Sarah Palin was just about to drag the Progressive John McCain over the finish line.  Then the economy collapsed and Senator McCain suspended his campaign to fly back to Washington and add his, “Me too” as President Bush said, “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”  An economic downturn, a weak contender, and unpopular never-ending wars let Barak Obama win the presidency with vague promises of hope and change. 

I personally met people who voted for Mr. Obama because they thought he was for lower taxes.  Ones who thought he was pro-business.  I even met people who voted for him because they thought he was pro-life.  His blank slate promises were interpreted by many to be whatever they thought they wanted.  He was the “Anyone would be better than what we have now” candidate.  Combine that with some of the best political theater in American History, slick advertising, a complicit media and a community organizer from the most corrupt community in the country becomes the most powerful man in the world.

The information about who Mr. Obama is, where he comes from, and what he stands for was readily available before the election to anyone interested enough to look.  Instead of researching, a majority of voters relying on television ads and sound bites, disgusted with the way the country was going under Bush the Younger, decided to give the unknown and untried man from Chicago a chance.

Flash forward three years and many of those who thought they could vote for anyone and the country would survive realize they may have placed that bet once too often.  It is now obvious for all to see Barack Obama is a strident left wing ideologue who applies the political strategies of the late Chicago communist Saul Alinsky, strategies he used to teach his followers in Chicago.  He uses the Bully Pulpit to advance a radical agenda of class warfare.  He is at war with capitalism and dedicated to spreading the wealth around.  Our President is no longer hiding behind vague platitudes.  He is no longer trying to sell us a pig-in-a-poke.  Instead he is now trying to sell us a societal bridge to nowhere as he campaigns openly on transforming America into a country based on centrally-planed redistribution and social planning as he channels the grandfather of Progressivism: Teddy Roosevelt.

The gloves are off.  The false fronts have been discarded, and we have come face-to-face with the ultimate goal of the Progressive agenda: an America that has evolved past the Constitution leaving limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom as mere memories.  A new America confined by regulations and intimidated by an ever more intrusive security apparatus.  A new America hostile to Christianity where being successful invites attack.

If President Obama wins re-election with this blatant appeal to class warfare and interest group divisions with no need to worry about re-election and having already said he will impose his agenda without Congress, there will be no check and no balance.  He will claim a mandate to complete his vision for a completely transformed America. 

Congress has already shown that it will not stand up to President Obama’s naked power grabs.  When he initiated an illegal war against Libya without even consulting Congress the perpetually re-elected did nothing.  When he made recess appointments while Congress was still in session the parties of power were silent.  Congress has legislated away their own power for years, passing vague laws and allowing bureaucrats to fill them in with legally binding regulations.  They have made themselves irrelevant, and we now have a President who is ready to rule without them.

The biggest question left concerning America’s ever accelerating slide into Progressivism’s version of socialism’s version of communism is whether or not there will be a real choice this November.  Will the Republican wing of the Party of Power nominate another Progressive: an Obama Lite? Or will the rank and file break through and nominate a candidate who stands for a return to Constitutional government?

The Media wing of the party of Power is working 24/7 to frame the debate and manage the primaries.  Every broadcast, every cable show builds up the candidates they favor and ignores or demeans the ones they find unacceptable.  Will the voters follow like sheep or will they think for themselves?  Will they affirm the choice of the big government social engineers or will they see the blinders used to focus their attention on the anointed candidates?

If there is no choice there will be no chance.  If there is a choice America may yet pull itself out of the decline we see all around us.  A return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom would once again release the energy and creativity that made America the greatest nation in the History of the world.  A renunciation of collectivism, class warfare, and social engineering will once again open the door for a return to morning in America.  The re-election of President Obama will mean a solidification of his transformed America and a shabby darkness will settle over the land.

We who seek a return to limited government must look at the candidates, discern which one has a consistent record of supporting constitutional government, and then we must use every opportunity to influence others to unite behind that candidate.  If we don’t this may be our last chance to stop the Progressive transformation of America before they lead us into the dreary dead end of their collectivist dystopia.  Now is the time for all good Americans to come to the aid of the country, or as Ronald Reagan once said, “If not us – who?”  If not now – when?”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on January 26th, 2012 | No Comments »

I’ve been called a fascist by communists and a communist by fascists.  I’ve been called a pagan by Christians and a Christian by pagans.  I’ve been called an optimist by pessimists and a pessimist by optimists.  All of us have been labeled by others.  We’ve all been called this by that and that by this, we’ve all had people try to insult us by how they refer to us, but when people insult our intelligence they are usually showing their ignorance. 

The actions of the second-stringers, stand-ins, and understudies from the theater of the absurd who now pass for leadership in our Republic not only insult our intelligence, they act as if the American people have the IQ of a potted plant and the attention span of someone riddled with ADD.  There is one good thing about people who insult our intelligence; they’re probably misunderestimating the true level of our understanding. 

Our President tells us that killing the Keystone Pipeline is no big deal.  Instead he tells us “However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline, they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.”  Making decisions that kill the opportunity to create real jobs is offset by the jobs created by extending payments made to those who are unemployed.  That doesn’t make sense to anyone outside the beltway 

At the same time this oxymoronic newspeak pours from the White House, the valiant leaders of the loyal opposition in the House vote to deny our spendaholic President another trillion all the while knowing that they already gave him the money last year.   

You see, according to the debt increase law which was supported by all of the Republican Congressional leaders, the debt limit is automatically raised fifteen days after the president officially notifies lawmakers that the government is close to the current $15.2 trillion cap.  That is unless Congress votes to deny the borrowing increase and the President signs the bill.  This is where the Republican leaders add insult to injury by staging a symbolic vote to hold the line against an ever rising debt they already approved.  Their powerless measure passed the House with ease. Yet they knew all along it was DOA in Harry Reid’s Democratic-controlled Senate.  And even if by some miracle it was voted on and passed by the Senate, President Obama would veto it guaranteeing the increase will go through as planed and the debt will grow by another 1.2 trillion. 

While Mr. Obama may work day and night to kill projects that might actually provide some work for the rest of us he has no problem investing billions of our dollars in green energy boondoggles that turn a profit for his donors and cronies.  Then when the flimflams are about to be exposed as the money pits they are, on the eve of an election, the Energy Department which turned a blind eye to the initial foolish investment suddenly becomes involved and the announcement is delayed until after the marks, I mean voters, have cast their ballots. 

In foreign policy our Commander-in-Chief announced the date for our withdrawal from Afghanistan at the same time he announced the same type of surge he was against in Iraq.  Now he decides it’s time to negotiate with the Taliban.  Are we supposed to believe these highly dedicated, highly motivated, and religiously fanatic battle hardened warriors will rush to make concessions?  Won’t they instead hang tough, demand concessions, and pick up the pieces as our leader leads our valiant, though under-cut warriors, for the door?  Does anyone doubt that Karzai, our creature in Kabul, will be on a jumbo jet filled with American dollars before our last soldier gets home?  All this is presented as a rational settlement instead of an abject surrender and jaded political maneuver. 

There’s no inflation.  At least that’s what the Federal Government wants us to believe.   Everyone who goes to the supermarket buys gas or pays to heat their home can evaluate the reliability of that piece of government information for themselves. 

How could anyone ever see through any of this unless of course they have at least the IQ of that potted plant mentioned earlier?  This may be insulting, it may show us what the perpetually re-elected think of their constituents, but it also shows that they’re giving us an advantage.  We’re smarter than they think we are so we should be able to blind side them with organizational skills and motivational abilities far beyond what they’ll expect. 

They are counting the Tea Party out because we aren’t holding mass rallies.  They believe they’ve won the organizational battle because they were able to mobilize the occupy everywhere crowd to gather for a street party and pollute some major cities.  They believe that since the conservative vote is currently split in the GOP they will manage to nominate the next Bob Dole/John McCain moderate to play the part of the Washington Generals in a Harlem Globe Trotter game: good but never quite good enough.  In 2012 they see the Republicans, like the Washington Generals, there to provide a platform for the chosen winner to shine.   

The parties of power treat us with such disdain it’s obvious they believe we’re the sheep they work so hard to make us.  They believe Americans have been dumbed down enough and fattened with enough entitlements that we’ll barely bah bah bah as they lead us to the shearing shed one more time.  Our Progressive leaders in both parties see that election is the one that counts.  This is the election that will either drive us over the cliff into the shabby abyss of collectivist conformity or the one that will give us one last opportunity to return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.  

We may not be demonstrating in the streets.  We may not be organizing boycotts.  We may not be united behind one candidate.  However, we are awake.  We are educating ourselves.  We are determined that this great experiment in human freedom shall not perish from the face of the earth.  Vote for the Constitution.  Vote for personal liberty.  Vote for economic freedom.  If we all do what we can do we will accomplish what must be done.  We will keep the faith.  We will keep the peace.  We shall overcome! 

 Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on January 20th, 2012 | No Comments »

The Republicans have a habit of nominating moderates who have served the Party well, or as the Soviets called them apparatchiks, or as they are called in Chicago Ward Heelers, or as they are called everywhere else Hacks.  That is how they ended up with Bob Dole and John McCain.  They had run for the nomination before and lost.  They were loyal soldiers who then went on to support the nominee.  And now, it was their turn.  That is not a very convincing campaign argument: “It’s my turn.”   

Another foolproof system employed by the Progressive Republican leadership is to let their friends in the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media set the agenda and choose their candidate.  The debates these Corporations hold are aimed at causing division and starting intramural fights, and the Republicans fall for it every time.  The Progressive Media loved John McCain.  He was their “Maverick.”  They just couldn’t get enough of his “reaching across the aisles” until he had won the nomination, then he was the enemy.  It was the same thing with Dole.  Now they tell us every day that Romney is the only one who has a chance to beat Obama.  They just keep loving on Romney, can’t get enough of Mitt.  Just wait until he is the nominee and see how fast he becomes the Wall Street fat cat who plundered millions of dollars and laid waste to middle class lives.

With their 24/7 news cycle and group-think barrage of negative reinforcement the media seeks to disqualify those they fear and promote those who will maintain the status quo.

Sarah Palin was disqualified because she is damaged goods due to media attacks that were over-the-top in viciousness.  The Progressives simply couldn’t allow a woman to rise to prominence that had really built her own career and accomplished things without riding on her husband’s coattails or worshiped at the idol of the pro-abortion sisterhood.  That would have jeopardized their grip on the gender gap.

Gary Johnson was dis-invited to most of the Media sponsored and Progressive controlled debates.  He was ignored during the few debates he was invited to attend.  His poll numbers were based on polls that didn’t include his name as a choice.   The Republican leadership turned such a cold shoulder to this successful two-term Governor he has left the Party and is seeking the Libertarian nomination for President.

In the last election cycle John McCain was the darling maverick of the Progressives and he valiantly led to a stunning defeat by a novice with obvious ties to radicals.

Ron Paul is marginalized and ridiculed because of his whacky far-out ideas and policies such as obeying the Constitution.  The Progressives can’t allow anyone to seriously consider a return to government created by a bunch of old dead white guys!  No way!  No how!  To them that is absurd, so at every mention of Dr. Paul’s name there is a snicker, a joke or at least a raised eyebrow.  On every network both cable and broadcast his name is constantly followed by the conventional wisdom, “He can’t possibly get the nomination” or “He could never win a general election.”  Thus Dr. Paul is condemned to only have people who actually listen to his positions and know the Constitution as supporters, and the powers-that-be are betting they are a minority inAmerica today.

The talking heads of the ruling chatocracy tell us over and over that Representative Paul is unelectable.  They treat his legion of loyal supporters with derision and contempt.  They use loaded words like whacky and kooky to describe his positions.  In other words they treat Dr. Paul and his supporters with the same fear and loathing they heaped upon the Tea Party.  In the Paul campaign they see a real threat to their Neo-Con / Progressive stranglehold on power.  Every other candidate will perpetuate the reign of the military/industrial complex and its freedom smothering empire of foreign intervention and phony money.  If any other candidate wins it may mean cosmetic change, but it will also mean business as usual.  With any other candidate the looting and plundering continues.

Nothing reveals the truth more clearly than this obvious attempt to steerAmericaaway from the one candidate who seeks a return to the Constitution: a return to limited government, personal liberty and economic freedom.   And the greatest disappointment of all is Fox News.  The major networks and the other cable news outlets ceased being anything except mouthpieces for the Progressive Democratic Party years ago.  But Fox held out the promise of a fair and balanced approach.  Their news anchors and reporters tried to live up to their credo and report the news allowing their viewers to decide.  But in this case they have gleefully joined in the attempt to dismiss Representative Paul as a serious contender.

From their much respected former anchor and current chief political analyst Brit Hume, their chief political correspondent “Campaign” Carl Cameron to their current anchor Bret Baier this team which offered a hope of unbiased news uses every opportunity to malign and marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters.  In 2008 it was merely Cameron who used loaded terms and sneers to ridicule Dr. Paul.  In this election cycle the entire network has piled on the anti-Paul band wagon.  Watching the lead up to the first votes was evidence enough.  Though Ron Paul scored in double digits in every poll we were told it meant nothing.  When he was near the top of polls his name wasn’t even mentioned.  Now that voting has started when he places 3^rd in Iowa and 2^nd inNew Hampshire it is treated as a curiosity, an anomaly as if all those voters had somehow pulled the wrong lever.  Shame on you Fox News for leaving fair and balanced behind.

The establishment does everything in its power to stop the one choice that might mean an end to their precipitous rush to the precipice of power.  They believe they neutered the Tea Party in 2011 when they turned the new majority in the House to the dark side sustaining the old leadership, passing the Patriot Act, and raising the debt limit.  They feel secure treating Ron Paul and his legions of supporters as kooks advancing unworkable ideas and antiquated principles. 

Every election is important.  This one is for the soul ofAmerica.  Will we continue down the road to become just another social welfare democracy?  Will the greatest experiment in human freedom become a kleptocracy where the perpetually re-elected shovel out sweetheart deals to cronies as the cronies shovel back contributions to keep them in office?  Is our government just a huge money laundering scam with a printing press using a Ponzi scheme to keep the marks happy?  Are we fated to become the sacrificial lamb on the altar of avarice and greed?  The establishment says yes.  Their news media fellow travelers say yes.  What will we the people say?

Will we rise up and demand a return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom, or will we the people meekly accept our assigned role as we the sheeple?  Will the descendants of the founders wake up and reclaim their heritage, or will we believe the Progressive line that constitutionally limited government is an unworkable idea and that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is an antiquated principle?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on January 12th, 2012 | No Comments »

Which explains

The Cyclical Rise and Fall of Bureaucracy

While at the same time answering the age-old question:

“What happened to the Maya?”

OR

I’M NOT GIVING YOU ANYMORE CORN TO BUILD PYRAMIDS

 

Introduction

“The Mayas were intelligent; they had a highly developed culture. They left behind not only a fabulous calendar but also incredible calculations. They knew the Venusian year of 584 days. . . ” (p.55)

Von Daniken, Erich. Chariots of the Gods? Bantam Books: New York.

 

For years people wondered where did these peaceful geniuses go.  Did the mother ship come down and carry them back to Jupiter or wherever peaceful geniuses come from?  Did they evolve into a higher state of being? 

All this wondering provided the gist for popular speculation and pseudoscientific pontification for many years or at least until Yuri Valentinovich Knorosov and other linguists translated the Mayan language.  Then it was learned that they might not have been so peaceful after all, and as a matter of fact they may have been one of the most warlike of all peoples.  And low and behold archeological data began to supply the required evidence and the problem was solved: the Mayan had destroyed themselves in an orgy of fire and arrows.  It all seemed so neat, scientific, and profitable.

Then some smart aleck historian, who also happened to be an organizational leadership researcher, made the mistake of interviewing some of the Native Americans who today make-up a sizable portion of the population of Guatemala and Mexico who happen to look surprisingly like the people depicted in the Mayan bas-reliefs.  And inconvenient as it may seem once all this speculation, pontification, and general wondering had made several careers and helped some otherwise starving publishers buy much needed yachts and mansions this eager young researcher emerged from the wilds ofNorthern Arizona and declared, “The Maya had NOT disappeared after all.” 

“What!”  Cried the popular speculators. 

“Away with him!”  Yelled the enraged pseudoscientific pontificators. 

“Quick, have him write a book about it!”  Yelled the copious publishers from their thousand foot yachts docked outside their hundred room mansions.

Since it is impossible to categorically answer the question, “What?”  And since no one really ever feels like following the Red Queen’s advice and conveniently being, “Away withed.”  I figured I might as well at least write an article and do my little part to help keep poor, disadvantaged publishers supplied with at least enough caviar, truffles and European blended coffees to avert any relief from the high cholesterol and gout which serve as their red badge of courage.

So where did the Maya go?  To quote one of my sources, “We got tired of giving those guys all our corn to build pyramids so we moved to the next valley and kept our corn for ourselves or something like that.”

This somehow brings me to the breakthrough Organizational Leadership concepts that should make my career as a leadership expert and hopefully get me an invitation to sip European coffee and eat truffles on one of those yachts. 

Are you ready? 

Here they come:

1. Bureaucracy is a good thing.
2. History supports the theory that bureaucracy is fundamental to the human condition
3. Bureaucracies all start out as pyramids with a large base, a small peak, and a proportional center, which adequately supports the top and adequately covers the base.
4. Bureaucratic pyramids all eventually become diamonds as they bloat in the middle.
5. All organizational diamonds eventually collapse due to the bloated weight of the expanded center.
6.  The top is always lost in the crash. 
7. A majority of the center plunges back to the base.
8. The natural leveling process of change never leaves a level playing field.
9. A new peak immediately appears because there is always a point that rises above the field.
10. The remaining middle coalesces to support the new peak in order to accentuate and solidify its difference from the base.
11. Another pyramid establishes itself on the ruins of the preceding one. 

I call this Owens’ Law of the Oscillating Pyramid.  I propose that this Law explains the cyclical rise and fall of bureaucracy.  This Law is based upon observation and research and upon the fact that eventually the costs outweigh the benefits and someday, somewhere someone is going to yell, “I’m not giving you anymore of my corn to build pyramids!”

The collapse of the Soviet Union provided a perfect example of this phenomenon.  For decades, this highly bureaucratic “Evil Empire” had enforced its rule by giving benefits to one group (the communists) to brutalize and dominate other groups (everyone else).  As the model predicted the Soviet system admitted more and more people into the middle of the pyramid thus bloating the mid-level brutalizers and increasing the number of people who supposedly had a stake in the system.  But unfortunately for the Evil Empire the inefficiencies of the system didn’t allow the pyramid to provide the material advantages needed to continue the inflation nor to even sustain the growing weight of the middle level.  Therefore with no incentive to continue supporting the regime the pyramid collapsed.

Bureaucracy = hierarchical structure, division of labor, written rules, and records. 

This has been evident since the beginning of time. 

Examples:

Revolution every generation

Revolutionary youth becoming Reactionary adults

Luther from 99 theses to peasant revolt

British bureaucracy “the ministry” goes on though ministers may come and go.

Pyramids are made of pyramids, each department or group has a head, and each head is supported by layers. 

When a pyramid falls these component pyramids tend to seek independence (Chinese mandarins – Roman Empire) and then they begin to coalesce into succeeding pyramids, such as exemplified by the successive Egyptian and Chinese dynasties or the Frankish Empire of Charlemagne.

Signs that the end of a pyramids cycle is approaching:

• “I was just following orders,”  or “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” as an excuse for doing things that common sense tells us are foolish. 
• Malicious obedience.  When a subordinate follows the nonsensical orders of superiors in the hopes that doing so will bring about change.
• Geritocracy.  Look at Congress.  Almost automatic re-election ensures a constantly aging pool of leaders with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

In modern American society we have moved from Trueman’s “The buck stops here,” to Clinton’s “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.?’ ”  From Bill Gates leading an industry to change the world to octegenarian politicians whose secretary’s have to turn on their computers deciding what shape that industry should take.

At the time of the American Revolution there was no direct taxation there was instead taxes on various transactions which in total added up to a miniscule percentage of their income.  Today, for many it is now over 50%.  How much corn are we willing to give to those we don’t trust to do things we don’t want?  How long can this continue?  We are spending the money of the unborn to pay for the repose of the unproductive.  This is the ultimate expression of taxation without representation.

The Oscillating Pyramid Cycle:

Formless base – pinnacle dominated true pyramid – bloated middle diamond shaped twin pyramid – out of balance wobble (component pyramids strive for increasing individual autonomy) – collapse

Historical opportunity to break this cycle:

The Israelites at Mt.Sinai.  Instead they reject God’s offer to reinstate a personal relationship and demanded that Moses build them a social pyramid instead.

Proposed Exception to the Rule:

Steady-state primitive (Neolithic, pre-agriculture) societies both ancient and modern have been advanced as being different then the cultures of the present and therefore by implication exempt from this theory of bureaucratic/organizational structure.  There is not enough social or organizational data to make informed statements about unknown cultures.  Every one that has been extensively studied and reported on exhibited the pyramidal, hierarchical social structure and rule based operation even if a lack of writing precluded the development of true bureaucracy.

Long running societies (China, India, and Rome) exhibit this oscillating character within the ebb and flow of civil war and dynastic change.

In modern democracies, elections are designed to provide stability through a peaceful, periodic change in the pinnacle thereby allowing the base to exert influence and buy into the existence of the pyramid through nationalism.  Economic self-interest has also become a major factor in modern democracies.  Periodic major changes, Andrew Jackson, FDR, etc. change the tenor but not the shape as the middle continues to bloat.  Modern democracies are still too new of a phenomenon to contend that they will break the pattern and at the moment they appear to be textbook cases of its operation.

Change of focus for modern consideration: Bureaucracy is a GOOD thing.  The oscillating nature of its natural life cycle should be understood, recognized, appreciated, and factored into current calculations for what it is, the natural course of human organization.  Change is a constant component of life. 

So the next time you’re standing in line to renew whatever permit happens to need renewing at the time tell yourself that, “Bureaucracy is a GOOD thing.”  Tell yourself that about a thousand times as you wait for the clerk who has been standing at the window for ten minutes waiting to open the window at exactly 9 AM and not one second sooner.  And as your mind numbs through this exercise you can comfort yourself with the thought, “Eventually all pyramids fall,” as you fight to keep yourself from standing on a chair and yelling,

“I’M NOT GIVING YOU ANYMORE CORN TO BUILD PYRAMIDS!”

Then again as every pyramid falls another takes its place. That is Owens’ Law of Oscillating Pyramids.

 

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

 

Filed under: Uncategorized on December 29th, 2011 | No Comments »

The problem with social engineering is that the engineers don’t know how to drive the train.  More like a complicated machine than a single celled organism society is a collection of individuals.  Human nature decrees that freedom of choice is an inherent part of our social DNA therefore a healthy society is one built upon the choices and decisions freely arrived upon by the individuals who make up the whole.  It is the self-interest and self-direction of these choices which build into the productive life of a free society. 

Adam Smith addresses the contributions of societies individuals when he says, “intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” 

Conversely, Friedrich Hayek warns us “To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.”

Unfortunately, politically motivated social engineers short circuit this process by replacing the countless choices and decisions of free people with the corrosive and stifling mandates of central planning. 

Our nation was not founded to be a centrally planned socially straight-jacketed empire ruled by the decrees of a sovereign.  We were founded upon the revolutionary principles born of our colonial heritage and the thinking of the Enlightenment.  Having fought our way free from the crushing embrace of an overbearing king, our Founders were determined to establish a representative republic of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

We are a constitutional Republic.  We are a nation of Laws.  As Thomas Paine said in the Rights of man, “The government of a free country … is not in the persons but in the laws.”  Paine also remarked that if someone should ask, “Where is the King of America?” let us answer, “In America Law is King!” 

Having studied the writings of Montesquieu and other Enlightenment thinkers, having established and maintained the separate branches of the various state governments, the Framers of our Constitution enshrined the principle of the separation of powers.  This separation of powers is expressly stated in our Constitution.  Article 1, Section 1 states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”  Article 2, Section 1 states, “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”  Article 3, Section 1 states, “The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”  These passages separate the three functions, legislative, executive, and judicial into three distinct spheres and it is the dynamic relationship between the three which restrains the government from becoming repressive and allows freedom to bloom. 

Montesquieu said, “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person.”  James Madison, the Father of the Constitution said, “The accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” 

Executive Orders have been used by presidents since George Washington.  They are nothing new.  Yet they have always been controversial.  Washington issued the first one instructed the heads of departments to make a “clear account” of matters in their departments.  His next one called for a national day of thanksgiving.  He also issued the first one to cause controversy when he issued an order in 1793 stating that the United States would be “friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers” of Britain and France. In this “Neutrality Proclamation,” Washington justified his power to issue such a statement based on the “law of nations.”  Perhaps a constitutional justification could have been found in the powers of the President over foreign affairs but these were not referenced. Washington did not convene the Congress to debate the proclamation before issuing it.  Immediately James Madison criticized Washington’s order as an overextension of executive authority and an infringement on Congress’s authority to decide issues of war and peace.

Although they have been stirring controversy since the dawn of the Republic originally Executive Orders were just what the name implies, orders from the executive and they were only binding upon the departments which made up the executive department.   Most were never published and were only seen by the federal agencies involved.  Some were of historical note such as when Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and issued the Emancipation Proclamation or when Wilson segregated the military.   

The Presidency of FDR marked a major turning point in the use of Executive orders, as in many other things.  Roosevelt confronted the Great Depression as the moral equivalent of war and fought an undeclared war in the Atlantic and crippled Japan through trade sanctions.  Truman desegregated the military.  Eisenhower ended wage and price controls imposed by his predecessor.  Kennedy and Johnson ended discrimination in housing and education.  Nixon declared a war on drugs.  Presidents used executive orders to steer the ship of state.  

Then starting with the Clinton Administration a sea change took place in the use of Executive Orders.  President Clinton used his executive power to achieve results he failed to achieve legislatively.  

Over time though technically applying only to executive agencies, executive orders have taken on a wider interpretation until today they have become legally binding mandates issued by presidents who rule by decree. 

With President Obama, seconded and supported by his Attorney General Holder, deciding not to enforce laws they disagree with, the rule of law has ended in the United States.  We can date our passage from a nation of laws to a nation of men not with this momentous decision but more effectively from the moment our elected representatives declined to declare this action to be unconstitutional and illegal. 

Today we have a government that is careening out of control and those we have elected to protect our rights by upholding the Constitution are abusing our rights and subverting the Constitution.  Thomas Paine made it clear which was the cart and which was the horse when he said, “A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only a creature of a constitution.  The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a government.” 

We have clearly reversed the order. The cart is before the horse and the tail is wagging the dog.  The use and abuse of executive orders have changed us from a nation of laws to a nation of men, from a federal republic with a limited government to a centrally-planned bureaucracy with leaders attempting to rule by decree.  We know where they want to lead us. The question before us now is; will we go quietly into that dark night?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on December 17th, 2011 | No Comments »

Like a sleight-of-hand-artist on a busy street with a briefcase that turns into a table, three walnuts shells and a pea the perpetually re-elected and their town criers in the Corporations Once Known as the mainstream Media appear to be perennially able to fool the perpetually distracted by pulling a metaphorical quarter out of their ear. 

I know a professional revolutionary.  We grew up together.  He has correctly diagnosed America’s disease as a corporate cult in a symbiotic relationship with a corrupt government.  He deftly outlines the general theory, although not the specifics of how crony capitalists and political hacks have crafted a system wherein money laundering has become national policy.  The political hacks fleece the sheeple through taxes and inflation.  They give the money to their accomplices in the flimflam corporations who funnel huge chunks of cash back to the hacks for re-election.  Every few years the sheeple rouse themselves out of their media induced coma long enough to be herded to the polls to vote for more of the same. 

Yes, the professional revolutionaries and their government educated followers have correctly diagnosed the disease.  However, they have prescribed poison instead of medicine.  Their answer to the curse of Corporatism’s National Socialism is less nationalism and more socialism.  Since corporatism has built a coffin our body politic cannot seem to claw its way out of, he prescribes cutting out the crony capitalists and giving the whole operation to the political hacks. In other words if the black shirts have ruined the country let’s try the reds.  That would be as transparent as fighting the most horrendous war in human history because Hitler attempted to pull Poland into his freedom smothering embrace and then giving Poland to Stalin. 

Headlines and talking heads scream for days, “The Super Committee cannot fail or the sky will fall!”  Endless hours in the 24 hour news cycle are devoted to debating, “Will the Super Committee succeed or will they fail?”  Meanwhile most of the sheeple are consumed with concern about the NBA strike, a celebrity drowning thirty years ago, or was Kim’s wedding a set-up all along.  Then we’re told he Super Committee failed accompanied by endless squabbling about who caused the failure. 

It is all nothing but Kabuki, a form of Japanese drama based on popular legends and characterized by elaborate costumes, stylized acting.

Remember how the Super Committee became so super?  It didn’t come from another planet with a red sun and lower gravity.  It was instead the Frankenstein created as the cover for another rise in the debt ceiling.  The Tea Party had just made a Herculean effort in the 2010 elections and achieved an historical sweep of the House of Representatives.  Over sixty newly minted congressmen owed their seat at the table of plenty to the greatest grassroots movement America has seen in generations.  They had campaigned on changing the culture of corruption in Washington, stopping the deficit spending, severing the cord to the crony capitalists, and paying down the national debt. 

Before they could even arrive the Republican leadership colluded with a recently humiliated inexperienced president and a recently repudiated Democratic leadership to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for more spending in the lamest of all lame duck sessions.  Then as soon as the fresh troops arrive they raise their hands in salute to the same old Republican leadership, renew the patriot Act, pass a series of continuing resolutions allowing the drunken sailors to continue spending, and then vote to raise the debt ceiling by another few trillions. Oh but they fought!  They wrangled and they refused to give the Spender in Chief more trillions of our great grandchildren’s money unless he agreed to a Super Committee backed up by automatic cuts and automatic tax increases in future deficits totaling trillions of dollars in cuts.  This was drama worthy of As Washington Turns.  If it was joke it wouldn’t be funny. 

To begin with the Super Committee wasn’t filled with deficit hawks and balanced budget advocates.  It was instead filled with the most partisan members from both wings of the Party of Power guaranteeing there would be no settlement.  Obviously the plan all along was for the automatic cuts and taxes to come into play, over the next ten years.  In other words the spendaholics of this Congress are going to place limits on the credit card of following Congresses who have the ability to vote away the limits any time they want to.  How could that ever fail? 

The smoke and mirrors of political theater is meant to hide the fact that all they’re arguing over is reducing the yearly deficits way off there in the future somewhere.  All they ever discussed was slowing the rate of increase.  Even if the most draconian plan so far introduced by the young firebrand Representative Ryan had been adopted the budget still went up every year, and the national debt still grew every year.  And though there would have been more and more spending with no end to the red ink in sight Ryan was portrayed as pushing Grandma off the cliff and a large percentage of the population believes it.  This is baseline budgeting wherein the proposed budget becomes the base for what is cut.  In other words our leaders can cut all day and the spending still goes up. 

It is time to tell our hypnotized fellow citizens to take the blinders off.  Wake up!  The house is on fire and the firemen are pouring gasoline on the flames. 

The system is broke and it is becoming very clear that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put this thing together again.  The spending goes on every second of every minute of every hour of every day.  The tax code that ostensibly is designed to pay for it all is in reality a bewildering maze meant to trap those unsophisticated enough not to hire an army of tax lawyers and accountants while legally recognized persons such as GE file 57,000 page tax returns on fourteen billion in profits and pays no tax at all. 

While the hemorrhaging of our descendants wealth goes on night and day we are being set up for the next battle to raise the debt ceiling, the balanced budget amendment.  Even if this long threatened turkey could finally make it to the block what good is a balanced budget amendment?  The spendthrifts we call a government can still spend all they want as long as they raise enough money to pretend to cover at least the on budget portion of the swag.  And where do you think they will raise the money?  They will either raise taxes or print money.  Either way we pay so they can play. What we need is a spending amendment that limits spending to a prescribed percentage of the GDP.

At one time the best tongue in cheek advice for coping with the policies of the convention of confidence men masquerading as the American government was get a government job and study Spanish.  Now the situation has descended even beyond the black humor of that cynical joke.  Today the best advice may be to hunker in the bunker, store food, and learn enough History so you can tell those who come after what America used to be. 

Last year I thought it was time to take the gloves off and tell America the emperor has no clothes.  To do so this advocate of the Constitution and limited government wrote The Constitution Failed.  A book which places current events in a constitutional and historical context proving that while our nation was founded upon a document meant to limit government we now stand face-to-face with an unlimited government.  I believed it was time to sound the alarm.  I thought people were ready to admit the terrible truth; our government does little more than tip its hat to the Constitution while doing whatever it wants.   The first step in solving any problem is admitting you have a problem.  The second is recognizing what that problem is.  My hope is that The Constitution Failed will help people recognize and identify the problem so that we the people can reach a solution.

As one who has been pounding this drum and singing this song for fifty years all I can do is wonder, will the drowning Lady Liberty finally see the life preserver as she goes down for the last time?  Will she finally grasp the Constitution as the only thing that has ever guaranteed limited government, personal freedom and economic opportunity in America?  Will she remember her past and save her future or will she sink beneath the waves of government regulation and drown in the red tape of an all-powerful central government? 

I wrote The Constitution Failed to make a difference.  I wrote it because I see my beloved country walking off a cliff into the abyss of socialism and I am compelled to throw out the life line. 

If you want to read The Constitution Failed send me an email with your address and I will send you a complimentary copy.  I want to see the re-birth of limited government.  I want to see personal liberty and economic freedom continue to exist in this: the last best hope of mankind.   And I’m ready to put my money where my heart is, limited government, personal liberty and economic freedom.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on December 1st, 2011 | No Comments »

In the topsey turvey world of 21^st century America those who live by the kindness of strangers wish to dictate how much kindness they deserve changing the strangers from benefactors to victims.  We have reached a point where our national motto should be “Stand and Deliver” as a runaway government devours everything in sight in an effort to satisfy the growing demands of their pre-programmed supporters. 

America has taken such a bizarre turn that oxymorons are the only things that make sense any more.  Organized anarchy has exploited militant apathy to create regulated liberty so that producers must provide for slackers and the informed must follow the dictates of the willfully ignorant. You can’t fix stupid but there is a cure for ignorance.  If we could just get these products of public education and sports hypnosis to take off the blinders long enough to understand the meaning behind the matrix perhaps we could garner one more electoral victory to stop us before we step off the cliff.  Except of course the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media are working as hard as they can to make sure our choice comes down to Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum. 

Our Progressive era seeks to change the old adage, “Those who refuse to learn from History are doomed to repeat it” to “Those who refuse to learn from History doom the rest of us to repeat it.”  The patients have seized control of the asylum.  The land of the free and the home of the brave is transforming into the land of the free lunch and the home of the knaves.  Symbiosis is the living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms as in parasitism. What we are witnessing today is symbiosis on steroids wherein the parasite isn’t merely along for the ride but instead demands the driver’s seat. 

Looking at the almost bewildering explosion of reality we call today our minds behold the organized anarchy of the occupy everywhere movement that is spreading around the world.  We are now witnessing a government supported revolution akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution. This isn’t a revolt of the 99% seeking to devour the 1% it is the 46% that pay no federal taxes seeking to increase the production from their 54% milk cows. To call forcing one segment of the population to work to support another segment of the population paying your fair share makes theft a contribution and bondage a responsibility.  

The people involved express a variety of causes.  They want a bailout for home owners who are upside down or in foreclosure.  At the same time they want those who accepted the bailout on Wall Street prosecuted.  They want student loans forgiven, wars stopped, big corporations downsized, and an end to capitalism.  Many politicians and their major media publicity machine have embraced the movement labeling it the Progressive version of the Ta Party.  This is a window on the future.  Showing the silent majority what is to come: a shabby world where the Lilliputians have not only bound Gulliver they have harnessed him to the cart and forced him to be their beast of burden. 

By seeking the destruction of capitalism instead of seeking to break the umbilical cord between the crony capitalists and their bought and paid for politicians what they really seek is to force us to worship the myth of free enterprise as we sacrifice the energy and inventiveness of the productive on the altar of the indolent. 

It is time to lay our cards on the table.  It is time to call a spade a spade.  Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined by competition in a free market.  Socialism is an economic characterized by collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.  Fascism is an economic system that exalts the nation above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government with severe economic regimentation.  Essentially fascism is socialism pretending to be capitalism since private ownership exists in a government straightjacket. 

Which of these systems do we have?  Which of these systems is staring us in the face every day? 

I challenge anyone and everyone to take this test.   Watch the stock market for one month.  Watch its ups and downs.  What you will see is that the market does not move because of innovation or production it moves in response to government actions, statements, and policies.  While we still have private ownership the government is increasingly regulating and controlling the economy.  Take the test.  Review the definitions above and you decide.  Which of these systems do we have?  Or does it have us? 

America has never experienced a truly capitalistic system.  We were born under mercantilism. We grew to power under Henry Clay’s American System of nationalistic paternalism.  We have flirted with socialism in a mixed system since FDR reshuffled the deck and institutionalized the New Deal.  And now we struggle to maintain some visage of freedom at the edge of a crony capitalism whose Progressive public-private security blanket has become the pillow that smothers all incentive.  We have morphed from a representative republic operating on democratic principles into a state wholly owned by a good old boy coalition composed of the perpetually re-elected, the unions, and the crony capitalists: the Outfit. 

The over educated under informed lemmings that call themselves the 99% are being duped by the Outfit.  They are a collective battering ram assailing the last remnants of American individualism.  They are using the threat of social unrest to demand the final triumph of “I want what I want” over “I get what I earn.” 

What’s the cure for the Great Recession?  Is it more government spending and more government control as the Outfit and their 99% fellow-travelers tell us?  Is it “Drill baby drill” and a return to a golden-age of pure capitalism that never really existed?  

First we must understand our situation.  What is the cause of the chronic state of our anemic recovery?  Is it as our president tells us and the world: Americans are soft, arrogant  and lazy?  Or have we finally reached the tipping point?  Have we finally reached the point where all the Peters being robbed to pay for Paul’s vacation have decided to change their name to Paul? Is this a recession or is it a strike?  The central planners look at the wreckage of a once great economy that their programs have gutted and say, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”  They should be asking “How many omelets can they make if the goose doesn’t lay any more golden eggs?” 

Which leads to one last question: “Who is John Galt?” 

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on November 18th, 2011 | No Comments »

A negotiation is the formalized give-and-take side of a conversation. The blending of the two, a negotiation with the less formal tone of a family discussion, is aptly termed in the dictionary of the way we speak as “to conversate.” 

A debate is merely an argument dressed up in its Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.  So whether we should call our current national dialog a debate or an argument depends upon the sensibilities of the writer and the reader.  For the purposes of fairness and inclusiveness I will therefore coin a new term, “Argubate.”  

Has there ever been a time in American History when everyone at least seemed to agree on everything? 

Yes, there was a brief interlude forgotten by all save Historians, a moment of forgotten peace in our raging sea of political passion.    

In the overwhelmingly nationalistic years after the War of 1812 there was a brief period which saw a dramatic lowering of the heat in our perpetual political strife.  In the Election of 1816, James Monroe a Democratic Republican defeated the last of the Federalist candidates. Monroe and his policies were so popular and so well received that he won reelection in the Election of 1820 facing no opposition whatsoever.  This brief calm in the political storm is the popularly forgotten Era of Good Feelings. 

Ever since that one brief lull in the ideological conflagration the battle has flared.  First one side and then the other are in the driver’s seat while the other side plots its eventual return to power.  It has only been by compromise that we have avoided a series of fratricidal wars. 

Compromise today has a negative connotation for those on the limited government side of the aisle.  100 years of compromise with those who wish to progress past the limitations enshrined in our founding document have brought us to the strangulation of regulations and the oppression of an overwhelming central government.  However, compromise is still the only way to avoid the abyss which lies beyond our current position on the precipice of mutually exclusive partisanship.  

Compromise is the only thing that will preserve our country from either splintering into pieces all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put together again, a-la the USSR or sinking into the type of gulag from which the Russians are still struggling to escape. 

Beyond the eloquent explanations and focus-grouped sound bites compromise is essentially everyone doing what no one wanted.  Compromise can also be the tactic of any group that seeks to move ahead one step at a time.  Gain a little here and a little there until one inch at a time you have moved across the street.  And therein lays the problem.  The Progressives have used this tactic so often and for so long that the silent majority finally woke up to find their elected representatives had sold the cow for some magic beans.  It is hard to trust compromise when it has bargained away our heritage one new interpretation at a time.  However, the looming breakdown in civil discourse prompts me to urge a renewed effort to find some way to preserve the peace while preserving our freedom. 

Compromise has a long history in America for we were born in compromise. 

It was only due to the Great Compromise reached in Independence Hall that we have a Constitution.  The New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan were wedded to produce a compromise satisfying the desires of both the small states and the large states by creating a House of Representatives based upon population and a Senate with equal representation. 

The Union was preserved twice by compromise. 

By 1820 the division between the slave-holding South and the emancipated North was growing bitter.  The debate hinged upon the even division of the senate.  For every state admitted on one side the other side demanded a counterbalance.  When it came time to begin carving states out of the Louisiana Territory the Southern side was the first to advance to that stage, but the North could not abide admitting Missouri as a slave state since there was no free state ready for admission.  So the Missouri Compromise solved the problem and kept the peace. 

Missouri was admitted as a slave state. Maine was separated from Massachusetts and admitted as a free state.  A line was drawn along the southern boundary of Missouri. Everything North of that would be free, and everything South of that slave. Thirty years later a new compromise held off war for another ten years. 

The Compromise of 1850 was designed to address the sectional rivalry over slavery which was tearing our young nation apart.  It was in reality a series of five bills.  The compromise brought in California as a free state.  It allowed New Mexico and Utah to decide the slavery issue through a popular vote and gave Texas ten million dollars to pay its debt to Mexico for which it gave up lands claimed in present day New Mexico.  It abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia and the Fugitive Slave Act which made it a federal crime for any federal official not to arrest a runaway slave.  

This compromise only lasted four years when it was effectively repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act which once again opened the northern territories to the possibility of slavery and leaving the decision in the hands of the voters.  This led to increasing hostilities between the two sides culminating in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry and the Civil War: the ultimate break down of America’s process of compromise. 

The Civil War did not end America’s use of compromise to avoid permanent division.  Reconstruction, the occupation of the South by Northern armies after the Civil war, eventually led to an impasse with the threat of renewed conflict.  War was averted when the Compromise of 1877 gave a disputed election to a Republican president, an end of Reconstruction, and various offices and political gains to the Democrats. 

Except for the fleeting Era of Good Feelings and those unusual and brief times when the same side controlled all three branches of government, America has moved forward by compromise.  For compromise, true compromise, not surrender dressed up in a palatable name, is the sweet spot where any group that is in reality two groups must dwell if there is to be peace, progress, and harmony.  Make no mistake, since the beginning America has ever been the home of two sides: the Patriots and the Loyalists, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, the Democratic Republicans and the Whigs, and those two rabid beasts we all love to hate the Democrats and the Republicans.   

Instead of just shouting our mutually exclusive slogans at each other what we need is a dialogue across the no-man’s-land which separates our entrenched positions.  This article is an attempt to urge both sides to realize neither side has the support to dominate the other long enough to legislate let alone legitimize total victory.  If we can get beyond shouting slogans at each other perhaps we can find our way to a compromise that will allow us to continue as the last best hope of humanity.  If not, we may well slide into the shabby collectivism which shackles the rest of the globe. 

Is there anything we can agree on?  Is there any way forward?  Can we at least conversate about the argubate?  I say this realizing that in our current atmosphere of hyper-partisanship this call for compromise will probably make neither side happy.  However, I am willing to be dammed if I do and dammed if I don’t in an attempt to preserve the peace if we can do so while preserving our freedom.  Keep the Faith.  Keep the Peace.  We shall overcome.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on November 11th, 2011 | No Comments »

Democracy! Democracy! Democracy! This is the mantra that we hear from Tahrir Square to Yemen from Belarus to Wall Street protestors are on the march around the world demanding Democracy!

Democracy has long been the cover for all manner of despotic totalitarian regimes creating hellholes for their own people and nightmares for the rest of us.  One needs only to recall that even though the popular myth of Hitler being elected is demonstrably false, he lost the only election he ever ran in, he was however appointed Chancellor in 1933 after his Nazi Party became the largest single party through democratic elections.  His ghoulish regime achieved total power when 90% of the German people voted to make Hitler the Führer or undisputed dictator of their nation. And who can forget the many Democratic People’s Republics that have graced the world with their despotic presence, East Germany, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea.  The cover of democracy and the votes of the people have been used to legitimize the most insidious forms of human depravity.

It is popular among conservatives to decry the nation-wide and world-wide demand for democracy as if it were something new under the sun.   It is also popular to point out that the United States of America was founded as a representative Republic not as a Democracy.  The representative nature of the Republic was enshrined in both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.  The difference is proudly pointed out that we are a representative republic which operates on democratic principles NOT a democracy.

It is not quite as popular to point out that though our representative Republic has always operated on democratic principles in the beginning that democracy did not spread out very far.  The franchise was restricted only to males of the Caucasian persuasion who owned a certain amount of property.   The dirty little secret teachers of American History Survey classes fought for years to keep from their impressionable students was that even though Wilson led America into fighting World War I to make the world safe for democracy and FDR led us into World War II as the Arsenal of Democracy the Founders of our country went to great lengths to protect our Republic from the perils of democracy.

Examples of the Founders distaste for democracy are easy to find:

James Madison said, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

John Adams said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide” and, “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”

Alexander Hamilton said, “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”

The circle of American democracy was at first drawn closely around the ruling circle of intellectuals, lawyers and men of property because they feared the tyranny of those unable or unwilling to learn the rudiments of History, Economics or Governance.  However, as time passed spurred on by a combination of their desire to participate and the cajoling of those who wanted to rule them people began to agitate for an extension of the franchise and for one reason or another the circle began to expand until by the 1830s throughout the United States most Caucasian males could vote.  By comparison in Britain at the same time less than 10% could vote.

The watchword in America became democracy, not in the speeches of the first Progressives in the 1890s but in the voices of their great grandfathers in the second generation after our Revolution.  Within a generation leadership passed from Washington, Jefferson, Madison and other statesmen with grand visions of liberty and freedom to partisan leaders of political factions.  The stirring and deeply reflective tone of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers was replaced by clever slogans designed to move the masses and win votes.

Alexis de Tocqueville is often quoted to show the high state of American involvement and participation in the democratic process.  He is less often quoted in his assessment of that process, “The most able men in the United States are very rarely place at the head of affairs.”  He pointed to the character of a democracy where people ignored important issues, disdained intellectuals who were informed of these issues and instead were moved by “the clamor of a mountebank [a demagogue] who knows the secret of stimulating their tastes.”

In the recent past President Bush in 2005 during his second inaugural speech declared the doctrine that bears his name by saying, ‘‘it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.’’ Since that time democratic elections have brought us Hamas as the elected representatives of the Palestinian People, Islamists have won the first post-Arab Spring election in Tunisia and who can forget that Hugo Chavez has won multiple elections in Venezuela and then there is our new partner in our latest military adventure Yoweri Museveni Uganda’s President-for-Life who was democratically elected as was his more famous predecessor Idi Amin Dada.

The democratic revolution which began in America a generation after the establishment of our representative Republic has grown through the roughshod years of Jackson, the tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, elect, elect, elect days of FDR and has morphed into the Occupy Everywhere movement currently polluting our cities and clamoring for the predictable goal of pure democracy, “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.” 

We are witnessing the tyranny not of the majority but instead of the majority of voters coming to fruition.  In America in a typical election only 50% or less of eligible voters bothers to cast their ballot.  Many congressional districts are gerrymandered into personal possessions, local counties, cities and states belong to good-old-boy networks and the Senate is the province of millionaire media stars.  The uninformed elect the unqualified to give them what is unearned.

Or as our old friend Alexis de Tocqueville also said, “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. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

The democratic revolution begun in America 200 years ago has circled the globe.  The leaders of the Egyptian revolutionaries have come to New York to join the protesters at Zuccotti Park to chant, the mantra, “Democracy Now!”  Looking at the paradise on earth replicated from New York to Oakland in these demonstrations supported by the unions, Democrats and the President I only have one question, “Who will vote for that?”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Filed under: Uncategorized on November 4th, 2011 | No Comments »

Unfortunately most of what we are taught in History survey classes in American schools consists of simplistic formulas.  Formulas designed to persuade those forced to attend the government controlled education mills that they should ride the same ideological hobby horses as whoever currently has the power to select textbooks and prescribe curricula.   Whether it was the rabidly pro-American imperial History of yesteryear that pushed lines such as, “We never started a war and never lost one,” and “We turned a raw wilderness into a civilized nation.” or, if it is the rabidly anti-American propaganda of today spouting lines such as, “America was founded by deists who used serial genocide and economic fascism to steal a nation, pollute the earth, and poison the sea” neither are correct. Both versions are merely two sides of an extremely myopic view which does not seek to discover nor promote the truth but instead seek to mold the next generation into what they think will be foot soldiers in their own crusade. 

History, if it has any value at all is that it fulfills two goals.  First, the study of History should provide context.  A text without a context is a pretext and we must have context so we can understand how we as a people became who we are, how the world became what it is, and where it might go next.   Secondly, the study of History should help us learn from and hopefully avoid the mistakes made by those who have gone before so we can leave a better world to those who come after.   However, as stated above, these are rarely the goals of History education.  The reason why is summed up in a joke only Historians seem to get. 

Objectivity. 

Most people in the world believe objectivity exists.  They act as if the stories presented in survey of history classes are “the facts ma’am and nothing but the facts.”  I was once part of this blissful herd.  I was a self-taught Historian before I took the plunge and studied to become a card carrying member of the profession.  I was captured by the allure of History when I was nine years old.  Nothing in the world made any sense.  What I was taught and saw at home conflicted 180 degrees from what I was taught at church.  What I was taught at church conflicted 180 degrees from what I was taught at school.  What I saw on the streets appeared real because it seemed to be the way the world actually worked, but it was out of synch with my home my church and my school.  Not knowing myself well enough to know that I am a person who operates best when things make sense and the world appears orderly I was confused and uncomfortable living in a world so out of joint. 

Consequently when I learned in the third grade that there were histories of the world available I latched on to them like a drowning man latches on to a life preserver.  I began reading History books every day.  They became my raft in a swirling sea of confusion creating an orderly world of sequential reality that I used to build my bridge to the first positive value of History, gaining a coherent understanding of how we as a people became who we are, how the world became what it is, and where it might go next. However, I was a rebellious child. A child who never moved to the second value of History.  I never learned to profit from the mistakes of those who went before.  Following those in my family who went before I walked out of traditional education at age sixteen figuring I knew enough to make my way in the world.  Twenty plus years of manual labor later I thought it might be a good idea to finish my education. 

When I finished my Bachelor degree in History I realized that a Bachelor degree in History is good for two things, it can help you become the manager of the electronics department at Wal-Mart and it opens the door for a Master Degree in History.  Since I was determined to become a History professor, I chose the latter.  On my first day of graduate school this budding self-taught Historian had to grit my teeth as a professor told our class, “There are no facts, and History is only what Historians say it is.” 

Of course I had to run up after class to argue, “How can you say there are no facts?  Look at the Vietnam War.  We know it happened.  We know when it started and when it ended.  Those are facts and we can know them!”  After listening calmly to my impassioned tirade the professor quietly said, “Maybe there’s another side to that story.” 

This rude awakening sent me on a journey of discovery: searching for the other side of the story.  Along the way I contributed my first chapter in a History book.  My research helped me realize there is more than one side to every story.  There are often conflicting facts, overlapping timelines, and always another way to look at everything.  The truth of this is displayed in an endless series of quotes.  Napoleon once said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.”  Voltaire said, “History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.”  Ambrose Bierce said, “God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.”  And one of my favorite philosophers, Anonymous sagely added, “The certainty of history seems to be in direct inverse ratio to what we know about it.” 

What is the purpose of this self-revealing stroll down memory lane?  It isn’t for the purpose of either self-actualization or confession.  Both of those goals were achieved long ago.  It is instead my attempt to lead you my loyal reader (for those will be the only ones left after such a lesson in historiography) to the second value of the study of History.  I am encouraged by the multitudes of people who are today engrossed in this study.  So many of the recently awakened yearn to know the History of America, they long to know how our Constitution was written by whom and why.  I am here to remind everyone we need to look at all sides, consider every angle, and remember everyone has a point of view, even Historians, and objectivity is in reality subjectivity in a grey flannel suit. 

Remember that second value of History?  It should help us learn from and hopefully avoid the mistakes made by those who have gone before so we can leave a better world to those who come after.   If we merely exchange the unabashedly anti-American lenses of the present for the unquestioning pro-American lenses of the past we will be blind to what we really need to see. 

The complexity of reality defies the easy interpretations of partisan politics.  Has America always been right?  No, the jingoistic refrain of “My country right or wrong” will lead those who blindly salute it into supporting what is wrong as easily as what is right.  Has America always been wrong?  No, the view currently used to indoctrinate the youth in our public schools which sees America as an imperialistic power that used genocide, racism, and naked aggression to build a hegemonic empire forget all the good America has accomplished.  This view presents an America bent on maintaining the privileges of the rich over the rights of the poor and leads those who imbibe its venom into ignoring that America was founded as the world’s greatest experiment in personal liberty and economic freedom. 

Both views are too simplistic for people who want to break free of the matrix and see the world for what it truly is: a struggle between those who wish to control mankind for their own benefits and those who wish to see man set free so he can become all that he may be. 

This is a call for those who have taken the bread and circus blinders off their eyes not to replace them with another set.  Today we don’t have to rely on what we have been taught. We can use the Internet as a portal into every perspective imaginable, histories beyond counting, and all the great works of mankind.  Read broadly, study extensively and think for yourself.  Don’t exchange the purveyors of self-serving pap on the left for the purveyors of self-serving pap on the right.  Open both ears, hear both sides, use the mind God gave you, and find the center path.   

America has done some things wrong.  America has done some things right.  When it all is brought to the scales, when enough is seen to grasp the big picture, it is the non-objective view of this Historian that America has provided more freedom for more people than any other country that has ever existed.  It is also my opinion that powers of anti-freedom have sought to regain control since the Revolution, and if those who have been too busy working and raising families don’t spend enough time to learn what History teaches we will soon earn the reward for the failure to hold on to the past.  We will lose the future.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

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