"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835).
Perhaps the first early political scientists, de Tocqueville was right then and now even moreso; though I'd imagine that he never would have predicted it this early in our history.
After traveling extensively in the new country, he accurately concluded that the roots of the fledgling nation could be readily found in the search for religious freedom... it was and still is as simple as that.
But at this time in history the domestic enemies of Real America have been successful in turning history and the Constitution upside down, and now proclaim the government has to be protected from religion--not visa versa.
A few of de Tocqueville's major points (which I think are most relevant right now):
"Nowhere have the Americans established any central direction over their thinking, any more than they have established any central direction over affairs of state."-- near-total decentralized government; democracy at the grass roots, small and limited (by the Constitution) federal government. - "Americans are taught from birth that they must overcome life's woes and impediments on their own. This first becomes apparent in the schools, where children play by their own rules and punish infractions they define themselves." --that was then, this is now. That burgeoning sense of "fairness" and self-policing, if you will, by even those of tender years has been near-bred out of our youth by the socialist indoctrination of (increasingly federalized) government schools.
de Tocqueville continues:
- "Here, the people do not look to the government for light, for instruction, but the government looks to the people. The people give the law to the government. To entrust, then, the government with the power of determining the education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power to be our master." -- Has not this exact warning come to be?
- "The sovereign, after taking individuals one by one in his powerful hands and kneading them to his liking, reaches out to embrace society as a whole. Over it he spreads a fine mesh of uniform, minute, and complex rules, through which not even the most original minds and most vigorous souls can poke their heads above the crowd." Do not these two simple sentences accurately describe what has happened to this nation over the last 40-50 years?
- In "Democracy in America" he correctly saw America's Achilles' Heel... that if we stepped away from "that virile candor, that manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in earlier times..." we "... would move quickly to despotism without tarrying for long in monarchy." It is what he called "soft despotism."
"Yes we can." "Yes we can."
Closer to our birth and not so very long ago, de Tocqueville found evidence of the republic in every settlement, village and town... in the churches and schools.
If a school or town hall was needed, no one wrote a letter to Washington D.C. where it would have been proper ignored and tossed aside. The community pitched and built it.
"One riot, one Ranger" is a legendary quotation in Texas when talking about the Texas Rangers, but that only works in the recruiting posters.
When a significant problem arose on the frontier, the lone law enforcement officer, a constable or sheriff or marshal, called for a posse and the communities' men left their fields and cattle and stores, grabbed a Winchester or a shotgun and the law was summarily enforced, the community protected.
The local judge held the trial, and a jury of peers either acquitted or found guilty t
he defendant. Recognizing that "justice delayed is justice denied" for both the community and the defendant, the sentence was usually handed down the same day and the next found the perpetrator hanged or jailed.
Local government, the best government.
Need I summarize what happens now... now that we have lost virtually all control not only of the federal and state government but of our local government as well?
- Do parents and the school teachers collaborate on how and what your children are taught?
- Nowadays when you're the victim of a crime... really, practically, who has more "rights" -- you or the waste of skin who attacked, robbed or raped you?
- Can your 14-year-old daughter get birth control pills or an abortion without your knowledge?
- Do you give 30-50 percent of your wages to the various levels of government?
We used to be directly involved in our own self-determination and liberty, now we are but docile serfs, and the servant has most assuredly become the master.
Recent Comments