Whose Responsibility is It? August 21, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Capitalism, Dr. Robert Owens, Internationalists, Natural rights, Progressives
add a comment
Having spent time describing the three unalienable rights of life, liberty and property upon which our Republic was founded and from which all others flow it is necessary to speak of the natural responsibilities which form their inverse image. Peering through the looking glass at original intent we try to make sense of the present wonderland where rights and responsibilities are never what they seem.
There are five natural responsibilities. First, we’re responsible for our actions. No one can make us do anything. Even when forced it is still us who must make our muscles move and make our voices speak. We are responsible for the validity of our word and it should be our bond that we will do what we have said we will do when we have said we will do it. Second, each person is responsible for their own sustenance. We should provide for ourselves not expecting others to meet our needs or supply us with the comforts we desire. Third, we are responsible for our children. It is the duty of every parent to provide for the physical, emotional and spiritual support of our children until they are old enough to care for themselves. Fourth we are responsible for the fulfillment of all contracts we have freely accepted. And fifth, everyone has a responsibility to a social system which provides them freedom to use their own talents and energy for their own goals.
As stated earlier these natural responsibilities are directly linked to the natural rights of humanity to life, liberty and property. A person’s right to life inherently carries a responsibility to provide for them self and for their family without making demands upon the goods or time of others. This responsibility to care for our family extends existentially in both directions. Just as it is incumbent upon all of us to care for our own children, each of us, initially claims the support of our parents, therefore it is equally incumbent upon us to care for our parents if they can no longer care for themselves. As we have the liberty to use our time and talents for our own improvement we are inherently responsible for how we use them and for any consequences that flow from their use. And since legitimate government exists to protect our natural rights we are responsible for contributing to its ability to fulfill this function. This would include reasonable taxes and public service.
This is the extent of our natural responsibilities. Once we move beyond these we enter into the realm of moral or religious responsibilities. While natural responsibilities like natural rights are objectively arrived at by the nature of humanity moral or religious responsibilities are by their nature subjectively learned. Consequently the fulfillment of natural responsibilities flow logically from life while in most cases unless moral or religious obligations are personally perceived and agreed upon they must be fulfilled through the application of law and its ability to compel compliance.
As these secondary type responsibilities are most properly the purview of a moral code or religion and as each moral code or religion may carry different obligations it is presumptuous of government to impose upon its citizens what should instead be a free choice. For, the imposition of one moral code or religion could possibly transgress or ignore the moral obligations of another the sanction of one moral code or religion over another inherently restricts the citizen’s enjoyment of their unalienable rights.
Today our ever-expanding government invents new responsibilities and then force feeds them to a powerless public. These include responsibilities to the nation and the world. On a daily basis we hear of our responsibility to the poor, the uneducated, or the uninsured. And these new responsibilities do not just extend to our fellow Americans. Through the continuous imposition of these constantly proliferating rights internationalists seek to transfer the wealth of the United States to the third world as their open borders policy invites the third world to come here to claim it. Using our tax money the government seeks to care for everyone’s needs from cradle to grave. The inefficiencies of bureaucracy ensure that a large percentage of these resources get flushed down the sewer while we fall deeper into debt.
These newly invented responsibilities are not natural and our government must violate the natural rights of its citizens to fulfill them. They do this by expropriating our property and the enjoyment of the fruits of our labor which diminishes our lives from all they could be to what they allow them to be. In addition, the only way the government can expropriate these things and distribute them from who earned them to who they believe deserves them is to increase their power by diminishing ours.
If not from nature where do these government enforced responsibilities originate? They spring from ideology and the quest for power. By preying upon the gullibility of the uninformed, the culpability of the greedy and the lethargy of the uncaring the Progressive clique has gained control of the American experiment. It has used the ideology and terminology of extreme socialism, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need” to construct a conveyor belt transferring wealth from producers to consumers. The Progressives buy votes and continued support by dividing the swag from their plunder of American capitalism. Even though the government’s propaganda arms drone constantly about these enforced responsibilities still the majority of Americans instinctively know the difference between natural responsibilities and government mandated ones. If we don’t demand a stop to this proliferation of imagined responsibilities and the expropriation of resources needed to fulfill them we will lose our natural rights and the ability to fulfill the natural responsibilities which flow from them.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Between Barack and a Hard Place August 14, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, FDR, JFK, President Obama, Ronald Reagan
1 comment so far
People learn by moving from the known to the unknown. An analogy inherently proposes the idea that if things agree in some respect they probably agree in others. Secular prophecy uses knowledge of the past and the present to predict the future. The past is the womb of the present and the present is the history of the future. As the past may be interpreted and the present may be misunderstood the future is never certain. Platitudes may outline the shape of something, but they can never define anything.
If Michelle is like Marie Antoinette to whom shall we compare Barack? The thought that he’s Louis XVI is unthinkable. George III is too easy. All of the megalomaniacs or despots of the twentieth century would be politically incorrect in the extreme. Some would be considered too far left and some too far right though in reality the extreme on both sides meet at the intersection of totalitarianism and brutality. Since he rode a wave of secular messianic fever into power perhaps an appropriate paraphrase would be, “Who do men say that he is?”
Recently a woman who fled Venezuela to escape Hugo Chavez and his democratic revolution was heard crying, “Obama is doing the same things as Chavez! He’s following the same path, going to the same place, but now we have nowhere to run.” Someone who escaped the USSR told me, “I’ve seen all this before. He’s like Nikita Khrushchev. He says he brings hope and change but really he’s just blaming the past because he hopes to rule the present while destroying the hope of the future.” According to an escapee of East Germany, “He’s like Leonid Brezhnev. He promises security, pensions and benefits but all he will do is bring taxes, regulations and more bureaucrats, always more bureaucrats.”
Not a Hitler, not a Stalin, not a Mao, not even a Mussolini to whom shall we compare this man who has brought the crest of the long building Progressive wave crashing against the American experiment? Perhaps we should see who he compares himself to?
President Obama announced his run for the presidency in Springfield, Illinois on the steps of the old state capitol building. Choosing a setting in Springfield where Abraham Lincoln once gave a speech condemning slavery and calling for the United States to unite inspired even the Progressives at ABC News to observe, “Springfield allowed Obama to immodestly and continuously compare himself to Lincoln.”
Immediately after his victory the cover of Time magazine depicted the President-elect as FDR riding in an open car with his trademark cigarette holder clamped tightly in his smile. So we know his promoters in the press want us to compare him to the four term president-for-life who until now has been the epitome of a Progressive president. But does President Obama make the comparison himself? According to Politico, “President Barack Obama compared himself to FDR.” Major portions of FDR’s new Deal were declared unconstitutional, .many economists believe his policies prolonged the Great Depression, Alger Hiss really was a communist spy, and at Yalta Roosevelt gave Poland, whose freedom World War II was fought to preserve, to Stalin. If we forget all that comparing yourself to FDR is a good thing.
In the words of the Washington Post when running for the presidency Mr. Obama, “Sells Himself as the New JFK.” While at the time other news outlets noted, that even fellow Progressives disputed the comparison using the headline, “Hillary to Obama: You’re No JFK.” President Obama continued to cast himself as the successor to Camelot. While he may be the rightful heir to such military adventures as the Bay of Pigs or such questionable victories as the Cuban Missile Crisis he has parsed the meaning of “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” In newspeak this becomes, “If you’re a non-tax payer let me tell you what I’m going to do for you –if you’re a tax payer let me tell you what your country is going to do to you.”
President Obama also compares himself to the icon of the anti-Progressives Ronald Reagan. According to Politico in an interview with a print journalist the President, “made the case that his movement is as much about a national moment as about him as a ‘singular’ individual” also noting “he drew a rather odd analogy for a Democrat: Ronald Reagan.” President Reagan told us, “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.” President Obama told us, “Only Government Can Fix the Economy.” President Ragan told us, “We are today, the last best hope of man on earth.” President Obama told us, “America is no longer what it could be, what it once was.”
All the people mentioned above who escaped socialism, who left homes, families, countries seeking freedom remind me of something else Ronald Reagan said, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Too Many Rights on the Left August 7, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Enlightenment, life liberty and property, Natural rights, Second Bill of Rights
1 comment so far
The United States was founded as a representative republic inspired by the soaring philosophy of the Enlightenment. As humanity clawed its way out of the depths of the Dark Ages thoughts of freedom found root and germinated in the minds of thousands. Rising from this rebirth or Renaissance came the realization that humanity inherently possess certain rights and that among these are the right to life, liberty and property. These foundational rights are not conferred by government they are endowed by God. A godly government acknowledges them. An ungodly government claims to be the arbiter of rights. These fundamental rights are part of the original design and necessary for humanity to reach its full potential. Without them we are but a shadow of what we’re meant to be. The leader-molded citizen of any earthly tyranny is restrained from success in ways alien to the free citizen of nature and of nature’s God.
The fundamental qualities of these rights speak for themselves:
Who can possibly obtain the legitimate possession of the life of another? How would they obtain that possession? Over thousands of years of darkness many societies granted the right to own the lives of others. The dismal slave blocks and markets of shame, and the wasted lives and stunted relationships of both slaves and masters attest to the fraudulent nature of this barbarous custom. According to the Theory of Natural Rights the life we hold we hold in trust. It has been endowed, and it is unalienable, which means even the legitimate possessor does not have the right to discard it or count it as a commodity to be sold or bartered away. This being true, how could any third party ever legitimately advance the idea that they can own the life of another? Life is sacred and without the right to life no other rights have any meaning.
Without liberty there is no ability to choose one’s own course of action or to make real-time decisions pertaining to relationships. Without liberty individuals are but pawns in the game of others: grist in the mill of history. Without the freedom to choose society is locked in a culture of command which restricts the free flow of ideas and materials thus throttling creativity and erecting artificial bottlenecks. In societies where bureaucrats try to replace the free choices of individuals there are always shortages, because no one can accurately predict how many widgets others want. They can only decree how many should be made to fit what they believe will be the demand. In other words, person A can never really know the thoughts or desires of Person B. They can only estimate and guess, thus a command economy and a regimented society always have maladjustments of production and distribution. Without liberty life is stunted and prevented from reaching its full potential.
Without the full and free use of property life and liberty are held within a death grip which leads to a mere caricature of reality, shadows of people pretending to be motivated, marching to the leader’s arbitrary drumbeat and saluting the flag. Or as the hopeless drones of the USSR used to say, “We pretend to work because they pretend to pay us.” This necessity for the full and free use of property in order to make meaningful life and practical liberty possible is absolute. It can operate at 50% but then it is only 50% effective while at the same time being 50% defective. As the right to use the property we create or earn is taxed and regulated away so is meaningful life and practical liberty. If the state has abrogated to itself the power of God to decree what portion of life and liberty is applicable to that portion of humanity within its grasp then it will gradually take more and more of the properties of its citizens until only serfs are left. Partial tyranny begets absolute tyranny just as sure as night follows day, for once the plundering begins its appetite is never abated until it has drunk the dregs.
These are the three fundamental and unalienable rights, life, liberty, and property. These are the rights recognized and enshrined by our founders. These are the rights meant to stand as the guardians and facilitators of American society. And for hundreds of years they have done so. The blight of slavery, which obviously ran counter to the ideals upon which this country was founded, was abolished, the rights proclaimed by our constitution were eventually guaranteed to all and today all but the unenlightened seek to judge each by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. These three rights provide the fertile soil that birthed the greatest nation ever to exist, the one nation all the world seeks to either immigrate to or to imitate.
However, today a glut of imagined rights advanced by demagogues to ply the emotions of hyphenated voting blocs threatens to smother the three which make everything else possible. The Progressives have actively attempted to push these bogus rights upon the nation since FDR in his fourth Inauguration speech proclaimed a Second Bill of Rights to include; “The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; the right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; the right to a good education.”
All of these sound good and it’d be wonderful if everyone had them, but this is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. These self-proclaimed rights are benefits which may flow from the exercise of our three unalienable rights but they are not rights in and of themselves. If they are rights then government must violate the three real ones to provide the rest of the imagined ones. To provide the laundry list of progressive rights, the life, liberty, and property of all must be suppressed to generate the funds and the power to manufacture and allocate these benefits for those who have not earned them on their own.
Leave the bogus rights of the progressives to be allocated by tyrants to serfs who have no possibility of earning them for themselves because they have bartered their inheritance for a handful of promises. Instead give us the freedom and opportunity provided by our natural right to life, liberty and property and America will be great again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Watchmen on the Walls July 17, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Glenn Beck, Patrick J. Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh
2 comments
As a Professor of History I can understand why most people dismiss History as boring. It is usually presented as a static jumble of dates, names and events that must be memorized, regurgitated and with luck forgotten. I have often marveled at the ability of students who can tell me how many points their favorite athlete scored in a mid-season game ten years ago or how many horsepower their favorite driver had under the hood five seasons back can’t seem to remember the relationship or the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.
Instead of this rigid collection of repetitious minutia, History is a dynamic flow of reality that changes every day. Not only is there more of it every day, thus changed by addition, it is also open to new interpretation and comprehension every day, thus changing by multiplication and division.
In Patrick J. Buchanan’s ground breaking book Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War the author presents the case that the Second World War was not precipitated by Germany’s attack upon Poland it was instead precipitated by the worthless guarantee given by Britain and France to an authoritarian Poland, which prevented it from avoiding war by returning the German city of Danzig to Germany. A move even Neville Chamberlain thought would be fair. Then when what would have been the fourth partition of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union did occur it is forgotten by all that it was France and Britain that declared war on Germany not the reverse. No matter whether you agree or disagree with this presentation of the same facts presented in opposite order as in American History classes or not, anyone would admit at least it made you think.
Rush Limbaugh catapulted from being a self-admitted multiple failure to being the greatest broadcaster in the history of radio by doing nothing more than as he often repeats, “What comes naturally.” He says what so many others think. He aptly sums up the collective observations of millions and acts as a prism for the sensibilities of the here-to-for silent majority. Performing his host duties 99.8% perfectly, Rush gives voice to the common sense and inherent belief that if you work hard and play by the rules you should prosper. He points out the hypocrisy of leaders leading people where they don’t want to go and the frustration of followers who know they’ve been had but don’t know how to out organize the organizers.
Glenn Beck, after decades in the trenches, shot like a meteor to the top by realizing his position wasn’t just to have fun it could instead really mean something at a pivotal time in History. The morning zoo became the people’s think tank as we watched Glenn learn the difference between Socialism, Communism and National Socialism. We cheered as he kept his sense of humor while holding aloft the torch of individual freedom in a world swirling down the collectivist drain. His television show has transformed the afternoon blah hour into the University of Beck as he and his chalk boards do what all of the teachers and professors have failed to do: make the average American interested in History. Glenn’s greatest service may turn out to be his impartation of the knowledge that “You are not alone,” which sparked the 9-12 movement and launched the tea parties. Or it might yet be that an informed electorate will not go quietly into that dark night.
History is often the chosen discipline of those who seek order in a world they find confusing. A system or frame upon which to place the events of time avoiding the yawning maw of random oblivion. A way to bring meaning and importance not only to the Battle of Waterloo but to our own personal Waterloos, which may be a symbol of defeat but is also the symbol of victory still celebrated as a holiday marking liberation by everyone but the French.
As a Professor of History I’ve studied, taught and written for years hoping to make some contribution to the historical literacy of my generation. I’ve long believed it’s the lack of a historical perspective that’s doomed our generation to walk through the looking-glass into a wonderland where none dare call it treason to subvert individual liberty in the name of collective security. Now I have found the lens which brings the fog of current events into the focus of historical understanding. The key which unlocks the meaning of seemingly random events uncovering a pattern discernable and comprehensible to all who will follow the chain of events to their logical conclusion.
Our overly centralized nationalist government, though limited at its inception, has grown through the accretion of time and tradition ultimately becoming that which it was never meant to be: a colossus standing with its steel boot upon the throat of freedom.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
The Hand Writing is on the Wall July 10, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Bush, China, Clinton, Dr. Robert Owens, Obama
add a comment
In a Bible passage so powerful even those who don’t believe the Bible unknowingly quote it an arrogant young ruler is so enamored with his exalted position he thinks he can disregard the traditions of his predecessors with impunity. In the midst of a celebration of his greatness the proud young man calls for the sacred vessels captured when his father conquered Judah so that he can drink toasts to himself. Suddenly before a stunned king and his smug courtiers a hand appears in mid-air writing on the wall of his palatial palace. Never having seen a teleprompter the king had no idea these words would come to define his reign. He called for the wisest man in his kingdom to tell him what they meant.
When Daniel arrived he told the haughty king, “The writing reads: ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel and Parsin.’ The meaning of the words is this: Mene: God has measured your sovereignty and put an end to it; Tekel: you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; Parsin: your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.” That same night through an unperceived chink left by neglect in their previously impregnable defenses Babylon was conquered, the king was overthrown, and the rest is history.
If History doesn’t help us in the world today it’s useless. We might as well study tea leaves if we can’t learn from the past to live in the present and shape the future. There are numerous old sayings which attempt to pass this wisdom along to the oblivious young who always act as if youth was a new invention or something clever they have personally devised instead of a fleeting possession most of us squander. These sayings include; “Those who fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it.” “The past may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.” Or, my personal favorite, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” However you say it if we fail to do it we’ve sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind.
History tells us that on New Year’s Eve 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist. A Cold War which had often blazed hot ended in the unequivocal demise of one super-power and the undeniable triumph of the other. What lesson did we learn? What truth did we walk away with that would allow us to avoid the dust-bin of history which had devoured them?
Before the dust had a chance to settle the joy of victory over the agony of defeat was turned to political maneuvering, military mission creep and economic chicanery. The same people who wanted us to unilaterally disarm during the darkest days of the fifty year confrontation, since it was obviously our belligerency causing the Soviet dictators to follow their oft announced plan to bury us, wanted to cash in the peace dividend the people who had ignored their previous advice had earned. After George the First shot himself in the foot by going back on his no new taxes pledge the man from Hope was only too eager to comply since he had been one of the people marching in the streets and leading the charge to disarm in the face of aggression. Cutting defense and expanding government, the Clinton administration partied its way across the stage of history leaving us weaker then they found us. George the Second rallied the world to punish the terrorists who assaulted us on 9-11. Then instead of declaring victory and coming home he opened a second front, and frittered away the admiration and allegiance of the world and our truncated military capacity in a pre-emptive war he knew how to win but didn’t know how to conclude. Now ignoring the fact that it was in large part a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan that set the stage for the collapse of the Soviet Union our current commander believes we can win a war by dispatching more troops with a pre-announced date of departure.
Recalling the “Those who fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it” truism here’s a history lesson. Great Britain led the world into the Industrial Revolution becoming the number one manufacturer on earth by 1780. This led to over a century of British ascendancy. The United States over took Britain and became the number one manufacturer on earth after Europe committed suicide on the Fields of Flanders and assumed the acknowledged lead of Western Civilization after Europe administered the coup de grace in World War Two. If current trends continue, China will become the number one manufacturer on earth by 2011 while at the same time America is seeking a cure through bleeding itself in two hot wars with no end, open borders and one-way free trade. Is there something we should learn here? Is there some remedy we could apply?
We must stop the hemorrhaging. We must stop the invasion. We must insist on fair trade. We must rebuild our industrial base. If we don’t, one day we’ll wake up to hear a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen, Babylon the great is fallen!”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
The Unlimited Blessings of Limited Government June 20, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Articles of Confederation, checks and balances, Constitution, Dr. Robert Owens, Enlightenment, Natural Law
add a comment
The battles were over and the war won now the hardest task of all: how to secure the rights fought for while providing a government strong enough to endure. The Framers gathered in Philadelphia for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation. Within days they decided instead to frame a new government launching an experiment in centralized but limited government.
That they believed the people to be the source of legitimate authority is exposed in the Preamble which begins, “We the People.” They based this belief upon the Enlightenment concept of Natural Law, that God endowed men with unalienable rights. Many people in Western Civilization believed in Natural Law realizing that these rights, though endowed by the Creator as inherent prerogatives, would not continue to exist in organized society unless protected by limitations on government power. The Framers believed Natural Law not only conferred rights it also established limits to the scope of government and man-made law. In their mind no legitimate law violated the possession and enjoyment of the rights of man. In declaring independence our ancestors proclaimed their purpose as assuming the station, “to which the laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them.”
Knowing all this was one thing, but devising a manner in which not only authority but also power could be conceded from society in general to a government which by the nature of organization consists of a much smaller number was quite another. How was this power to be limited? How were the rights of all to be protected from the power of the few? What was to stop the concentration of power into the hands of factions combined for their own benefit? How to provide a government with sufficient authority and power to ensure the security and order necessary for everyone to enjoy their natural rights, and yet restrained enough to allow them to do so? This was the problem which confronted those locked in Independence Hall in 1787 devising a government strong enough to do good, yet limited enough to do no harm.
The concept of a written Constitution was the first step. England had no written constitution. It was ruled by tradition and precedent. After the Revolution the Framers knew traditions and precedents can change. So they looked to a written Constitution to provide a framework and guide for the new government, thus setting boundaries and establishing them for all to see. They provided a means for change in the amendment process, but they made it difficult and cumbersome so that change would not be easy or readily accessible to the whim of a moment or the rulers of the day.
Beyond this primary recourse to a lasting written code the Framers sought to employ two vehicles for the limitation of government; a federal system wherein power is divided between the parts and the whole, and representation through which the voice of the people would speak. To accomplish these twin goals the States retain their sovereignty and provide a legislature made up of two houses: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives was and still is popularly elected by all eligible voters. Every two years these closest of all national leaders return to the people for affirmation and a renewed mandate. And the Senate, which was originally elected by the states through their legislatures who were all at least partially elected by the public thus, ensuring both: more input from the people and the federal nature of the government. The President and Vice President were and still are indirectly elected by the members of the Electoral College, which are chosen in accordance with procedures designated by the individual states, thus once again enhancing the federal nature of the government. The President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, chooses the judges of the Federal Courts.
This system, which we’ve come to call checks and balances, provides that no law can be enacted without a majority vote by representatives elected directly by the people, representatives chosen by the States and signed by the President, whose election is a result of a combination of the people and the States. Thus the authority of the people is employed, the voice of the people is heard, yet the indirect manner in which it is applied and the muted manner in which it is heard seeks to ensure a government insulated from the volatile passions of the day.
What the Framers sought was a government of reason. The Enlightenment thinkers believed through the use of reason people discover natural rights and natural law. They also believed reason is the source of a government capable of protecting those rights by enforcing that law. To this end they created a federal system to diffuse power and a representative republic to provide a voice for the people safeguarded from the emotions of the moment. They hoped that reasonable people working within a federal government divided between branches and surrounded by a written constitution would ensure the authority of the many would pass through the hands of the few for the blessings of all. At least that was the hope.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 