I am a child of the 60’s – a baby boomer from one of the earliest waves in that set. I came of age in the 60’s. In those days, it didn’t take much to set us off. If government got us entangled with a stupid foreign war, we protested and kept on escalating the protests until Washington was forced to declare victory and retreat. When we came fact-to-face with the social injustice of racism and apartheid, we got in line and helped push through changes. In those days, we epitomized the understanding of Emerson and Thoreau – that government was necessary but a dangerous fellow traveler who had to be watched carefully and kept under constant control. We understood that business was necessary but, if left to its own devices, would quickly turn predatory and consume us all. At our core, we were determined to control out times rather than be controlled by them. That was then – but what is now?

It seems that Americans have been so thoroughly castrated that they have no ability to respond aggressively to any obscenity or insult. Their young are sent to die in two senseless wars (yes their lives are being wasted – you might well just shoot them and save them from the terror of killing senselessly), money that should be spent in this country on schools, roads and other infrastructure is going into the coffers of defense contractors and being shipped overseas, Wall Street has robbed an entire generation of its social security while enriching itself at our expense and now one of the most beautiful bodies of water in the entire world is being destroyed through a combination corporate greed and government incompetence.
The Hegelians have a saying – “people are sheep, keep them moving.” Their entire agenda can be summed up in a single formulation – “reduce them to draft animals – dumb draft animals with just enough schooling to make them useful cogs in the gears. They don’t need a ‘life’ – they don’t need to think – and they certainly don’t need the ability to get angry about their circumstances.”

This is what we are left with? What has become of Americans? Are we so neutered that we are incapable even of anger? Do we now stand by and watch stain after stain on the flag – obscenity pile upon obscenity – and lack the ability to even get angry about it? Anger is the gateway to change. It is the first stage that leads to emancipation from slavery. Without it, we are all just dumb, compliant and complicitous oxen.

THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

They have come for all of us. The appetite and average is so strong that only complete domination will suffice. They are depending on the operant condition that precludes Americans from getting angry. Anger is the one indication that you are not a robot – an android. It is the one indication that you are human with human sensibilities. Without the ability to get angry we are like the Eloi that HG Wells wrote about in The Time Machine – a society of small, androgynous, and childlike people who meekly walk to their slaughter at the simple ringing of a bell. And, in this melancholy opera, it is not hard to identify the Morlocks – consumers of the Eloi. Just read the headlines.

What is most disturbing to this child of the 60’s is the meekness that has become the American citizen. Cowed by their government, they seem to be ready to have anything taken away without explanation or compensation. “Go ahead, take our young and kill them in stupid wars, take out treasure and waste in on those wars instead of spending it in this country – after all, we are not worth even our own treasure, destroy the nest eggs that we have spent a lifetime accumulating and reward those who destroyed them with large fortunes and destroy a national and international treasure in the name of corporate greed – take it all. We are, after all, only Americans. Only Americans. Is that the way it has become? Once the most formidable gathering of citizens on the planet – the one shining chance that government would be of, for and by the people. Now, only Americans? Where is the anger over even that?

For a person who had come of age during the sixties, these are frightening times indeed. I came of age during the period between the Viet Nam War and Watergate. My first awareness of censorship came on February 10, 1960 when Jack Parr’s Tonight Show was abruptly cut off the air because of a reference he made to the ‘water closet’. The resulting uproar started a great debate that highlighted freedom of speech and artistic freedom from censorship.

The debate spread to the movie business with writers, directors and producers lining up to protest the entire idea of censorship of their projects. Free speech was defended as the very core of the American experiment – an idea so important that the framers of our Constitution addressed it in the First Amendment. I remember those heady days when the government and corporate interests had to give way to Freedom of Speech and the Constitution.

Comedians like Richard Prior, Mort Saul and Lenny Bruce taught us not to be afraid of language – to speak our minds in words that conveyed what we were thinking. Prior spent his life trying to teach Americans that the way to diffuse hateful language was to use it every day – use it with a sly smile – laugh at it. Once those words became the butt of jokes – once they were transformed from terms of derision and oppression – they were no longer exclusively the private arsenal of the hate mongers.

Mort Saul spent his career trying to get us to think before we acted – before we censored – before we debased ourselves with shallow, grandstanding, knee-jerk behaviors. His message was uplifting – tit-for-tat lowers you to the level of the haters and fear mongers – you can rise above them by co-opting their weapons and turning them into wry and humorous observations about life and living.

Lenny Bruce worked to teach us that authority is almost always our enemy when it comes to our rights – that government is an avarice and offensive undertaking that will gradually strip away our rights under a paternalistic and patronizing effort to ‘protect us from ourselves’ or to ‘keep us safe’. We are the source of government not the other way around. He successfully and almost singlehandedly rolled back the coordinated force of authority and opened up the possibility that freedom of speech might become a reality for Americans.

I started this piece by saying that the times are frightening. They are because all of what was gained during the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s now seems to have been lost – sacrificed on the twin alters of political correctness and immensely expanded government control and censorship. Freedom of Speech – indeed the First Amendment to the Constitution – is now a sad and ironic joke – more a statement about the ideals of the framers and a reference to the way things once were and might have been than anything else.

I cannot watch movies on television anymore because of the butchery that parades as ‘content adjustment’. It is not content adjustment – it is censorship plan and simple. One of my favorite movies is Blazing Saddles – that wonderful and groundbreaking film that Mel Brooks gave us all those years ago. Now when I watch it on television, all I am reminded of is that it is now politically incorrect to use the word nigger or to allow the audience to hear a man pass gas. We were much braver back then – we were not afraid of those words or sounds. I do not see the movie anymore – what I see is some anonymous censor with a finger on the button determining what I can and cannot see.

What happened to artistic integrity? Has it been sacrificed on the Alter of gain and greed? Have the moneychangers so taken over the temple that the priests bow down before them and quietly and meekly take their bag of silver coins in exchange for their integrity – compliant and timid?

Moreover, what does all this say about Americans? Have we decided to accepted censorship as long as the special effects are spectacular enough? Have we decided that the Constitution and Freedom of Speech is less important than the fictional representation of a hero who fights for both but in real life – away from the camera – believes in neither? I suspect that is exactly the deal Americans have made with the Devil. However, before we take too many steps on the downward path towards eternal damnation, perhaps we should remember something that a poet wrote over twenty centuries ago:

… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses

Dr. Smith is a political and social theorist who lives in Georgetown, Washington DC

By Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Chief@ComeOnSense.com
www.ComeOnSense.com

There are Republicans and Democrats who will tolerate and even pass on lies – no matter how egregious, obviously false and slanderous – so long as they are targeted against the other side. There are those on both sides who consider it not only their privilege but obligation to create and promulgate distortions against the ‘opposing candidate’. In the bad old days of Watergate, the activities of the ‘plumbers’ scarred the reputations of good men and women for political gain. But their ability to magnify the effects of their lies and distortions was limited by the technology of their time and a significantly less co-opted media. This brave new world of the internet, blogging domesticated media has made such a-moral undertakings much more effective – and incredibly more insidious.

Consider for a moment the dynamics of the situation. An attack on the opponent is generally justified without reference to its truth or relevance. But, should the same attack be returned in kind, a cry of ‘foul’ fills the air. How many times in the current election cycle have we seen charges such as ‘sexist’, ‘racist’, ‘elitest’ or ‘self-serving’ deployed against a candidate and then, perhaps a month or more later, seen the same charge leveled in the reverse direction. What happens? Well, the receiving side rises up in righteous indignation – as if politicians have any right to righteousness or indignation – and decries as unfair the very tactic which they have previously used.

If the stakes weren’t so very high it would be funny. But we can no longer afford to treat this as some kind of comic opera or sporting event. The country itself is on the line and, if we don’t step in and save it, it may be lost – along with the much vaunted American Dream.

It is easy to get involved in a shallow-water analysis of why this lipstick smeared pig of a political process has been allowed to parade as some sort of serious political dialogue. But the real source of this charade of a parade is something which Americans need to carefully think about – because Americans themselves have been the facilitators of this madness. Let’s take a quick history lesson.

The United States was built on the idea of pluralism. Remember this was the middle 1700’s. There was no internet – no blogging – few printing presses – no radio or television. At the time pluralism was seen as a radical idea and considered an unreliable foundation for a society. The central premise of pluralism flew directly in the face of nationalism – then the ‘gold standard’ when it came to nation building. The central idea behind pluralism was that, once citizens accepted a few basic ideas – sometimes called neo-liberalism, they were considered and would act as Americans – without reference to their ethnic background, religious views or station in life. The idea turned out to be one of the most potent that the founding fathers espoused. Pluralism was America’s great gift to the world – a world which had regularly seen people slaughtering each other over differences which made little difference in the colonies. Pluralism was the precursor of the global community which is now spreading across the face of the planet – it anticipated and was magnified by advances in technology – pluralism naturally moves us to the consideration of every being on the planet as belonging to one community.

The antithesis of pluralism is tribalism. Where pluralism is inclusive, less concerned with differences and more with similarities, focused on a few central allegiances and controlled (if that can be a term applied) by the general tendencies of the population, tribalism is inherently exclusionary, heavily focused on distinctions, reactive and antagonistic towards differences, solidly focused on the enforcement of standards of behavior and belief and controlled by a central hierarchy. The two models couldn’t be farther apart -and they result in very different societies.

All tribalism is inherently provincial and reactive. Membership requires an allegiance to the received orthodoxy as interpreted by the ‘priesthood’.[1] Tribalism draws a sharp distinction between the members of the tribe – the ‘chosen’ – and the rest of humanity. Either an individual or a society cleaves to the received orthodoxy or they are considered an adversary.

Tribal orthodoxy is often strictly enforced and, should a member of the tribe stray off the reservation, retribution is swift and brutal. No longer considered part of the body, these ‘heretics’ are driven out and punished for their transgressions – often for questioning the orthodoxy itself. There are many good examples of tribal societies – particularly in the insect world. Ants for example, tend to be intensely tribal.[2] Tribal society is highly hierarchical. There is a small ruling class – with differentiation of roles and social status being strictly enforced – and an overarching orthodoxy which puts the welfare of the colony before all else.

In human tribes, the priesthood regularly polices the ‘faithful’ – focusing on those who stray from the ‘true path’. The media regularly uncovers evidence of these policing actions – whistle blowers are routinely condemned and ostracized[3] – laws are ignored[4] – rights are restricted[5] – and all in the name of preserving and advancing the position of the tribe and its senior members. When the majority of Americans come to the decision that their primary allegiance is to their tribe – that fraction of society to which they see themselves as primarily belonging – then the pluralistic vision of the founders will have been lost and the American experiment will have descended into the tribalism which has dominated human culture for centuries.

The essence of tribalism is the defense of the received orthodoxy over any other – as, for example, when a group of American citizens see themselves as either Republicans or Democrats first and American citizens second.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater

Vice and virtue have no place in the political dialogue of a representative republic – they are matters for morality and philosophy. Those who would insert them into such a dialogue generally do so in order to enforce their own definitions of liberty and justice. If you want to see the insidious nature of tribalism you only have to look to those parts of the globe where it is at its extreme. Provincial definitions of vice and virtue are the basis of all tribal orthodoxies. When taken to extremes, virtue (read complete compliance with the tribal orthodoxy) is praised and vice (read heretics) are destroyed.

“I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.” Benjamin Franklin

I believe that Franklin was correct and that his proscription applies to ideals as easily as it applies to material things. If any tribe comes to believe that their own received orthodoxy is above the social contract among all Americans, then they are conflicted in a way which makes it difficult to refer to them as Americans at all. The central idea behind our form of government is that all Americans subscribe to its basic principals without reservation and subordinate their tribal preferences to them – that is the essence of the Republic and representative government. We all agree to be bound by the Constitution and the laws and to consider ourselves Americans first and members of a faction second. Further we all agree to consider everyone else who is a citizen and who also subscribes to these ideal as Americans as well – on our same level and with the same standing and prerogatives.

But tribalism posits divisions within the nation – red States and blue States – and declares that people who are not subscribers to the tribal orthodoxy are enemies of the tribe. Republicans so define Democrats and Democrats return the favor – and both stain the flag and Constitution in doing so. The media – simple minded and shallow as it is – picks up the battle cry and magnifies it until all serious political discussion is drowned out. Serious people interested in addressing serious problems are marginalized because they refuse to put party above the welfare of the nation.[6] The great battle of ideas which the founders envisioned – the give and take among concerned and informed citizens – has been replaced by tribalism – with legions of ‘shoe salesmen’ barfing out the latest talking points as the two parties struggle for control over the media spotlight and the wounded body of the Republic.

Tribalism was the great civilizing force for much of human history. It brought people together under common banners and extended the idea of government and allegiance to that government. But tribalism is an idea whose time has come and gone. The alternative which the founders put forth in the late 1700’s was as revolutionary then as it is unavoidable now. The failure to understand that we as human beings are not just more closely connected but ‘in it together’ is a fundamental flaw in the tribal perspective. Humans are facing problems which can only be addressed by concerted and coordinated global action. A nostalgic vision of the Wild West and the cowboy might be entertaining but it is highly corrosive. The impact of humanity on the planet is a good example. This challenge cannot be met by a portion of humanity. One major society can continue the planet and its environment towards a tipping point which will doom all inhabitants. If we reach such a point will it really matter which tribe was ascendant when the earth decided that it has had enough abuse?

An essential part of the ability of tribes to thrive and conduct these adolescent ‘war games’ against each other is the inaction of those serious people. The founders depended on their willingness to stand in opposition to such inanity.

“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.” Martin Luther King

King castigated the ‘good people’ for their silence in the face of bigotry. I would do the same here. We can no longer afford to have these tribal battles dominate our political discourse. It is time for serious people to push these partisans off the stage and come together to work on the problems which are threatening humanity and the planet. It is time to decide that the entire idea of red and blue States in a effrontery to the very ideals which once made this country mankind’s last and greatest hope.

Dr. Smith is a social and political theorist who lives in Washington, DC

©Dr. Earl R. Smith II

All governments are inherently un-democratic.

It may take a while for the truth of that simple statement to sink in. Perhaps I can help a bit. Governments exist as entities within a societal context. As such they develop their own agenda and definition of success. The founders understood this – none more than Benjamin Franklin when he wrote:

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Franklin was making a distinction between the government of a nation state and the citizens of that nation. Governments have a tendency towards corruption. They are organizations dominated by individuals who have chosen the career of a professional politician. As such they have a vested interest in the power, prerogatives and reach of that organization.[1] The struggle at the core of the American experiment is whether this tendency to dominance can be controlled. In Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau wrote “I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — “That government is best which governs least”.[2] Thoreau – some half a century after the revolution – was voicing the sentiment which guided the hand of James Madison when he laid out the original design for the federal government. Over the intervening decades that government has deployed a range of strategies to overcome Madison’s design and substitute the agenda and intentions of the professional political class for that of the founders. My purpose here is to briefly discuss a few of those strategies.

Get Large: The first strategy of the professional political class is to expand the federal government until no individual citizen or group of citizens can comprehend its operation. By building a behemoth, politicians hope to over-master any citizen’s ability – or pretension – to question the wisdom of any particular governmental policy.

Dissolve the Union: The clear strategy of the professional political class is to reduce the importance of the individual States and concentrate power and authority within the federal government and Washington DC. Only one President in recent times was dedicated to the devolution of power to the States. Ronald Reagan made the idea a central part of his presidency. But Reagan aside, every other president since Dwight Eisenhower warned of the growth in power of the military-industrial complex has worked to increase the power of the central government at the expense of the States. States are often stepping stones for professional politicians but are inconveniences to politicians at the national level.[3]

Insulate Government from Direct Contact with the Citizens: Professional politicians see citizens and the need to get their approval for government policies as an inconvenience and inherent inefficiency in the process of governance. Because these politicians see citizens as uninformed and intellectually their inferiors, the idea that ordinary people should have any significant say in governance is a complete non-sequitur. This view is an echo of the very idea that the founders found so offensive – that no society could long exist without an aristocracy and monarch. This vision is at the core of the world view of every professional politician. The strategy which they, as a group, deploy to insulate themselves and the government which they claim as their own from intrusion by the citizenry is to limit citizen’s participation to voting in elections and to then reduce the implications of the choices offered – to make sure that all of the choices offered subscribe to the strategy.

Develop and Agree on a Meta-Agenda: The principal vehicles for this process are the political parties. The central point is to reach an agreement amongst all major parties on the need for the federal government to dominate the political landscape in the United States.[4] Allegiance to this understanding – rather than allegiance to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights – is the litmus test for entry into the ‘national political family’.

Dismantle the System of Checks and Balances: The holy grail of the professional politician is the imperial presidency. Professional politicians believe to their core that Madison and Jefferson were wrong and that Alexander Hamilton was right.[5] Hamilton believed in the necessity of recognizing the legitimate rights and prerogatives of a professional ruling class.[6] This attitude has so infused the professional political class in the United States that it is virtually impossible to find a senior member who does not privately – if not openly -ascribe to it. The modern manifestation of this attitude is the concentration of federal power in the executive and the diminution of the role of the legislative in the process of policy formulation. As recent Congresses have clearly demonstrated, the legislative is simply an unincorporated arm of the executive – one that follows the President’s lead no matter which party is in control of either branch. With the systems of checks and balances neutralized, the executive is freer to pursue its principal objective – further concentration of power.

Divide and Conquer: One of the most difficult ideas to grasp is how the two political parties have successfully neutralized the power of the citizenry by dividing the country into two roughly equal camps. Students of Hegel or Marx will recognize the strategy but it is alien to most Americans. The core idea here is dialectics – thesis, antithesis, synthesis. When the formulation of the alternatives – thesis and antithesis – is controlled by a common vision then the synthesis is controllable.[7] This process only works if you can divide the country into two roughly equal camps. The longer you can maintain this division the more you can advance the hidden agenda of the professional political class. While the citizens are fighting over distinctions that don’t really matter – between being a Democrat or Republican for instance – the professionals can be consolidating their positions without interference. Professional magicians refer to this as misdirection.

Crisis as a Cover for Change: Hegel was of the opinion that the best way for a government to increase its power over its subjects was to put the country on a war footing – to precipitate a crisis that would loosen all the restraints on the executive. Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli offered much the same formulation. More recently neo-conservatives and some prominent economists have offered similar suggestions. Anyone who watched the current administration drive the democrats as if they wert frightened sheep will certainly realize the effectiveness of this strategy.[8] Governments advance their control over the governed by precipitating a crisis and claiming the powers ‘necessary’ to deal with that crisis.

The View From Today: The United States is entering a very dangerous time – a time of high risk for the very Republic that the founders established two and a half centuries ago. All of these strategies and many more have been successfully deployed by the professional political class. American liberty is at ebb. Much of the structure of the federal government as established by the Constitution has been either dismantled or neutralized – either by executive fiat or with the complicity of the legislative. The American citizenry has been successfully divided into two roughly equal camps and set to war with each other. The cover which this warring has provided the professional political class has been effective beyond their wildest dreams. Abraham Lincoln made the point effectively in 1858 – “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”[9] At the time, Lincoln was speaking against slavery but in modern terms the description needs to be expanded. In the view of the professional political class all citizens are slaves to their government and – following Hegel and Marx – they have set slave against slave in order to divert them from their desire and right to be free.[10]

If Americans are to recover their birthright they need to come to terms with how the professional political class has been manipulating them – they need to realize that all citizens have one thing in common – a birthright as Americans which entitles them to be free of such manipulations – that is if they have the courage and determination to claim that birthright. So I say to you Democrats, it is not the Republicans who are your enemies – and to you Republicans, it is not the Democrats who are your enemies. One slave is not the enemy of the other – only the masters are the enemies. If the American experiment is to be redeemed – if we are to return to a government of, by and for the people – the tendencies of government – its avarice and thirst for power – must be controlled. And that control will not come from the professional political class or the government but at the insistence of a free citizenry. The future of the country is in your hands and the hands of your fellow citizens. Posterity will record how well you have served that future.

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Dr. Earl R. Smith II is a political and social theorist who lives in Washington, DC

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, it’s a good idea to look back to the early days of the country – those days between the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 – and realize just how revolutionary a vision of citizenship the founding fathers embraced. Theirs was a vision which they hoped would completely reverse the traditional relationship between government and the governed. In fact, their vision made it unwieldy to refer to the parties in that way. In America, it was the government which was to be governed by the citizenry.

Early on in the debates a distinction was made between freedom (an overused and now mostly meaningless word)[1] and liberty. Benjamin Franklin put it this way:

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”

In Franklin’s view the lamb – the American citizen – needed to be well armed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He took it as an article of faith that citizens would never ‘sleep through’ the theft of their liberty or make a ‘fools bargain’ that caused them to loose it. He did, on a number of occasions, warn of the consequences of such a short-sighted transaction:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.

Remember that the Americans of Franklin’s day were frontiersmen and pioneers. They were going about building a new country. The evils of governments which dominated its subjects were fresh in their minds. Even so, Dr. Franklin felt it necessary to warn:

Make yourselves sheep and the wolves will eat you.

The founders based their hope for the new country on the belief that Americans would never quail before their government – never feel powerless and insignificant – never stop being vigilant – never willingly become subjects – and always govern instead of being governed. Franklin was specific in his proscription.

This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.

The faith of the founders was placed in the American people – not in the government which they were forming. For them any government was inherently dangerous and, by its very nature, a danger to the liberty of the people. Only constant vigilance and insistence on the subjugation of government to the will of the people could liberty be protected. Franklin understood that all governments – indeed all nations – will eventually become corrupt. Subservience to such governments was the beginning of ‘the religion of ignorance’.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

The great hope of the founders was that the government which they were forming would be inoculated against this tendency by the powers which they saw as appropriately in the hands of the citizenry. The burden which they placed on citizens was heavy – their hope was that Americans would never put down this burden in exchange for ‘safety’.

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.

Franklin saw two major challenges which Americans would need to constantly meet and overcome. The first was the false inducement to trade their powers and liberty for money.[2]

When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.

In modern terms, Franklin’s quote needs to be revised. When the people can be induced to give up their liberty for the illusion of money that will herald the end of the Republic.

The second challenge was that they would become observers – what are called ‘process wonks’ today. If Americans come to feel that their only role in their own governance is to comment, criticize and condemn their government and each other, then the Republic would be lost to those factions which were anti-democratic.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.

Today we stand at a great crossroads. Americans have mostly given up their role as guardians of their own liberty. We more resemble modern British subjects than the early American colonists. In the area of free speech for instance, we have willingly subjected ourselves to the false god of political correctness. Things which could have been openly discussed just a few decades ago cannot be broached without drawing waves of criticism from the self-appointed censors of our public dialogue.[3] Americans are more restricted in what they can s than at any time in their history – our public dialogue is marred by the intrusion of this political correctness – our media is humbled by its force.[4] Franklin saw this danger.

In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

Do we now live in one of those ‘wretched countries’? I believe that Dr. Franklin would think so. His proscription was clear – as was his fear of the danger of giving up the right to free speech. Freedom of speech is not just the right to speak freely – it is also the right to think freely. The two are bound together and the real objective of censors is to restrict what we think and to have us always think about their power when we choose to think and speak at all.

Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Americans need to get back in touch with the citizenship that the founders had in mind when they formed the country. We need to become again what they hoped we would always be – the governors of our government. It is the single most important thing which has distinguished Americans from the rest of the people on the planet and we are in danger of losing it. We have been maneuvered into becoming subjects of that government – told that our role in society is limited to voting in elections which seem to represent very limited choices among candidates who mostly share the same agenda and dedication to raising government over the citizens. It is time to get back to fundamental principles. As Franklin suggested:

…a frequent recurrence to fundamental principle … is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free.

The first step on the road to recovering American revolutionary citizenship is to take back the right to free and open speech. If we are unwilling to take that first step then Dr. Franklin is surely turning in his grave.

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Dr. Smith is a political and social theorist who lives in Washington DC

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

There would seem little point to inquire whether god should guide the governance of church matters and, although recent history has provided many examples of ‘un-god-like’ behaviors among the clergy, I am willing to accept the proposition that the ideal at the core of any theology should inform the governance of those earthly institutions which serve it. Those who claim to speak for any particular deity should be held to the dictums attributed to that deity and the flock which ascribes to the theology should be prepared to be subject to it as well. It seems also plain that, in the United States, secular government should have no say in such matters. The constitution provides such a protection and specifically proscribes government from interfering of promoting one religion over any of the others.

A far more interesting question – particularly in the light of the last decade – comes when we ask whether religion – any religion – should play a significant role in any secular government. Here the constitution seems to be rather specific as well. The United States government is prohibited from declaring one religion as the state religion. Article 6 declares that “[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” During the debates, James Madison suggested that “Religion itself may become a motive to persecution and oppression.” In the debates leading up to the passing of the Bill of Rights, Madison argued that the “civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.”

This position was widely held throughout the colonies. From the New Hampshire debates came the following: “Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.” From the Virginia debates: “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.” And from the debates in New York: “That the people have an equal, natural, and unalienable right freely and peaceably to exercise their religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.” The quintessential formulation of this principal shows up in the first amendment to the constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

It seems abundantly clear that the founders were determined to prohibit the federal government from interfering with an individual’s right to practice whatever religion they preferred. What about the other side of the question? Should any given religion be allowed to interfere with the management of the federal government?

Here there seems to be some guidance from, of all places, the scriptures. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”[1] Jesus seems to have been saying that secular issues should be left to secular government – perhaps one of the earliest formulations of the idea of separation of church and state. Following this idea, it seems to me that we might start with an inquiry into the source and nature of sovereignty within both theology and the form of government which the founders bequeathed to us – for it is in this area that the difficulty of mixing religion into government becomes the clearest. The distinction in the quote above is critical to the understanding of the issue – in truth; religion and government constitute the proverbial oil and water – held together only by overwhelming force – a power imbalance which allows one (usually religion) to impose its values and vision on the other (usually government). The core question is “where does ultimate truth – the well-spring of authority – the very fountain of sovereignty spring from”?

In any religion the answer to this question is clear – authority comes from the worshiped deity and through the words attributed to that deity as interpreted by the theological authorities who are recognized by its followers. In nation states which are theocracies, the leadership of the state religion and the secular government is often merged. In others, the secular government is subservient to the theocracy. But in both cases the informing idea is that the deity has decided and the followers – including those in the government – are required to comply. The foundational documents of the religion are the basis of the government’s power. And they are not open to revisions or revocation by the faithful.

The founders of our Republic had a completely different vision of sovereignty. They believed that such power arose from the people and that government was subject to the people. All powers which the government had were as a result of a grant from the people and the people retained the right to withdraw any or all of those powers at any time. The interpreters of what was appropriate – what powers would be exercised, what policies followed, what actions taken – were the citizens both directly and through their elected representatives – without an overbearing theocracy to declare that they were either wrong or right.

When it came to the question of the role of government in promoting religion in society, a shared vision was clearly stated by many of the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”[2] In his autobiography Jefferson writes “Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”[3] In a letter to Horatio G. Spafford Jefferson wrote “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”[4]

When we turn to James Madison we find quotes which seem to be even more on point – more focused on the central question being asked here – should religion (any religion) play a principal role in guiding the actions and formulating the policies of the federal government of the United States. Madison was fairly clear on this question. “Nothwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov’ & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst.. And in a Gov’ of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”[5]

There cannot be any doubt that James Madison saw real danger in the establishment of a ‘coalition’ between religion and secular government. He drove home the point in a letter to Rev Jasper Adams “[I]t may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov’t from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.”[6] The word ‘unsurpastion’ is the telling one here – its modern counterpart is usurpation. The evils of a coalition between religion and government were, in Madison’s mind, a direct threat to the government being formed and the society which was to live along side of it. This line of reasoning brought Madison to declare “It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment; and that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by the legal provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspiciously corroboates the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Government, tho’ bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE.”[7] The meaning here is very clear – theology should govern the church and the Constitution should guide the federal government and mixing them is at the peril of the citizens, liberty and the entire American experiment.

Madison’s position was based on the following insight: “In a large society, the people are broken into so many interests and parties, that a common sentiment is less likely to be felt, and the requisite concert less likely to be formed, by a majority of the whole. The same security seems requisite for the civil as for the religious rights of individuals. If the same sect form a majority, and have the power, other sects will be sure to be depressed. Divide et impera, the reprobated axiom of tyranny is, under certain qualifications, the only policy by which a republic can be administered on just principles.”[8]

In a letter to Thomas Jefferson – who was in Paris during the Constitutional Convention, Madison addresses the issue this way “The inefficacy of this restraint on individuals is well known. The conduct of every popular assembly, acting on oath, the strongest of religious ties, shews that individuals join without remorse in acts against which their consciences would revolt, if proposed to them, separately, in their closets. When, indeed, Religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force, like that of other passions, is increased by the sympathy of a multitude. But enthusiasm is only a temporary state of Religion, and whilst it lasts will hardly be seen with pleasure at the helm. Even in its coolest state, it has been much oftener a motive to oppression than a restraint from it.”[9]

In more recent time John F Kennedy – America’s first Catholic president – wrote “I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”[10]

Underlying all of these visions is an understanding of the fundamental differences in the roles and contributions of religion and government to human society. Religion is essentially a tribal arrangement which separates out the followers as the ‘chosen few’ from the rest of humanity. Its structure begins at the top with the deity and extends downward through the agencies of theocrats, clergy and accolades. The non-believers are considered ‘not part of the body’.[11] Followers have one and only one significant role in the religion – to accept the received orthodoxy and to comply with its strictures.

Democracy completely reverses this formulation. The people get to decide what the rules are, who wields the power, which powers they will yield and which are to be withheld from government. Instead of an extended, ancient and relatively changeless foundational document, there are relatively few foundational documents all of which are changeable at the people’s will. American-style government is inherently pluralistic – at its best, it recognizes the legitimacy of every perspective, opinion, ethnicity, religion and preference among its citizens – all of which are proscribed only by the powers which the people have granted to their government. In the mind of the Founders, the people had the right to decide how their government would be organized and the powers it would wield – and they could unmake any of those decisions without interference from that government.

The nature of the Constitution and the American government is very specific in this area. The brief oath which the American President takes encapsulates the idea at its very core.[12] It doesn’t bind the President to preserve, protect and defend the Bible, the Book of Mormon or the Koran – but the Constitution of the United States. The President may be a believer in one of the many religions and feel a need to protect its foundational documents – but NOT AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. The oath binds the President to consider the Constitution the highest law of the land – with none above it. A President who takes that oath and does not truly accept that condition is a traitor to the very idea of a government of, by and for the people – all the people. If a politician cannot swear that their religion will not trump the Constitution in their role as President, then they have no right to be President because their taken oath and the commitment it implies to the people and Constitution are lies. For the President of the United States, there can be no ‘higher father’ when it comes to the fulfilling of these responsibilities – the Constitution is the ultimate word and the highest authority.

There is one more version of this core question which may have occurred to you. What if a majority of the people decide that theology should guide the hand of government and that their foundational documents should trump the Constitution? What if the majority of the citizens decide that the government of the United States should be a theocracy? The answer to this version is quite simple – they can’t and any effort to do so is, on it very face and short of overturning the Constitution of the Unites States, unconstitutional. The only way that the government of the United States can be turned into a theocracy is by a shredding of its foundational document – the Constitution – and by a complete disregard for the clear intents of the founders.

We live in a time – perhaps it is because so many Americans are nearing the end of their lives and facing their own mortality – when strong forces are mustering what feels like a final charge to turn the federal government of the United States into a theocracy. Perhaps this wave has already broken and those forces are reseeding – or perhaps they are simply re-gathering for another assault on the Constitution. But the last decade has been a perilous time for that document and the Bill of Rights.

The experiment of the last eight years – the election of a ‘pastor in chief’ as President of the United States – should be enough to inform all but those dedicated to the establishment of a theocracy in America. The country is poorer, massively in debt, isolated from the rest of the world to an extent not seen since before the second world war, sending its young to die in a senseless war, seeing its treasury looted by the administration and its political allies and suffering under the jack boot of an imperial presidency that has systematically assaulted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Americans should recognize the cost of allowing religion to intrude into the halls of government – and re-learn the wisdom of the founders when they warned against such an intrusion.

When asked at the end of the Constitutional Convention what form of government was being birthed, Benjamin Franklin responded “A Republic, if you can keep it.” A republic cannot be a theocracy and, should any deity be deemed by its elected leaders as being the defining and ultimately deciding force in its operation, it will fall into the historical trash bin of governments which have formed such an unholy alliance. The saddest images of the 2008 campaign have been of candidates overtly and ardently professing their religious beliefs – and, in doing so, taking the government farther down the road towards a theocracy. How refreshing it would be to have a least one candidate embrace the Constitution as the superior document – to have at least one candidate make it clear that the oath of office means exactly what it says and that they will ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution rather than advance the control of their particular theology over the government of the United States. How amazing it would be to have at least one candidate show the wisdom and courage of the founders and to prove for our time that such courage and wisdom had not died out two centuries ago.

Dr. Smith is a political and social theorist who lives in Washington, DC

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address

Several things are notable about Lincoln’s address. The first was its total lack of partisan rhetoric. Instead of beating the drums of division, Lincoln sought to focus the nation’s attention of the shared hopes and dreams of all Americans – and to appeal to the ‘better angels of their nature’. The country was approaching a civil war – the battle over slavery was about to be joined. But, in a deeper sense, the battle over the role and prerogatives of the federal government was about to come to a full boil. The nature of the union – the obligations of the individual states towards it – the meaning of the Constitution – all of these questions were coming to the fore.

Lincoln, who was almost universally hated or feared in the South, sought to offer a way forward that might avoid the carnage which he knew would be the result of civil war. And so he appealed to the better angels of Americans’ nature. History shows that his appeal fell on deaf ears – and that the carnage and destruction which he feared was the result. One could have only wished that Americans had listened to Lincoln’s entreaty.

Today we are in a similar situation. As Lincoln observed elsewhere, “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. The jingoistic tendencies of both political parties have morphed the idea of patriotism with into the idea of loyalty to party and candidate. Now each side stridently maintains that what is good for their party’s future is good for America. But Americans need to recognize the fault in this reasoning and listen again to Abraham Lincoln. George Washington, James Madison and many other founding fathers were of the opinion that political parties would threaten the Union – that they would divide the country into groups which would then put the welfare of their ‘tribes’ above the welfare of the nation. Thomas Jefferson and then – somewhat ironically – Abraham Lincoln – were the two Presidents who most advanced the two party structure. Jefferson with the Anti-Federalists and Lincoln with the Republican Party were the primary advocates of the division of the county into two political camps. Many of the surviving founders were appalled at Jefferson’s embrace of the Ant-Federalists. In the founders’ minds, the welfare of the country was not tied to the welfare of any political party but only to the welfare of the country.

But Lincoln had a second meaning in mind when he issued his appeal to “the better angels of our nature”. He saw Americans on both sides slandering each other in order to advance their side’s cause. Lincoln himself was a primary target of such slander. What appalled him most was that very idea that there was a common cause that bound all Americans seemed to have gone by the way. Lincoln saw a ‘house divided against itself’’ and rightfully feared for its survival.

Today our country suffers from the same malady. In some ways our current condition is far worse than the one Lincoln faced. The two tribes are fracturing and becoming four – or five – or six. Americans – and particularly the political class – seem to think that we have the luxury of a house divided – seem to believe that – in a world which is more and more globally integrated every day – American society can be divide into smaller and smaller cabals – which fight among themselves – without any negative effect or cost. But nothing could be farther from the truth – the effect of such divisions are already and will continue to be massively negative.

And what is it that drives this division and subdivision of American society? It is the loosing of the ‘worse angels of our nature’ – through a politics that appeals to the dark side of our nature – the destructive side. When politicians advance – and often, win elections – by slandering and tearing down their opponents, they are also slandering and tearing down the American flag and chipping away at the very foundation of our Republic. As long as Americans see their elections as some sort of sporting event – some sort of spectacle – this politics of the negative will continue to erode those foundations. As long as we tolerate the appeal to the ‘worse angles of our nature’ – we will be enablers of that destruction. By tolerating such politics, Americans are participating in the destruction of their own country.

Partisan politics is a tough addiction to break. You might get a short-term high when your side lands a ‘blow’ on the ‘opponent’ – but you need to recognize that that blow was also struck the flag, the Constitution and the very foundations of our Republic. If you really think that smut, scum slinging, unfounded innuendo, political and personal hachetry and the like are the true currency of American politics, I suggest that you read the histories of National Socialism, Marxism and Communism. In each case, the divisions within a society solidified, one side gained ascendancy and the world was plunged into war. You cannot engage in or tolerate such things and not be complicitous in the destruction and denigration of the great gift that the founders gave us.

The current election cycle finds us at a critical turning point in American history. We have to decide whether we are all Americans – in it together – who will work with good will and tolerance to find common ground and a way forward that is best for the future of our country – or whether it is more important that we are republicans, democrats or independents – and that the future of our clique is more important than the future of our country. In an important way, we need to decide whether we will be true to the vision of the founding fathers or cast that vision aside. The formulation that ‘what is good for one of these sub-groups is good for the country’ is self-serving trash of the most insidious type. It insults and degrades the very foundations of our Republic – contradicts the entire idea of ‘we the people’ and posits a ‘master class’ whose interests trump those of the rest of the society.

If Americans decide that they prefer the gruel and drivel of partisan politics to the fine cuisine that the founders offered us – it they prefer to eat at ‘separate tables’ and divide the house until the funeral dirges raise to thundering levels – then we have stopped listening to “the better angels of our nature”. If we punish negative campaigning and support those with a positive vision which includes all Americans, we hold faith with Washington, Madison, Adams and Franklin – and reaffirm American exceptionalism – reaffirm the American dream – and set the ship of state back on a course which is founded on the very idea that we are all Americans and, by that, are all bound to respect, support and honor each other’s commitment to the founding ideals of the Republic.

Dr. Smith is a political and social theorist who lives in Washington, DC

I am appalled at the sorry state of the media these days. It is not just that the ‘media stars’ are no longer reporters – or journalists of any kind, for that matter. They are mostly ‘talk-show-host’ parading as journalists. It isn’t even that the media seems to have abandoned its traditional role – to inform – and has, in its place, decided that its role is to convince. No, it’s how wrong and/or irrelevant the media tends to be these days on may important issues – how many times they seem to be out of step with the American people – how much air time is spent, during these turbulent times, on issues and people that just don’t matter – how focused they are on minutiae and how often they just plain miss the meaning. Let me give you three examples of what I mean:

A neighbor is involved in the transition of the television signal from analog to digital. The big change-over is next February but the Federal Communications Commission is running pilot projects in a number of places – to test their ability to help citizens who are still getting their signals through antennas acquire and install the converter boxes necessary. One of the pilot projects was in Wilmington, North Carolina. The FCC representatives were required to spend considerable time in the Wilmington area and got to know the ‘locals’ rather well during their stay. In many cases they were in small and sparsely populated counties – the ones with the highest percentage of people who would loose their TV reception completely without a converter box.

After his first extended trip, my neighbor and I gathered for a cold beer and a cigar. I was interested in what he had found most interesting. Without a pause he said that it was the state of race relations which most startled him. “We live in a virtual world, they live in the real world,” was the way he put it. “I saw little or no race distinction – particularly among the younger people. There were some examples – particularly with teenagers – of racial divides, but for the most part they were all mixed in together – playing together – dating – and not paying much attention to the racial issue.”
After he left, I turned on the TV to find three ‘talking heads’ discussing racial relations in the United States. For all the world, it struck me as a time warp – that I was watching a talk show from a decade or more back – that’s how dated the ‘pundits’ seemed.

In the old view there were whites and blacks – and the other ethnic groups – a patch work of societal overlays. The melting pot was apparently not working and the dynamics between the groups was frozen in a kind of status quo. The discussion of these ‘media stars’ mirrored that vision. But my neighbor saw something quite different in Wilmington. He saw a society which was moving beyond the old way of looking at race. The media types were so concentrated on working through and signaling allegiance to the minutiae of the old orthodoxy that they completely missed the meaning of the first candidate for President who represents this new sensibility to racial issues.

A couple of days later I was watching another ‘talk show’. They had on two people who we supposedly ‘Hillary Clinton supporters’ and who were now committed to voting for John McCain. As I watched them, I was reminded of the man who, in order to gain possession of his dead father’s fortune, had to mount a campaign to put clothes on animals. I once saw him interviewed – it is truly pathetic what some people will do for money or notoriety. Here were two people paying with their dignity for their 15 minutes of fame. And here was the ‘talk show host’ with the magnifying glass – torturing the ants with a combination of obvious distain and glee.

It turns out that their organization had raised something around $50,000 – meaning that they were a publicity stunt and little else – but, with all the important stuff going on – you remember – the wasteful war in Iraq – the terrible state of the economy – the high price of energy – inflation – the successful attacks on the rule of law – the incredibility inability of the congressional democrats to understand that, without accountability, the Republic is at risk – this ‘talk show host’ decided that these two pathetic people should take up air time.

On another channel I found what I can only characterize as a ‘game show host’ interviewing Jerome Corsi – author of Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. The ‘game show host’ was one of the new models – you know, female, in her late 30’s, attractive and clearly mentally challenged. No Edward R. Murrow she. In typical fashion, the ‘host’ was almost completely unprepared for the interview and botched it badly. She had a couple of ‘trick questions’ up her sleeve which Corsi challenged her on – and, being the bimbett that she was, left her without resources to respond. If you go to the dictionary and look up the word shallow you will probably find her picture next to it – or at least you should.

The result of this ‘interview’ was that Corsi ended up looking like the ‘sane and competent one’ while the ‘host’ looked like an amateur political hack – talk about a reversal of roles. So Corsi gets his publicity, the right-wing interest groups buy lots of the book and thereby drive it to number one on the New York Times bestseller list and the media obediently plays is subordinate and subservient role.
My point is that the media always seems to be either far behind the curve or in the process of submitting itself as a highly flexible and useful publicity tool – rather than informing the public. The founders saw a free press as the most effective way to protect the freedoms and liberties which the colonist has bleed to acquire. I am sure that they never in their wildest dreams considered the possibility that the press would abandon the responsibility to inform in favor of one to entertain – to support the orthodoxy of the times – and to serve as a publicity department for special interest groups and cranks.

Dr. Smith is a political and social theorist who lives in Washington DC

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

By Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Chief@ComeOnSense.com
www.ComeOnSense.com

When it comes to war – as the saying goes – ‘amateurs talk strategy while the professionals talk logistics’. That saying seems to apply as well to the current political debate – and clearly most of the participants are amateurs. The other day I heard one of these ‘game show hosts parading as journalists’ refer to the ‘failed presidency of George W. Bush’. I had to laugh out loud. It was funny at first – then I listened to a few more of these amateurs and realized that their misunderstanding may, in fact, be calculated – and one of the fundamental reasons why the presidency of George W. Bush has been the most successful ever.

As I see it, the current administration came into office with only two objectives. The first was to perfect the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon. This was no accident because many of the Bush administration’s principal players were either holdovers from Nixon or had close ties to Nixionians. They believed to their core that Nixon had a point – that the President should be closer to the British Prime Minister in power and privilege – and, if possible closer to the monarchy of King George II – without the messy and pesky interference of Parliament.

The second objective was to break the budget deals that would prevent the party in power from paying off their political and business supporters. Deregulation – Phil Graham style – had pretty much been pushed to the limit – the wolves had been loosed among the sheep and the ‘due process’ table had been tilted in favor of business as far as it might be with a straight face. The feast was well under way – executives and investors were making billions of dollars – mostly at the expense of the taxpayer, employees and small investors. But the supporters now wanted more – they wanted access to the taxpayers’ line of credit – and they wanted a fast track to max out the citizens’ credit card.

These two objectives explain almost everything that the Bush administration has done over the past eight years. Remember that their objective was to remake two central ideas – in fact to erase them from the country’s collective memory. The first was the system of checks and balances that constrained the American President – mostly through congressional oversight. The second was to induce the people to abandon the very idea of fiscal responsibility and permit the looting of the federal treasury.

Let’s start with the Iraq war. I will leave conspiracy theorists to debate whether the administration had prior knowledge of and then allowed the attack on the World Trade Center. I am sure that such a debate is unavoidable – just as the debate over whether members of the Roosevelt administration knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. But, from the administration’s view, the World Trade Center attack was a gift that kept on giving. The theory goes this way – “if you want to successfully press for radical change, first precipitate a crisis”. From the agitators’ point of view, the attack on September 11^th was more than they could have ever hoped for. It struck at the very foundations of America’s self-image as a country secure behind two oceans and therefore immune from the kinds of attacks that were going on in the rest of the world – it attacked the very idea of American exceptionalism.

Once the foundations of American exceptionalism were shaken the administration saw its big chance. It was now possible to expand the crisis – to evolve an atmosphere in which real change could be pushed through – the imperial presidency could be established and the treasury looted – under cover of putting the country on a war footing.

But the ‘war on terror’ was seen as too abstract to support the kind of change and profiteering which the administration had in mind. What was needed was an ‘old-style’ shooting war – with armies, territory and two defined sides. The old Hegelian formulation of thesis-antithesis-synthesis was the very thing in this situation but the thesis had to be first sharply (if fictionally) defined. Early on the administration had decided that a war in Iraq was just the ticket. But they had a big problem – the public was not going to buy into a war without provocation. That is why September 11^th was so important to the administration – it gave them the cover to start the ‘real war’ in Iraq. The thesis became ‘Iraq is allied with the terrorists and is developing nuclear weapons’. The antithesis was ‘the United States, along with its allies (the so-called coalition of the willing) opposed Iraq’s development of nuclear weapons and its alliance with terrorists. The synthesis was that, with the country now on a war footing, the administration was free to pursue its two principal goals – the establishment of the imperial presidency and the looting of the federal coffers.

It was a bold strategy that had one possibly fatal flaw. It wasn’t that the basis for the thesis was completely untrue – the administration could rely on the press to be totally domesticated and incompetent when it came to discovering the lies which underlay the thesis – and they did turned out to be completely incompetent – indeed, totally domesticated as well – beyond the administration’s wildest dreams. No the potential problem was the democrats – they could derail the entire scheme by simply pushing for clarity – investigating the underlying assumptions and intelligence that supported the entire idea of war with Iraq. And, without a war, the administration would find it very difficult to pursue their principal objectives – without a major crisis, they would not be able to manage the real change that was so important to them.

I can imagine the glee that came upon senior members of the administration when the first signals came from the democrats. The last major barrier to the master plan was removed when the democratic leadership came to the White House, lay down before the President and uttered those distinctly un-American words – ‘tread on me’. The joy had to be as much as any band of conspirators could ever experience – total victory was at hand – the road ahead was clear. Now the success of the project was dependant on very manageable issues. The first was that the war needed to last as long as possible. A short war would bring the crisis to an end too soon – it needed to go on for years in order for the changes in the structure of the federal government – the nature of the relationships between the branches – particularly the executive and legislative – to become set in stone. A long war would also extend the time that the looting could go on and give the process cover – you simply wrap the flag around it and question the patriotism of anybody who questioned the propriety of the funding.

Once the war was accepted and the patriotism of the first few ‘protestors’ had been successfully attacked, the administration was able to kick things into high gear. But there was a second risk that came with the advancing excesses. The democrats had castrated themselves and were now simply eunuchs in the republican harem – so servile that they had become, for all intents and purposes, pseudo-republicans. No – the new danger was the citizenry – would they stand for what the administration intended? Their country – which had in the prior administration worked its way out of debt and was showing budget surpluses – would have to be plunged deeply and rapidly into the red. Would they stand for such a result from the political party which had a reputation for fiscal conservatism? Their country – which was formed as a republic with three co-equal branches of government which checked and balanced each other – was to be turned into the very kind of monarchy which the original settles fled their native country to escape. Would the American people stand for the defacing of the gift that the founders bequeathed them?

The administration’s luck held. The Americans of the first decade of the 21^st century were certainly not the Americans of the 1960’s and 70’s. In the old Roman formulation, they were busy with ‘bread and circuses’ and paid no attention to the projects that were tearing at the very foundations of their country and society. The aggressive nature of the Americans of the 60’s and 70’s had been replaced by the placidity and malleability of the citizens of the first decade of the 21^st century. It had to be the best news that the administration could hope for – the eunuchs that the congressional democrats had become were important – but the eunuchs that the American people had become was empowering beyond the administrations wildest dreams.

Now, as the administration winds down, it is time to total up the ‘take’. I am sure that no member of the administration thought, when the process began, that they would be as successful as they have been. They have fundamentally changed the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government – the later is now clearly and probably irrevocably subordinate to the former. The imperial presidency envisioned by Richard Nixon is now an established fact which subsequent presidents are unlikely to undo. The debate between Hamilton and Jefferson has finally been resolved – America had become an elected monarchy. Jefferson has been proven to have been wrong when he suggested that a country could endure without an aristocracy and ruling class. In a fundamental way, the American experiment may be reaching its conclusion – one that would appall the founding fathers and stain the memory of Thomas Paine.

The looting of the treasury has also gone far better than they could have hoped for during the early days of the administration. Trillions of dollars have been drawn from the national credit and distributed – often without any effective controls or accountability – to supporters. With the complete politicization of the Department of Justice – turning the Attorney General into the lawyer for the ruling political class – the entire piracy will be accomplished without risk. Think of it – the form of government fundamentally changed and the treasury bleed dry – and no accountability at all – no crimes – no criminals – no charges – just the tut-tut-tut of the talking heads. In most societies what these people have done would be treason – in the United States it is apparently just the American Way!

So when somebody refers to the failure of the Bush presidency, I simply observe that I wish more of us could ‘fail’ in such a way. It would be like winning the lottery and calling it a failure because you didn’t wait another week to buy the ticket – the prize would have been bigger!

Dr. Smith is a social and political theorist who lives in Washington, DC

These days it seems that the federal government is primarily in the business of distributing the taxpayers’ credit to the supporter of the political party in power. With the redistribution of wealth – always upwards, of course – as their principal objective, members of the administration systematically loot the federal treasury. Their friends do very well and the taxpayers are left with the bill. Their political adversaries dream of the days when they are in control and can do the same for their friends. This has been the case for a long time. What is new is the incredible passivity of the citizenry in the face of this ‘looting. In fact, they don’t really seem to mind it at all – probably because they realize that their future was mortgaged long ago – along with their children’s. Now the politicians are working their way through the future of their grandchildren. And grandchildren are such a long way into the future.

The inattention and indifference of the American people – along with their adolescent addiction to partisan politics – resulting in seeing even the most critical of elections as sporting events – has produced a perfect environment for the kind of piracy which now parades as politics. The current administration has set a high water mark in the process – in fact, they have succeeded far beyond their wildest dreams in pushing the limits. Billions of dollars have been wasted (from the taxpayers point of view, they received nothing for it – not the view of the supporters of the party in power though). Ethical standards have been completely abandoned – the entire idea of accountability has been disposed of – there are no criminals anymore – only successful pirates.

It’s not hard to find examples. Consider the cover that the congressional democrats are currently providing the republicans as they indicate that, even though laws may have been broken by senior administration figures, there will be no accountability – no price to pay at all – or the recent statement by the current Attorney General that “all violations of the law are not crimes”. No politician need fear the courts because the AG will protect them from being held accountable. The Attorney General has become the lawyer for the ruling class!

The Government Accounting Office regularly issues reports detailing waste on truly titanic levels – and nothing is done – no one is brought to account. Billions of dollars of debt is piled up – massive corruption and incompetence has covered the tracks – nothing is accounted for – simply written off. But there is one creditor that doesn’t have the ability to just write it all off – the American taxpayer.
The federal government – you remember, the one designed by Mr. Madison and established by the founders to make sure that the American government was forever of, by and for the people – to make sure that we were never again subject to the vagaries, avarice and outright corruption of a ruling political and business class – has been turned into a shield for that very ruling class. This shield has proven so effective that trillions of dollars have been successful looted from the federal treasury – and much of it to buy nothing of value. And here is the amazing part; all this has been done without any risk of legal exposure or threat of accountability. The genius of the pirate’s scheme is that an accommodation has been reached between the two principal political parties – essentially they have agreed “we will loot while in office and allow you to loot when you are in office”.

On some days this arrangement seems so stable – at least from inside the country – that it might be expected to go on forever. But there is a difficulty – there are catastrophic implications for a society which is constantly looted and pillaged. American citizens, business people and politicians are all passengers on a very large bus – a complex, self-organizing system called the US economy. But this bus is running a race with others – racing around the same track as all other economies in the world. All of them together are participating in an increasingly interrelated and globalized race – the world economy.

Inefficiencies – and let’s be clear piracy and corruption are very expensive inefficiencies – are costly to the economy being subjected to them – pirates are parasites which live off the host – and the hosts – the American people – are the true creators of wealth. In the global economy, the financially strong prey on the financially weak – and, let’s face it, the United States is financially weaker than it has ever been since the period of the Revolutionary War.

Increasingly citizens and the ruling political and business classes in the United States are less and less relevant to the future of the country. Increasingly the country is owned by its creditors – by people, corporations and governments which are not Americans and would not remotely consider becoming Americans. And, more and more, they have the votes which count. Both foreign and domestic policy are already formed under the threat that the lenders which have kept the ship of state afloat while the looting has increased to a truly rabid pace will, if those policies offend them, reduce their appetite for federal bonds. That’s what happens when you mortgage your country – just like what happens when you mortgage your house. If you have a mortgage, you don’t really own it until you pay off the lien. You don’t really own it – the bank does.

Americans like to think that theirs are the votes that counts – that they get to decide in each election the direction that the country is going to take. That is an increasingly sad delusion indeed. The votes that really count are the ones cast by the hundreds of major creditors which have gained control over this country’s future – and over the future of generations of Americans. The pirates have driven us so far into debt that instead of being the big dog on the block we are now the rag toy which the terrier is tearing to pieces. If the citizens don’t step in and take control – and very soon – the American Dream will become the hope that our landlords don’t raise the rent too fast and maybe they will see their way clear to fix the plumbing before it bursts and washes us all away.

Dr. Smith is a social and political theorist
who lives in Georgetown, Washington, DC