The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?†With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded,
Well, we lost the Republic. It’s gone. And this people lie to themselves and pretend that a Republic still governs us simply because they can cast a ballot, buy food with an EBT card and have funds available to purchase beer and porn. They embrace nearly all vestiges of Socialism, Marxism and every other ill ISM that those bastard parents created and call it ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’. We are governed by an elite cadre of Oligarchs that have taken over both major political parties and orchestrated a velvet coup that most Americans to this very moment, are clueless occurred.
We’re done. The Grand Experiment was surrendered and squandered for the promise of free crap from the pockets of those we are jealous and envious of.
Willing slaves. As long as they get their handout.
The following essay from Christopher Taylor.
WHY ITS OVER
I’ve written and said in several places and times that our Republic is dead. This sounds pretty radical to people and I get looks of sad contempt and dismissal like old Christopher that opinionated jerk has gone too far, the poor dear. Its the kind of response you give old people when they say something terribly unfashionable and out of date, a sort of kindly dismissal and mockery.
So I thought I’d make my case here and let people decide.
The quote at the top is what Benjamin Franklin gave when he was asked what the revolution and constitutional convention has given the people of America. Franklin, like all of the founding fathers, knew that this experiment was fragile and prone to destruction. They knew that without constant vigilance, virtue, and vitalization, the republic was doomed.
We’ve left all that behind. When, exactly, is a matter of some debate, but for me the last desperate, slim glimmer of a hope was November 2012 when President Obama was reelected. When doesn’t really matter so much as how and why.
A VIRTUOUS PEOPLE
Over and over, the founders warned future generations and their people that unless the nation clung to certain specific principles, it would lose liberty and everything they’d fought for. Chief among these was virtue.
“We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.†-John Adams
“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.†-Patrick Henry
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the deigns of ambition.†-Thomas Jefferson
“A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy…. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader…. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.†-Samuel Adams
“Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principlesâ€. -George Washington
In short, a nation which is not guided by strong ethical principles based upon an objective, absolute standard, will be blown about like a rudderless, anchorless ship in a storm. And a people who have no virtue will not consider the future or greater rewards and concepts, but only their immediate personal gain.
“We have forgotten that he who will not answer to the rudder will answer to the rocks†-Mortimer Adler
SHOW ME THE MONEY
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.†-Thomas Jefferson
Such a people will, as the founders warned, stop voting for what is right and good, but for what is handy and valuable to them personally and directly. As Sir Alex Fraser Tytle noted:
A democracy… can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
To put it simply, people will start voting themselves goodies at the expense of liberty, the future, economics, and personal well being. As soon as a republic crosses that line, it ends. And we’ve crossed that line.
The problem too many people develop is a sort of blindness. They know at some level it isn’t true, but begin to convince themselves that if only the right sort of people get into office, they can fix everything, or at least slow the disaster. But the United States is a democratic republic, so that means we elect representatives by popular vote to govern in our place.
And in that kind of system, we get the people who reflect and represent the culture and people of the nation at large. Once a nation loses its virtue and direction, it votes for people just like that. We get venal, corrupt, selfish leaders without integrity, honor, or virtue because we have become a nation of people with these characteristics. They represent us in more than simply policy decisions; they represent us as people as well.
VOTE FOR ME!
Even if, by some chance or act of God, some leader is elected who differs from this pattern, they are powerless and shunned. The politician now who is constitutionally responsible, has integrity, honor, and seeks liberty and future benefit for the nation over immediate comfort and gain is the outcast who will not play by the rules. They are the trouble maker, the rebel, the crazy guy who won’t shut up.
Imagine, if you will, some miraculous scenario where all three branches of government were somehow filled with your perfect ideal of a conservative servant of the people and the constitution. That sounds wonderful, right?
Now imagine what happens once they are sworn into office. That very second, the news media, popular culture, academia, and out-of-power Democrats begin to bombard every conceivable outlet from social media to film, TV, radio, newspaper, books, personal conversation, and more with the same message. Monsters. Tyrants. Horrific. Racist. Sexist. Homophobic. Islamophobic. Theocrats. Extremist. Draconian. They hate the elderly, children, handicapped, transexuals, minorities, women, on and on. They support rape. They support slavery. They’re trying to put you back in chains. They burn crosses. They’ll drag you in chains behind their pickup truck.
Every single policy position, every single vote, every single action would be met with carefully orchestrated, filmed, and broadcast rallies and protests. The pre-printed signs would be handed out, the paper-machet giant heads would be constructed, the streets closed off so that the “people†hired by groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R. can “spontaneously†take to the streets.
Every news broadcast would be filled with sad little faces and woeful stories of how horrific this bill is that hasn’t even taken effect and how its causing their puppy to starve. Every hit song would be about how horrible things are on the streets filled with starvation, misery, and death. Simply returning to how things were ten years ago would be depicted as Jim Crow times ten, packed with uninsured people dying on the streets.
And the people of the United States, bombarded with this in overwhelming fashion, would vote these people out in the next possible election, replacing them with radicals who would not only reverse what the Conservative Majority did, but go even further in the name of social justice and righting past wrongs. They’d use this chance and the momentum to go even further than ever before.
Who wins what office makes no difference. Until the nation undergoes a tremendous shift at the basic, cultural level, elections will only pour more of the same on this country and every new election makes matters worse. And that cultural shift
takes time, not elections.
BUT THE COURTS!!
“Through the Mercy of Fools all Justice is lost.†-Rabbi Nachmanides
We’re at a point in this nation where the Supreme Court has been stuffed with a near-majority of members for whom the constitution is simply a set of words they can use to lever in anything the latest progressive positions hold. When a court has even a few judges who are utterly disinterested in constitution, wisdom, reason, justice, or sanity, that court ceases to have any validity whatseover. It has been corrupted to the point of being useless.
Arguments we have to get the right sort of politician in this position or that for The Judges ignores the utter destruction of the constitution and nation that has already been wrought by a supposed judicially sensible majority. After the utter abortion that was the Kelo vs New London decision, the court followed up with several horrendously decided trash cases which demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with power no matter who they are or what they claim about law.
Will a supreme court justice picked by a corrupt, horrible hag like Hillary Clinton be much worse than even a lying bozo like Donald Trump? Yes. But the bad is not a question of ruining the nation, its a question of how fast and in what direction. Its going that way anyway, its just a matter of how swiftly.
REMNANTS
Technically, the USA is still around, of course. We have the framework, sagging and rotted as it is, of what the country means still in place. There are the habits of a Republic still here. Technically we still vote. In name at least we have representatives in office. All of it still looks more or less the same. Its just been gutted, like the shell of an insect that has been burrowed out from within by parasites.
The only direction this nation goes from here on out is away from liberty, away from the founders, away from the great experiment, and toward inevitable failure and tyranny. There’s only one vector, even if it staggers a bit once in a while.
LET IT BURN
There’s a phrase some use to describe this attitude: “let it burn.†Some misunderstand this as a call to destroy the nation. But its not. Its a call to step back and give up the fight because its going down either way. For years now I’ve been telling everyone to focus locally, on family, neighbors, local politics. Your home, your area, your town. Because the federal government is a write-off. There is no fixing it through any elections.
That’s what Let It Burn means; not “revolution!!!†but rather “its already burning and the firefighters know it won’t be saved.†Let it Burn recognizes that its already on fire. We’re past the point of preventing it. We cannot save this Republic, until we get past the hard times ahead and begin the slow, painful process of rebuilding.
I’m sorry. I don’t like it either. but that doesn’t make it any less true. And recognizing this doesn’t make me a crazy old man. Just a sad one.
“Posterity–you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.†-John Quincy Adams
Sorry, John. We didn’t. We gave it a pretty good run for a while, but its over.
