The Constitution is not enough, however. It requires citizens to participate in the government and remain vigilant. It could happen here, it almost happened here, and creeping socialism is always just around the corner.
The liberals in the U.S. became everything they hated, indistinguishable from Nazi's. They siezed power and are the backbone of the Democratic party. Our Rebublican form of government provided alternatives. As much as I would like to think it not possible for the Republican Party to go down the same road to evil, it could happen. Maybe in a different way, but it could still happen.
The Germans who disapproved but remained silent were guilty of only apathy in the 1930's. They chose to avoid confrontation with the creeping political correctness in the begining, a small but excusible form of cowardice. In the end they were all guilty of genocide, and the heros that chose to speak out were executed by the state. Adlof Hitler was a popularly elected leader, democracy is not enough.
If we are not careful and aware, this pervasive evil may spring in a new form. If we point fingers only at "right" or "left," depending on our own inclinations, we may fail to oppose the same phenomenon when it arises wearing a new face - a face that looks friendly, perhaps even familiar. We must study both the Nazis and the Communists, leaving aside the fundamentally meaningless distinctions of left or right, nationalist or universalist, race-hating or class-hating, and know the shared soul of the beast within.
You say and I agree:
The Constitution is not enough, however. It requires citizens to participate in the government and remain vigilant. It could happen here, it almost happened here, and creeping socialism is always just around the corner.
The liberals in the U.S. became everything they hated, indistinguishable from Nazis. They seized power and are the backbone of the Democratic party. Our Republican form of government provided alternatives. As much as I would like to think it not possible for the Republican Party to go down the same road to evil, it could happen. Maybe in a different way, but it could still happen.
The 17th Amendment eliminated our republican form of gov't by making senators subject to popular election. Now senators are forced to promise benefits to the voters in order to be elected, the same as representatives. Democracy, as a matter of fact.
Here's a heads up from 200+ years ago:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
Penned by Professor Alexander Tyler, a Scottish historian, who in 1787 wrote about the fall of the Athenian republic over 2000 years earlier.
Unfortunately, we're not far from that collapse over loose fiscal policy, exacerbated by the deliberate debauching of our currency. This is a major reason for the legislative and executive activity that purports to be directed against "terrorism," but just happens to include surveillance and control of our private, public and economic lives. All for our own good, of course.
The main reason I posted this review was to see if anyone would recognize that statism, as contrasted to individualism, can occur in any body politic. And that once the mechanisms of the state are in place, those who want control to attain their own goals will vie with each other for supremacy. In the vernacular, the people will suck hind tit.