either more or less a command economy. The defense and restoration of America’s capitalist economy is today a hallmark of the conservative movement. Many study the works of Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. Those of us who want to see economic opportunity unshackled espouse the principles of both the Chicago and the Austrian Schools of economics as opposed to the theories of the Frankfurt School which have moved America in the direction of a centrally planned economy.
Flying in the face of this conventional wisdom for the purposes of this discussion we must ask the question, was it capitalism that provided the environment which set America on the road to material riches and industrial power? Culture to humans is like water to a fish. It is everywhere. It provides the medium through which we move. However, since it is ever present it is not something we constantly notice or concentrate on. Most of those who read these words were raised in a time or by people who taught American History as a positive, ever improving saga. We were taught that America never started a war and never lost one. We were taught that rugged individualism carved out an empire from a raw wilderness. We were taught that capitalism paved and paid the way.
At the hazard of being branded an apostate to conservatism I must continue to ask the question, was capitalism the catalyst for America’s industrial power or do we labor under the after-glow of a time when American History was taught in such a way as to magnify present circumstances by projecting them into the past? Are we looking to a myth of free enterprise to recreate what it didn’t create in the first place?
Was it capitalism that fostered the founding of the colonies which became the seedbed of the United States?
Mercantilism was the economic system that proceeded capitalism in western civilization. This was a system of economic nationalism which sought to build a strong country by maintaining a favorable balance of trade and by being self-sufficient. This was one of the primary reasons why the sea-going European powers sought to establish colonies. They wanted to secure sources of raw materials for their developing industrial sectors and to control external markets allowing them to produce and sell products all within their domestic economy, keeping all the gold at home.
The term mercantilism was coined by Adam Smith the philosophical father of capitalism, but it was not capitalism. Inherently Mercantilism necessitated a centrally planned and controlled economy. What benefitted the nation was permitted and encouraged. What didn’t was prohibited and discouraged. It was under this system that the English colonies were founded. The first viable English colony in the New World, Virginia was founded by the Virginia Company a joint stock company which was given a charter by James I. This charter, like subsequent charters given to the Massachusetts Bay Company and proprietary charters given to individuals such as William Penn and the Lords Baltimore gave these companies and individuals monopolies within specific geographic areas. Government imposed and enforced monopolies are a restraint of trade and by nature incompatible with a free capitalist system.
The colonies founded upon this restraint of trade followed suit giving monopolies to companies and individuals to do everything from making iron to importing. Government planning and control of the economy did not stop there. The colonial governments also granted subsidies, bounties, land grants, loans and money prizes to encourage the birth and prosperity of the industries and services desired. Through these actions the precursors of modern America were doing what is today reviled as inherently un-American, picking winners and losers.
If we fast forward to the founding of the United States do we find the unbridled free enterprise seen today to be the natural state of the Republic?
In 1791 Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton issued his third path-breaking report to Congress the Report on Manufactures. Of all his reports this one is considered the most innovative. It provided a stark revelation of Hamilton’s and his Federalist compatriots’ vision for America and its economy. So did this report outline an economy based upon capitalism and free enterprise? No it did not. This report envisions an America “independent of foreign nations for military and other essential supplies” this is the heart of a mercantilist program. Hamilton proposed subsidies to encourage industry. Some of the mercantilist policies advocated by Hamilton encouraged the central government:
- To constitute a fund for paying the bounties.
- To constitute a fund for a board to promote arts, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. Hamilton wanted the fund to:
- to defray the expenses of the emigration of artists, and manufacturers in particular branches of extraordinary.
- to induce the prosecution and introduction of useful discoveries, inventions, and improvements, by proportionate rewards.
- to encourage by premiums, both honorable and lucrative, the exertions of individuals and of classes.
The historical evidence of America’s reliance upon protectionist and economic interventionist policies as tools in the building of our greatness can be found everywhere. The central government built, licensed, and encouraged roads and canals to foster interstate trade by providing monopolies, subsidies and grants. It fought wars to safeguard sea lanes and to expand territory and markets. And it birthed, regulated and controlled the financial industry from its very inception.
The incontrovertible evidence points to the fact that America was founded, launched, and nurtured as the successor to and the continuation of mercantilist not capitalist policies.
If these were the policies of economic nationalism which helped foster America’s rise to industrial greatness wouldn’t it seem appropriate for these policies to be the ones that would help it rise again? There is only one national figure who has consistently urged a return to economic nationalism, Patrick Buchanan. He has pointed out for years that our rush to embrace so-called free trade has put American workers at a decided disadvantage. The dissolution of tariff protection forced our workers to compete against people who will work for a small percentage of what Americans can afford to work for in societies with little or no regulation.
How do we get back all the jobs that have been exported in the last 30 years?
If we want to re-industrialize America we have to protect our markets and support our industry otherwise we will soon sink to a supplier of raw materials and a market to China and the other rapidly rising industrial powers of Asia.
What will be the consequences of taking the bold steps necessary to make America once again the engine that drives the world’s economy?
Such a policy calculated to re-build our industry and re-capture our domestic markets from China, Japan, and the four tigers of Asia will carry as many risks as it does benefits. Just as any predator will react to resistance on the part of its prey so to if we enact tariffs on Chinese goods it may well ignite a trade war. Then again anything worth having is worth fighting for. If we want to once again rise to the top of the industrial world to once again have a favorable balance of trade we need to look to what is best for America not what is best for the U. N. or what is best for the globalization lobby.
What will be the result of failing to rebuild our industrial sector?
Some may deride this proposed return to mercantilist policies as isolationism. However, just as a nation without borders will soon cease to be a nation any nation that fails to protect and encourage its industry will find itself an agricultural and raw material colony in all but name for those nations which do.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Is the Federal Reserve Constitutional? September 30, 2011
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: broad constructionism, Dr. Robert Owens, Federal Reserve Bank, First Bank of the United States, Strict constructionism
11 comments
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It is in charge of printing money issuing bonds and setting interest rates for those bonds. Article 1, Section 8 says, “The Congress shall have Power … to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof” the Federal Reserve is never mentioned. Has it always been this way? Does any other country do this? How did the Federal Reserve get its power over our currency and our economy? And the issue so many are interested in today: is the Federal Reserve constitutional?
Has it always been this way?
At the dawn of the Republic our first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton issued several reports which in many ways set the tone and pointed the way for the development of America in the economic sphere. His first report on the public credit recommended that the new central government not only honor the debts contracted under the original government as established under the Articles of Confederation but that it also assume the war debts of the States. This recommendation was followed by Congress and the Washington administration created what has evolved into a permanent national debt.
In 1790 Hamilton submitted his second report which asked Congress to charter the Bank of the United States. Several aspects of the bank Hamilton proposed will sound familiar and it can be seen that they provided the mold for the Federal Reserve. His plan was closely modeled after that used by Great Britain’s Bank of England. According to Hamilton’s vision the Bank of the United States would be a public/private hybrid. It would have an exclusive charter for twenty years. Its initial capitalization would be ten million dollars consisting of eight million from private investors and two million from the government. Congress would give the Bank the right to print paper money up to the ten million held in deposit. Most importantly the central government would declare that the notes issued by the Bank would be the only notes which would be accepted in payment for taxes. This would give the notes of the Bank of the United States credibility and value, which none of its state chartered competitors could match. This was Hamilton’s proposal. Now all he had to do was get it passed into law.
The report was introduced into Congress in 1790 and by February 1791 it passed both the House and the Senate and arrived on the desk of President Washington. This is when the battle of the Titans really began. Leading Anti-Federalists and strict constructionists such as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Edmund Randolph, argued that the Constitution did not grant the government the power to incorporate a Bank. It was not an enumerated power and therefore it was reserved to the States or the people. Those arguing for a strict interpretation of the newly minted Constitution, which Madison and Randolph had helped write, urged Washington in a written report not to sign the bill.
Ever the fulcrum between his philosophically divided advisors Washington presented Hamilton with the argument opposing his plan and asked him to present his argument in favor. Hamilton using his excellent reasoning and communication skills presented President Washington with the original argument for the implied powers granted to the central government by the Constitution. This report appealed to what is now known as the “Necessary and Proper” clause. He argued that the government was inherently empowered to do whatever was necessary to implement the laws required to use the enumerated powers. President Washington accepted Hamilton’s argument and signed the bill and the first Bank of the United States was born.
Beginning on July 4, 1791the first thing the new Bank did was inflate a financial bubble by offering the largest initial stock offering the nation had ever seen. Investors showed their confidence in Hamilton’s plan by quickly buying the options on the first issue of stock. Many of these initial investors were members of Congress. The initial price for the options was $25. This was soon bid up to over $300. It soon crashed to $150. Thus within days of its first action this original central bank inflated a bubble that soon burst. However, Secretary Hamilton setting the example for the central bankers to follow stepped into the breach and averted a general financial panic by purchasing government securities with public funds thus stabilizing the markets and rewarding those who had initially speculated.
The bank opened for business in December of 1791. All manner of people, landowners, manufacturers, merchants, politicians, and most important of all, the government of the United States lined up to deposit money and to obtain the new Bank script. Within months the Bank was the single largest economic enterprise in the nation.
Beginning a pattern that would be repeated over and over the bank which had been created to ensure a firm foundation for the American economy inflated another bubble and caused another crash.
First the Bank flooded the market with easy loans and a massive issue of paper dollars. This move added liquidity pushing the new securities market into a sharp rise. However, then the Bank reversed course and began calling in many loans. Investors and speculators were especially affected as they were forced to sell securities to pay the loans. When the largest of the speculators William Duer was forced to declare bankruptcy the markets collapsed. This in turn caused the financial markets to freeze up putting a stop to much of the nation’s credit and commerce. This is known as the Panic of 1792. The crash didn’t last long because Secretary Hamilton once again stepped in and bought government securities with public funds injecting much needed capital into the economy.
Over its 20 year life the first Bank of the United States functioned as the central bank. It worked to regulate state banks, closing those that issued too much paper. It attempted to guide the entire economy through its monetary and interest policies. It coordinated all its branches up and down the east coast to project a united front in its economic policy by either tightening or loosening credit.
By the time it came for a renewal of the bank’s charter the Federalists were no longer in the seats of power and the newly ascendant Democratic Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson defeated its bid for another twenty years, and the first bank of the United States, America’s experiment with central banking was over.
Does any other country do this? Yes, many other countries have central banks. Today it is a hallmark of an advanced economy.
How did the Federal Reserve get its power over our currency and our economy? There were subsequent attempts to establish central banking in the United Sates. There was a second Bank of the United States chartered in 1816, but after being blamed for a series of bubbles and crashes its charter was not renewed and it ceased operations in 1836. In 1863 in the depths of the Civil War Congress passed the National Banking Act which chartered numerous Federal Banks. This law also taxed paper money issued by State banks but not paper money issued by the Federal banks giving them a decided advantage.
In 1913 the Federal Reserve System was born. It established what is known as a decentralized central bank in that it has semi-autonomous branches. It was given the power to control the currency, issue bonds, and set interest rates for those bonds. It was established as a public/private concern and actually owned by stock holders. Who are these stock holders? They are private banks, and ownership of stock is required to participate in the system. The system was instituted to provide the foundation for a stable banking industry and an elastic currency that could be used to smooth the rough edges of the business cycle. Whether this latest experiment in American\central banking has fulfilled its mission each citizen should judge for themselves.
Is the Federal Reserve constitutional? The first Bank of the United States was never challenged in court as to whether or not the government had the power to create a central bank. But the second Bank was. The Supreme Court in 1819 ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that it was in fact constitutional due to the implied powers clause. Thus looking to precedent, and unless the Supreme Court reverses itself, the Federal Reserve is considered to be authorized within the confines of the broadly interpreted Constitution.
There was an important constitutional issue born with the creation of America’s first central bank. With the birth of the first Bank the acceptance and use of implied powers became the central government’s method to expand its powers beyond those expressly delegated in The Constitution.
The argument of Madison, Jefferson, and Randolph upholding a strict constructionist view would be codified and added to the Constitution in the same year the Bank was charted, and perhaps in response to it, in the 10th Amendment, but this did not end the appeal to implied powers as a means to the government’s ends. In theory this sounds good. In practice it has turned our limited government into an out of control leviathan that is crushing the free out of our free market and sucking the liberty out of the American experiment.
As my favorite American philosopher once said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 