April 30, 2014
"The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left (Progressives) can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state." -Thomas Sowell, conservative columnist, author
The Planned Liberal-Driven (Progressive) Destruction of American Capitalism and Freedom
To read the story of the Roman Republic turned Empire, is to read the general history of mankind in a kaleidoscope of greed, ambition and the lust for power, wealth and political influence at the expense of the masses. All of Roman history was well known to the Founding Fathers and they were determined to set up a system of government containing several checks and balances to preclude the repeat of the sordid Roman tragedy. Within the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution, the framers thought they had found that delicate balance between self-government and the weaknesses and avarice of man.
Unfortunately, in their attempts to find that perfect balance, they were tripped up by three things they could not control within those two documents. The first was the ability of a clever and devious mind to get around any obstacle. Why would men of power, wealth and political influence care about the limits of a little blueprint for freedom? The rise of the industrialist titans and money brokers of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries proved that. It is rumored that a cabal of those titans had President McKinley assassinated. It is not a rumor that J. P. Morgan II, loaned $100 million to the federal government because it had run out of money. (Imagine a government running out of money. How can that be?) You can buy a lot of political influence with $100 million. What is $100 million in the early 20th Century worth today ..... $100 Billion maybe?
The second thing the Founding Fathers didn't count on was the industrial revolution that pulled people from the rural areas of America into big cities. Rural people are generally self-reliant, self-sufficient and quite independent. If they can't buy their food, they at least can grow it. But people who live in big cities, without employment, have no choice but to rely on government for their subsistence. In point of fact, people in big cities, where most Progressives live (100% Democrats), become hopelessly dependent on government, especially when large industries go broke and the jobs dry up. Unfortunately, poor, dependent, unemployed people are easily manipulated by government and will enthusiastically vote for their manipulators.
The third thing the Founding Fathers were not able to weave into the U. S. Constitution was a check and balance against citizen apathy. If the citizens don't care, those in power can do just about anything they want when no one is paying attention and ladies and gentlemen, those in power are doing just about anything they want to do today with increased militarization of law enforcement. It is called a police state and America has arrived. (i.e. Randy Weaver, Ruby Ridge, ID; The Branch Dividian, Waco, TX; Cliven Bundy, Clark County, Nevada and many more)
Herein lies the three necessary ingredients for the rise to power of the Progressives (100% Democrats) in the early 20th Century. First, the industrialist titans grossly exploited the people in their factories. The people, quite naturally, turned to the unions and the government to counter the titan's power. Out of that confrontation came riots, violence and upheaval and a heavier intrusion by government into people's lives. Perhaps this wasn't a bad thing, but don't think for one minute that the Progressives (100% Democrats) didn't see that as an opportunity to increase their political power.
The titans moved to entrench their political power and lobbied for a private central bank that become the Federal Reserve under the 16th Amendment. To collateralize the loans the titans (central bankers) would make to government, they lobbied for a federal income tax to be the source of repayment for those loans and got it. The income tax also became law under the 16th Amendment, in direct violation of three other constitutional provisions that required all taxes to be apportioned. Thus, the income produced by every American worker, for his or her entire lifetime, was the source of repayment for the loans made by the Federal Reserve to the Government. In other words, each citizen, an involuntary borrower, has a lifetime obligation to pay for a loan or loans over which that citizen never signed. That, as we have stated before, is involuntary servitude.
Unfortunately, for American capitalism and freedom, it gets worse. The Progressives (100% Democrats), determined to consolidate their power, turned to monetary and other promises to the people from the public treasury in exchange for votes. What a brilliant strategy. This ploy especially works well with citizens who are apathetic, dependent on government, or just generally dumb. There are certain classes of society that are more susceptible to this dependency than other classes.
Then in the late 20's and early 30's came the Great Depression that many historians put directly at the feet of the Federal Reserve and you have the makings of a perfect storm for Progressives (100% Democrats). FDR (a 100% Democrat) pounced on the Great Depression with a vengeance and he literally sucked dry the pride, self-reliance and independence of a very large segment of the American people with government promises. He bought off industry with subsidies. He bought of agriculture with subsidies and he bought off the people with even more subsidies. He then, to insure compliance with federal law, bought off the states with their own money. To do it, he threw the constitution out the window and badgered the legislative and judicial branches of government to get what he wanted. Some call FDR a hero. We call him the 2nd dictator of a rapidly declining America, where President Wilson was the first. Government has been buying off business, agricultural, the people and the states ever since, with disastrous results.
The Progressives (100% Democrats) over the last 100 plus years got their way and the statistics tell the whole story. Way too many Americans have been bought off by government promises in exchange for their votes and will not bite the hand that feeds them. The capital necessary for a robust economy has been sucked out of that economy to pay for those promises. The promises have been so many that the country is now in a financial death spiral and there are no political solutions to bring America back from the abyss. Obama Care just poured more fuel on the financial fires, thereby securing our path straight to Hell.
The statistics don't lie. In an article in the CNS News website dated April 16, 2014, where we are as a country and where we are going, is laid out succinctly in revealing statistics. There is no turning back.
In the opening paragraph of the article, the author makes the following statement:
"Buried deep on the website of the U.S. Census Bureau is a number every American citizen, and especially those entrusted with public office, should know. It is 86,429,000. That is the number of Americans who in 2012 got up every morning and went to work — in the private sector — and did it week after week after week." (This number represents only private sector jobs, not government jobs, which private sector jobs ultimately pay for.)
However, that paragraph, in of itself, is not the whole picture. The rest of the story from the article goes like this:
"All told, including both the welfare recipients and the non-welfare beneficiaries, there were 151,014,000 who "received benefits from one or more programs" in the fourth quarter of 2011. Subtract the 3,212,000 veterans, who served their country in the most profound way possible, and that leaves 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers. The 147,802,000 non-veteran benefit takers outnumbered the 86,429,000 full-time private sector workers 1.7 to 1."
The problem is and the reason why America's path is unsustainable and unresolvable at the same time is, those 147,802,000 people get to vote. If the 86,429,000 people get angry and lobby their Congressmen and Senators to stop this government-instituted grand theft and Ponzi scheme, they are out voted by the 147,802,000. And guess what? The Progressives (100% Democrats) have known this would happen at the start of the 20th Century, over 100 years ago. It's just another repeat of the history of socialism.
There is more than one way to change a Republic to an Empire and you don't have to use force to do it. You just have to manipulate the apathetic, weak and dumb masses to give up their freedom for 30 pieces of silver in exchange for a vote for the Progressives (100% Democrats) who brought this non-violent coup d etat upon America and killed capitalism and freedom at the same time. Progressives (100% Democrats) have managed to kill all of the attributes of a free and generous nation, in a little over 100 years and very few Americans are aware of it, or don't care. Obama didn't cause it. He is just the latest facilitator, complicit with all the other Progressives (100% Democrats).
The rise of the Progressives (100% Democrats) in America, the head-long rush to socialism, the growth of the mega, out-of-control bureaucracies and the implementation of radical environmentalism into law, has morphed America into a mirror image of Rome, with all of the potential tragic consequences.
Like all giant bureaucracies, Rome became inflexible and could not adapt to new ideas and new processes. It had built up a society that the government created by providing bread, wine and entertainment to the people for free, to keep the people fat, dumb and happy. All Rome could do to maintain the status quo, fulfill their promises to the people so they wouldn't riot and preserve their own elite power structure, was to regulate more and tax more, a self-fulfilling prophecy to destruction.
Rome didn't necessarily buy votes with the public treasury, they bought the perception of tranquility. If you don't see the parallel between the Rome Republic (turned empire) and the American Republic turned socialist and eventually an empire, you just aren't paying attention to the irrefutable facts. Once a government, conceived in liberty, starts buying votes, the Republic has no chance of survival as a free nation and will eventually morph into an oligarchy of the elite, or an outright dictatorship, as did Rome after 500 years as a Republic. How far away is America from one of these freedom-ending scenarios?
Buy a vote - kill a Republic! It is a foregone conclusion. Buying votes with welfare was never authorized by the U. S. Constitution. It was imputed there by the oligarchs in government in each political cycle, on America's path to socialism. Socialism has never worked in all of human history, but you can't tell that to a Progressive (100% Democrat).
The solution to this apparently unsolvable dilemma lies in the answer to the question, "Where is John Galt?" Those of you that have read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" will get it.
[NOTE: The following article represents the opinion of the author and is not necessarily shared by the owners, employees, representatives, or agents of the publisher.]
� 2014 Ron Ewart — All Rights Reserved
Ron Ewart, a nationally known author and speaker on freedom and property issues and author of his weekly column, "In Defense of Rural America", is the President of the National Association of Rural Landowners, (NARLO) (http://www.narlo.org) a non-profit corporation headquartered in Washington State, an advocate and consultant for urban and rural landowners. He can be reached for comment at firstname.lastname@example.org.