When the United States of America was established only a third of the population supported the drive for independence, and the American Revolution. Another third were loyalists to the British Crown. The remainder could care less on who won the war, just as long as their lives changed very little.
In 1787, in order to form a more perfect union, the U.S. Constitution was devised. From a political point of view, the convention was very controversial...to the point that the founders met in secrecy so as not to alarm the public. The Anti-Federalists were scared to death of a centralized governmental system, but the Federalists knew that without it the union would never survive.
The political spectrum that evolved in America is unlike the one in Europe. Europe's emerged based on a model that originated in France where those that supported the monarchy and the State Church sat on the right side of the assembly hall, and those that were demanding change, a secular society free from the bonds of an overpowering established religion, free from the totalitarian rule of the monarchy, and more "democratic", sat on the left side of the assembly.
What emerged from the demands of the Left was the French Revolution - a period of chaos, bloodshed, and ultimately the rise of a dictator.
In the United States we never had a monarchy, or an established religion, so the political spectrum that arose in Europe does not serve us. Our model relies on "amount of government." To the far right is 0% government, or anarchy. To the far left is 100% government, or complete authoritarianism. Based on that model, the U.S. Constitution is dead center, creating a central government, but placing tremendous limits on it.
From the very beginning there has been those that fear the potential tyranny that the federal government poses. There are others that see a central government as the only hope to protect the common good. Anarchy claims that government is the cause of all pain, war, and tyranny. Authoritarians claim that without government the greed and lust of the individual would destroy humanity, and drop society into chaos.
One school of thought fears the concepts of communitarianism and a ruling elite. The other fears the unpredictability of individualism, and personal decisions.
The Federalist Party began to attract those that desired the United States would become an empire guided by a powerful government in which the ruling elite interpreted the General Will and forced the citizens to be subject to a system of statism. The people, however, did not appreciate the Federalists, nor their drive for a big government that disregarded the chains on government provided by the original intent of the United States Constitution.
By the 1820s the Federalist Party fizzled into the distant memories of history. The citizens of the States united under the wisdom of the Constitution cast away the statism the Federalists offered, and in its place arose the Whigs, who sought a stronger legislature, rather than the powerful executive the Federalists sought.
The Democrats emerged from the mess as the party that followed the Constitution, remaining that way throughout the mid 1800s. However, as history approached the Progressive Era, both the Democrats and the Whigs began to move in a direction of supporting the concept of a bigger government. When the Whigs were dashed out of the political realm by a rising anti-slavery Republican Party, the big government mantel was also handed off to the GOP.
Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, used unconstitutional powers of a strong executive to force the southern States to relinquish their culture of slavery. The intent was good, and there is no argument here that slavery was a sin that needed to be destroyed forever, but the procedure in which these ends were accomplished were unconstitutional, and therefore illegal. The States needed to come to the conclusion that the bonds of slavery must be relinquished on their own.
The Republican Party was a big government political party that played games of preference with the various corporations, while also attempting to socially engineer the culture through government dictates, and the new powers they perceived as theirs through the newly ratified 14th Amendment. The Democrat Party, however, also began to move in that direction, under the guidance of a new progressive movement fueled by the latest socialist movements in Europe. Progressives like Theodore Roosevelt of the Republican Party, and Woodrow Wilson of the Democrat Party, began the process that would become the downfall of the American system that we are experiencing now.
Through the clouds of darkness arose those that sought to return this nation to the wisdom of the U.S. Constitution. As our nation descended into a recession caused by the high taxes, increased government spending, and unconstitutional actions of the Wilson administration following the first world war President Harding, and his successor President Coolidge, reduced the tax rate, reduced government spending, and worked to return the federal government to the limitations imposed by the United States Constitution. What followed their actions was one of the most prosperous decades in American History, the Roaring 20s.
Unfortunately, a fellow Republican who adhered to a more progressive political ideology, who was elected president because the people figured since he was a Republican like Harding and Coolidge he would have similar policies, acted in accordance to leftism. Herbert Hoover raised taxes, increased government spending, put into place unconstitutional policies that included federally funded public works programs for the proclaimed sake of fixing the national infrastructure, and he unleashed the Federal Reserve to do more damage than even Wilson had perceived possible. What came out of his progressive actions was The Great Depression.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt doubled down on Hoover's policies, worsening the Depression, and moving America closer to the authoritarian system the statists of history had dreamed of.
Those who taste liberty, however, are not so easy to let it go.
Conservatism has risen out of the darkness that blanketed this nation under the name of progressivism. Conservatism has vowed to return the United States to the original intent of the Founding Fathers. The progressive liberal democrats have proclaimed conservatism to be the enemy. Liberalism has gained control of academia, the entertainment industry, and the news media, but the leftists have failed to gain the soul of America.
Through the war being waged on the ideological front the wisdom of the Constitution has emerged. After an onslaught of Marxism by a President that has worked to render Congress irrelevant, and elevate himself as an all powerful executive, a group of citizens that call themselves the TEA Party Movement has vowed to take back America. Over two hundred years of fighting for control of America, the two sides have come to the final chapter. Either this will be a nation ruled by an authoritarian system envisioned by people like Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama; or we will return to a system of self-governance where the local issues are addressed by the local government, and the federal government acts only in accordance to the authorities granted to it by the United States Constitution. . . as envisioned by people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, James Wilson, Samuel Adams, Andrew Jackson, Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater.
The might of the government versus the constitutional will of the people.
The people choose freedom, liberty, and the principles of limited government as provided on the pages of the United States Constitution.
We have proven to be a center-right nation, rejecting a governmental system that does not abide by the limiting principles of the U.S. Constitution.
If only we would reveal our conservative nature more often at the ballot box.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
No comments:
Post a Comment