By Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Chief@ComeOnSense.com
www.ComeOnSense.com
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
[1] If this formulation gives you pause, substitute the word architect or lawyer for politician. It is reasonable that members of a particular profession would have an interest in the power, prerogatives and reach of the organizations which represents their profession. With professional politicians, those organizations are the political parties and the government they contend to dominate.
[2] Civil Disobedience, Originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government”, By Henry David Thoreau – 1849
[3] The rather unsuccessful but ambitious attempt by the federal government over several administrations to promulgate unfunded mandates is a clear example of this ‘inconvenience’.
[4] Some historians trace this agreement back to Abraham Lincoln and what has been referred to as the ‘great swindle’. Prior to the Civil War the Union was an association of States – an agreement among them which could be remade or dissolved at their pleasure. Lincoln and the Civil War changed all that.
[5] In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
[6] All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.
[7] Put simply, the Republicans posit one solution to a problem while the democrats posit another. If both support the over-riding agenda of the professional political class, then it does not matter which alternative prevails. If you can successfully frame the questions, the answers are then both predictable and acceptable.
[8] The idea is similar to shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. Once the alarm is sounded, most people are more focused on their own safety than the niceties of the accuracy of the warning.
[9] On June 16, 1858, more than 1,000 Republican delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican State Convention. At 5 p.m. they chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. At 8 p.m. Lincoln delivered this address to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives. The title comes from a sentence in the speech’s introduction, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” which paraphrases a statement by Jesus in the New Testament.
[10] Again – thesis, antithesis, synthesis – where the synthesis is predictable and acceptable
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