Has Our Republic Run Its Course?

Scott Rassmusen has a column in which he talks about all the scandals and the people’s distrust of government. Is there any wonder why? With the majority of Americans not wanting Obamacare, the federal government passed the bill anyway imposing the progressive’s plan upon Americans and changing the healthcare landscape and the relationship between the government and its citizens. Sarah Palin warned that this government controlled plant included “death panels”. She was wildly ridiculed by the same progressives

Next, the Democrat progressive’s attempted to limit the citizen’s right to arms. These progressive Democrats have been trying for 100 plus years to limit the Second Amendment rights of citizens.

After the gun control fight, we have the disclosure of the IRS targeting Tea Party groups attempting to get tax exempt status. We have heard for the last several years about IRS’ targeting of conservatives and conservative groups with audits. Now, with all that has been disclosed, there is little doubt such actions were, and continue to be, happening.

Now, we have the significant expansion of the domestic snooping efforts of the NSA. As often happens, Maxine Waters lets it slip that the information collected by the NSA in its domestic snooping will be portable and will continue to benefit the Democratic Party for at least a generation.

What you often hear from the progressive Democrats is their desire for fairness and equality. These progressive Democrats continue pushing “equality” as their theme for instituting their legislative agenda. However, their actual intent is to bring the people down to the lowest common point, economically and socially. This includes all citizen, except for them, the ruling class.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the French historian, wrote of “Political Consequences of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans” by saying “But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom”. He continues to comment on equality by saying “Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against the aggressions of power. As none of them is strong enough to fight alone with advantage, the only guarantee of liberty is for everyone to combine forces. But such a combination is not always in evidence.” As the federal government expands welfare, unemployment, medicare, etc., fewer and fewer people are self-reliant and must rely on the subsistence of the government for their very existence. This reliance further empowers the federal government as the citizens are afraid to push back against the statists for fear of losing the benefits the government provides.

After the revelation of the IRS’ political activities against the Tea Party and the NSA’s domestic spying, does anyone really wonder whether the statists running the government would use that leverage against its citizens?

The progressive Democrat’s war on the successful and rich is yet another example of how they argue for equality. In this instance, it is the need to equalize the benefits of one’s labor regardless of the efforts put forth. Whether it is through a progressive income tax rate (which only stops the middle class from progressing up the wealth ladder), or their “everyone must pay their fair share mantra”, the progressive Democrats want to determine who the economic winners and losers are. When government picks economic winners and losers, the real loser is the average citizen. The Heritage Foundation has a listing of 36 companies funded under Obama’s “green initiative” that have gone bankrupt. How did the average citizen benefit? He didn’t, and, not only that, but Joe Citizen’s children will be paying taxes all their lives for these failure. And who is it that cares about “the children?”

Our very own Declaration of Independence provides:

…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

We were a country united in our belief in our Constitution, as amended, and the need to limit the powers of the central government. However, with expansion of the unconstitutional and unelected “administrative branch” and the abuse of power of the progressive Democrats, have we reached the point of despotism? As a conservative, and being under attack from the very government I pay taxes to protect my freedom and liberty, it certainly appear so.

With that backdrop, how do you ever reach a compromise with the progressive Democrats sufficient to allow for the orderly function of a centralized government? I’m not sure we can.