Posted on 12/24/2016 6:29:43 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica
This idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. - Ronald Reagan, October 27th, 1964
Democracy, the moldy-oldy discredited system, was introduced in the year 507 BC. That's 2,500+ years, for those of you counting. The American Republic and the Liberty which it was founded on, which was never discredited but simply circumvented by progressives; by comparison was introduced in 1776 AD. That's 240 years. But who's counting?
Democracy carries with it a fatal flaw: tyranny of the majority. The American Republic fixes that flaw. It contains safeguards in it to protect the people from the failures of democracy, so as to ensure the Liberty of every citizen and respect that no other source of power is legitimate except the sovereign people.
Long live the Republic. Now it is true that true republics are necessarily democratic and that's a good thing, however, a republic is far superior to democracy.
But right now, as we speak, tyranny is on the march. Even when they lose elections, progressives do not stop. The agenda moves forward. For the last 100 years, progressives, starting with Theodore Roosevelt, have sought to circumvent the Republic and pervert the Republic into a democracy by introducing measures such as direct election of the senate, an easier way to add in amendments to the constitution, and the last piece of this puzzle, abolition of the electoral college. Two of these efforts are listed in the Bull Moose platform of 1912.
These progressive scumbags are patient sonsabitches, aren't they? Their patience to destroy this country outlasts their own lifespans. They are that committed to seeing it done.
Their final effort to destroy the Republic would have states join what is called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would nationalize the Electoral College, and as you probably know is unconstitutional because it is illegal for states to engage in treaties or treaty-like-behavior. Right now, these progressives, they are plotting and scheming yet again to take your Liberty and your Republic away from you and give you something far, far inferior. They seek to abolish the new in favor of the old.
Democracy - old. Outdated. Discredited. Doesn't work - for the progressives, it's not designed "to work"(In the way people generally mean "it's working"). They want democracy because it works in conjunction with their machine: Progressives indoctrinate children from right out of the womb until and including past college age: Pre-k, k-12; and then the indocrination lasts for the rest of their lives with the drive by media. "Who you going to vote for? Well the newspaper said that people who read the constitution are evil, so I'm voting for the progressives. My teacher was a progressive. What a great guy!"
That's the machine that the progressives set up, in order to control your vote. If people only know what the media tells them, and they only know what their teachers taught them, they will vote accordingly.
The progressives are stealing it from us. Right now. This is the final push. What would be left of the republic if the progressives successfully achieved this strategic initiative?
President TRUMP...if we can keep him!
++++++++++++++++++++++
Just as in the days of the founders, there are those of us who passionately defend this Republic we live in. We are willing to sacrifice everything for freedom. Liberals, progressives, and democrats beware, tread lightly on the backs of the patriots lest you wake the sleeping giant.
Some forms of “democracy” are absolute dead ends. The tyranny of the majority is no less onerous that a strict hierarchy of hereditary slots in society, a caste system.
This form of “democracy” leads to constant ferment, as the minority voices are repeatedly drowned out, not by reason, but sheer dint of numbers. People should recall that the various Communist governments, “People’s Republics”, all styled themselves to be “democratic”, but ended up being a most repressive and unresponsive regime. Power is retained by the elite few, not through wise and just rule, but by prodding the reluctant with the barrel of an automatic or semiautomatic weapon, firing off a burst at the more resistant, as an example to the remainder.
Proportional representation of the various factions, gathered together to hash out their differences by compromise and exchanging different limitations each faction wishes to place upon the others, discarding those found too oppressive, and accepting others that benefit more than they restrict, is perhaps not a perfect form of governance, and can even be “messy” and “inefficient” at times, but given the imperfect people represented, might be the best we are going to get. Never mind what could be “hoped” for, hope is not a part of the equation.
Republics: it depends on having representatives who aren't out for a buck and on having people who actually vote with their brains.
Article IV, Section 4 of the U S Constitution:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
“About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.”
Calvin Coolidge
Address at the Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, Pa.
July 5, 1926
Democracy is good for small town meetings, but a Republic is the best system. Keeping the Electoral College is what needs to be done by President Trump.
A Republic is a representative democracy, which makes it only slightly different than a direct democracy.
A simple Republic in an of itself is not better than democracy. It still is majority rule.
What makes American government better is that it is a constitutional Republic.
And it’s its specific constitution (the rules of the game) that have made it so successful. There are many Republics that are utter failures.
Calvin Coolidge, the last Vermonter with a brain. :-) His presidential library is a room upstairs in the Northampton (Massachusetts) Public Library. Be was mayor of the town, when real people (read: not lesbians) ran it.
The founding fathers knew there had to be layers between us and the executive branch.
Left to the public, Caligula’s horse or Boaty McBoatface might be president.
One more point...
And our constitution keeps our most important individual rights (the bill of rights) out of the grasp of a simple majority. It was utter genius on the part of the framers to make the amendment process so arduous, requiring huge super majorities at several levels.
In other words you could only get the fundamental rules of the game changed if you had near unanimity.
The final and most important ingredient to our success is that the framers came up with some pretty good rules. There are other constitutions around that have been utter failures.
Today, in 2016, when confronted with a decision between individual freedom and slavery, otherwise known as liberty and tyranny, Americans who prefer freedom must be armed with ideas and principles which are "self-evident" and plain. Otherwise, they cannot fend off the onslaught of the "counterfeit ideas" of the Far Left ideologues.
When America's Founders and Framers of their Constitution wanted to convince ordinary farmers and citizens of the merits of a written "People's" Constitution to limit the powers of those to whom they entrust the powers of government, they published and circulated 85 essays, known as THE FEDERALIST.
It's time for citizens, once again, to examine those strong and clear words of Madison Hamilton, and Jay. They are just as clear for today's audience as they were then. Circulate the following excerpts to your friends. Even the least politically savvy will "get" Madison's meaning, especially in light of the power grab now going on in Washington. After all, THE FEDERALIST was the Framers' authoritative explanation of their Constitution, and directed by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia in 1825 to be used as the text for its law school in its studies of "the general principles of liberty and the rights of man," and said by Jefferson to "constitute 'the general opinion of those who framed, and of those who accepted the Constitution of the U.S., on questions as to its genuine meaning.'":
"The house of representatives... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788
"This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788
"The propensity of all single and numerous assemblies (is) to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788
"Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788
Note particularly the following words of wisdom from Federalist No. 63, and take heart. You are doing what you were meant to do when you speak out on intrusions on your liberty. According to Madison:
"As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?" - Federalist Papers, No. 63, 1788
That is the only failing of our founders, constitutional requirement to protect oneself, and thereby ones nation.
The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. ― Alexander Hamilton
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