History Repeats Itself

Yet we do not notice because we lack knowledge of world history and the history of our country. As a result, we struggle to identify the proper target for our action.

Let us again digress into our history and see if we can glean a bit of insight into how to deal with contemporary issues. For this trip in the “WABAC Machine” I stitch together some snippets from an author who wrote on the subject of Republics at the end of Reconstruction.

About forty years after the federal constitution went into effect, the perverters of the instrument began to teach, as the true meaning of it, the identical assertions made originally by its enemies to prevent its adoption.

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…such was the fear that these charges were true among the people of the several states, that it was with the utmost difficulty that the friends of the system saved it from defeat.

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Indeed, Hildreth, the Massachusetts historian, thinks a majority of all the people of the states were opposed to the constitution.

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Such teachings legitimately produced the traitorous claim by the general government to the “allegiance” of, and “the absolute supremacy” over, “the united states,” through the said government is a creation of the said states, and is personally composed of their citizens and subjects. And this theory was put in practice in the recent war, for the government subjugated the states, with the very existence, powers, and war-means it held from them, as a sacred trust, and which it was bound by solemn oath to use only for their “defence” and “welfare.”

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The people may still imagine their voting power to be above the government, but they will soon realize that they are merely to elect the directory of a corporate monarchy … It is only a mockery of self-government, where any other authority than the people themselves can appoint or control the voters. Despotism can always find tools enough to play the republic before the people, while imperial polity is being insidiously fastened upon them.

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Starting with the postulate of a social compact forming a nation, the argument of the perverters is easy, compendious and practical. The “national constitution” is “the supreme law of the land.” This gives “the government” “absolute supremacy.” The duty to protect, which devolves on the government is coupled with the right of control, and this extends to the effectual control of state sovereignty, as well as of all the civil and political rights of the people.

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“The names and forms of the ancient administration were preserved by him with anxious care. …annually invested with their respective signs of office, and continued to discharge some of their least important functions”

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“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided that they were respectfully assured that they enjoyed their ancient freedom.”

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“It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without aiming their blows at the authority of the emperor.”

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History has repeated itself; republicanism has perished in America, as it did in Rome. The form is left, but the soul is wanting. “Absolute supremacy” in “the government” and republican freedom cannot co-exist, for the reason that the latter is the absolute right of the people to govern themselves, and to make and unmake all governments at will. If the people would enjoy freedom again, they must retake sovereignty – “peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must.”

“Who would be free

Themselves must strike the blow.”

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Those perverters and usurpers, like ours, pleaded necessity; the welfare of the people; the public safety; the life of the nation; and the inherent right to preserve their own existence. With them, too, “the army was the safety of the republic.”

Chapter III – History Repeats Itself

The Republic of Republics

Bernard Janin Sage

Philadelphia, 1878

Look to Washington DC and what do you see today? Czars and other appointed advisors exercise de facto power while cabinet officers busy themselves with mundane tasks. Policy “wonks” search for, or actively engineer, crises to exploit. States struggle to deflect the encroachment of national policy.

Over our lifetime we have focused our outrage on specific executive acts and specific behaviors of our Presidents … “it” is Clinton’s fault, “it” is Bush’s fault, “it” is Obama’s fault.

We falsely focus on specific policies and acts of individuals when we should direct our concern at the structures that enables misbehavior of statists of either party.

Recently I watched a Glenn Beck’s show wherein he discussed the linkage between the UN doctrine “Responsibility To Protect” (R2P), Samantha Power, and the US incursion into Libya.

The R2P doctrine is an incarnation of “duty to protect” (described in the reference above) raised above the State and intended to manipulate resources of States. It is a device to usurp sovereignty and aid the establishment of global governance, leading to global government.

The proper targets for our action are (1) the existence of an Imperial Presidency, (2) participation in the United Nations, and (3) participation in domestic cross-subsidies through national social programs.

If we wish to recover our liberty, we must do three things:

1. limit the power of the oval office and thus limit the power of any incumbent

2. end foreign entanglement and recover national sovereignty

3. decline funds from national programs and restore state sovereignty

Remember what Glenn Beck told us about distractions?

The current debate on the budget is important, but it is a distraction to enable the Imperial Presidency to further consolidate power, further subordinate the states, and establish a role in “the new world order”.

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