PrintOctober 17, 2009
These Dis-United States
The public rancor and divisiveness that exists today in our political and cultural debates is nothing new, having been a staple of our Republic/Democracy for its entire history. There are, however, disturbing elements to these debates that one could surmise to be more destructive than fruitful to its continued existence.
All elected Federal officials solemnly profess to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America", but hardly any admit that what they do, in actuality, destroys or alters said document. Congress and the Executive Branch have been on a relentless assault to provide for the benighted masses what they don't seem to want to provide for themselves; at least this is what liberal/progressives have been projecting since, at least, the time of FDR. The masses, content with accepting the beneficence of the empowered elite, swoon before these attempts to provide cradle to grave assurance of a life free of the hindrance of self improvement.
So, this liberal/progressive agenda finds itself at the zenith of power and influence with ‘Cap and Trade' and ‘ObamaCare'. There may be voices, shrill and loud, crying from the margins of a disaffected portion of the populace that object to another attack on the Constitution. Their view of a Constitution having been ravaged by yet another assault on the originalist interpretation may be correct, but progressivism simply refers to these attacks as ‘wrongheaded' or ‘outdated'. The founders certainly could not have foreseen the difficulties and complexities of modern man . A Constitution that could not adapt to such new challenges could not survive, says the statist. It must become a ‘living and breathing' document, free of original intent. And so it has become.
The liberal/progressive movement has convinced modern man that to satisfy his material needs it is not necessary to labor exhaustingly in pursuit of said needs; but much more beneficial to modern man to simply reallocate resources from those who can afford to do so. The foundations of the welfare state having been laid, the free market struggles to provide for its legitimate members as well as those of a lesser inclination. The mixed economy may go on for years before the weight of redistributive legislation finally brings the golden goose to a prone position.
The tipping point, however, has finally been reached. Better than 50% of the class of lesser inclination now feed at the trough of Federal largesse. They are satiated and satisfied by the exuberance of the power elite. They are now but tools to that elite; to be fashioned as the ruling class desires. They can no more disenfranchise themselves from their largesse than those who desire freedom could but snap their fingers and be loosed from their chains. Those who advocate the redistribution of wealth have succeeded; democracy has trumped the Republic and the tyranny of the majority has taken shape.
There will continue to be elections and small changes in the makeup of the Legislative and Executive, but it will be mere window dressing to the failed experiment; that being the existence of a viable Republic. The United States will become the ‘Dis-United States'. Those states that can extricate themselves from the failed experiment will do so. Those that have believed a Constitution is unchanged for the ages will depart Democratic entanglement and form their own new, more perfect union. The new union may be small and certainly less powerful than its Federal predecessor, but it will have as its motto the belief that men are free to decide their own future, not subject to the tyranny of a majority. That its currency will not be debased; that limited government lives up to its charter and that citizens be the rulers instead of sheep to be fleeced.
In her great novel, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand saw such a future for those concerned with the dignity and freedom of mankind. When it was written it was just a novel, hardly a vision for what a country could become. That vision, that future may now be here. We need only be brave enough to face the present which was the future and determine who will be our John Galt.
Then it starts anew...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal....
