Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s AG, has sworn an oath to follow the law of his state and the US. However, in this case, while the law is valid, it makes a mockery of Virginia’s Republican Primary.

Although it borders the nation’s capital, no candidate will campaign here in Virginia and as a result, Virginia’s primary will be a non-entity in the national media once the dust settles over the legal challenge mounted by the candidates who are not named Romney or Paul.

This situation is but one example of an archaic process designed to find the standard bearer of one of the two major parties – note that if these candidates were Democrats and Obama was a Republican (A facetious analogy to be sure), the result would be the same.

This situation comes a week before a caucus in Iowa that is about as backward as possible in terms of representing the true intentions of most Iowa Republicans.

Imagine meeting in the middle of a large room with all of your fellow Republicans in your town or district and then being told to stand under the sign or banner of “your” candidate – publicly in front of your friends and neighbors.

This goes counter to the principle of a secret ballot – which assures anonymity in voting – and (in my humble opinion) assures a larger voter turn-out.

What makes this caucus even more absurd is that consistently, year after year, Iowa chooses the candidate first.

While I do not begrudge Iowans their historic place in the voting order, I only ask that all states share the same process in selecting “their candidate”.

I will not even begin to explain why or how we should change the Electoral College.

As far as I am concerned, the entire election process needs a major overhaul to follow the spirit of the Declaration of Independence whether or not it is spelled out in states’ constitutions nationwide.

Sorry, Virginians and my apologies to the people of Iowa.

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

Where It's Easier To Be President

A great number of America’s modern leaders are dangerously ignorant with respect to China. In between the bimbo eruptions, GOP Candidate Herman Cain took a few minutes out of his busy day to remind how a GOP foreign policy gaffe by Gerald Ford helped convince America’s voters to pull the lever for Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford famously insisted that Poland in 1976, wasn’t militarily occupied by the Soviet Union. The 12 Russian Army divisions had just parked their tanks there for the past 25 years so that a high ranking officer could change a flat tire. Herman Cain recently informed us that China has “indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability.”

Sadly, it’s not just Republican leaders that display this lack of erudition. Leaders on the Progressive Left have captured America’s Democratic Party and provide its intellectual gravamen. They are also colossally stupid on the subject of China. Unlike Herman Cain, they don’t underrate China’s capabilities. Instead they overrate China, and commit the grim transgression against republicanism of suggesting we should carefully emulate their despotism.

Thomas Freidman describes why Barack Obama believes it would be easier to be President of China.

Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”

Yes, I seem to remember a bunch of Chinese protestors who scrutinized the words of Hu Jintao’s predecessor in Tiananmen Square. The government wasn’t particularly interested in their commentary. It’s funny that we haven’t heard much about #OccupyTiananmenSquare in the news lately. China is, after all, where Goldman-Sachs and the Koch Brothers supposedly shipped all of our jobs.

That gets us to the nub of why political leaders like Barack Obama paint us such a bucolic and ideal picture of China. “Folks in Congress are also going to get a chance to decide . . . whether our construction workers should sit around doing nothing while China builds the best railroads, the best schools, the best airports in the world.” claims President Obama. Michael Levy, a former Peace Corps worker in China, describes things a bit differently.

“Imagine that there’s a country exactly like the United States. Exactly the same size. It’s got the same cities. It’s got the same number of rich people and poor people. It’s just like us. And now add 1 billion peasants. That’s China.”

(HT: NRO)

Further damage can be done to the Progressive case for making America more like China by studying just exactly how these 1Bn Chinese Peasants got to be so debased and impoverished. Unencumbered by foolish voters and inconvenient public dissent, Chinese Premiere Mao Tse Tung embarked upon his Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1960. The University of Chicago Chronicle describes the effects of this program below.

In pursuit of its goals, the government executed people who did not agree with the pace of radical change. The crackdown led to the deaths of 550,000 people by 1958. The government also plunged the country into a deep debt by increasing spending on the development of heavy industry. Government spending on heavy industry grew in 1958 to represent 56 percent of state capital investment, an increase from 38 percent in 1956.

Take away the 500,000 executions, and John Maynard Keynes would have been proud. Without any organized Tea Party to tell Chairman Mao to limit the exuberance of his “stimulus” efforts, the following results occurred.

Although in theory the country was awash in grain, in reality it was not. Rural communal mess halls were encouraged to supply food for free, but by the spring of 1959, the grain reserves were exhausted and the famine had begun. No one is sure exactly how many people perished as a result of the spreading hunger. By comparing the number of deaths that could be expected under normal conditions with the number that occurred during the period of the Great Leap famine, scholars have estimated that somewhere between 16.5 million and 40 million people died before the experiment came to an end in 1961, making the Great Leap famine the largest in world history.

And that’s what makes being in charge of China easy. There is no responsibility assigned to even cataclysmic failures such as The Great Leap famine. The 16.5 million starvation victims won’t exactly show up and vote against you. China isn’t any easier to run than the US. Chinese leaders just don’t ever have to worry about the career dissipation lights blinking.

This also underscores why all of us have to stay active and stay involved. We don’t want to trust these experts. The government can be very knowledgeable. But the institutional knowledge runs a mile deep and only three feet wide. They need to answer to us. The jobs of our political leaders don’t have to be hard per-se, but they should always be extremely consequential.

Where It's Easier To Be President

A great number of America’s modern leaders are dangerously ignorant with respect to China. In between the bimbo eruptions, GOP Candidate Herman Cain took a few minutes out of his busy day to remind how a GOP foreign policy gaffe by Gerald Ford helped convince America’s voters to pull the lever for Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford famously insisted that Poland in 1976, wasn’t militarily occupied by the Soviet Union. The 12 Russian Army divisions had just parked their tanks there for the past 25 years so that a high ranking officer could change a flat tire. Herman Cain recently informed us that China has “indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability.”

Sadly, it’s not just Republican leaders that display this lack of erudition. Leaders on the Progressive Left have captured America’s Democratic Party and provide its intellectual gravamen. They are also colossally stupid on the subject of China. Unlike Herman Cain, they don’t underrate China’s capabilities. Instead they overrate China, and commit the grim transgression against republicanism of suggesting we should carefully emulate their despotism.

Thomas Freidman describes why Barack Obama believes it would be easier to be President of China.

Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”

Yes, I seem to remember a bunch of Chinese protestors who scrutinized the words of Hu Jintao’s predecessor in Tiananmen Square. The government wasn’t particularly interested in their commentary. It’s funny that we haven’t heard much about #OccupyTiananmenSquare in the news lately. China is, after all, where Goldman-Sachs and the Koch Brothers supposedly shipped all of our jobs.

That gets us to the nub of why political leaders like Barack Obama paint us such a bucolic and ideal picture of China. “Folks in Congress are also going to get a chance to decide . . . whether our construction workers should sit around doing nothing while China builds the best railroads, the best schools, the best airports in the world.” claims President Obama. Michael Levy, a former Peace Corps worker in China, describes things a bit differently.

“Imagine that there’s a country exactly like the United States. Exactly the same size. It’s got the same cities. It’s got the same number of rich people and poor people. It’s just like us. And now add 1 billion peasants. That’s China.”

(HT: NRO)

Further damage can be done to the Progressive case for making America more like China by studying just exactly how these 1Bn Chinese Peasants got to be so debased and impoverished. Unencumbered by foolish voters and inconvenient public dissent, Chinese Premiere Mao Tse Tung embarked upon his Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1960. The University of Chicago Chronicle describes the effects of this program below.

In pursuit of its goals, the government executed people who did not agree with the pace of radical change. The crackdown led to the deaths of 550,000 people by 1958. The government also plunged the country into a deep debt by increasing spending on the development of heavy industry. Government spending on heavy industry grew in 1958 to represent 56 percent of state capital investment, an increase from 38 percent in 1956.

Take away the 500,000 executions, and John Maynard Keynes would have been proud. Without any organized Tea Party to tell Chairman Mao to limit the exuberance of his “stimulus” efforts, the following results occurred.

Although in theory the country was awash in grain, in reality it was not. Rural communal mess halls were encouraged to supply food for free, but by the spring of 1959, the grain reserves were exhausted and the famine had begun. No one is sure exactly how many people perished as a result of the spreading hunger. By comparing the number of deaths that could be expected under normal conditions with the number that occurred during the period of the Great Leap famine, scholars have estimated that somewhere between 16.5 million and 40 million people died before the experiment came to an end in 1961, making the Great Leap famine the largest in world history.

And that’s what makes being in charge of China easy. There is no responsibility assigned to even cataclysmic failures such as The Great Leap famine. The 16.5 million starvation victims won’t exactly show up and vote against you. China isn’t any easier to run than the US. Chinese leaders just don’t ever have to worry about the career dissipation lights blinking.

This also underscores why all of us have to stay active and stay involved. We don’t want to trust these experts. The government can be very knowledgeable. But the institutional knowledge runs a mile deep and only three feet wide. They need to answer to us. The jobs of our political leaders don’t have to be hard per-se, but they should always be extremely consequential.

Brett Stevens of Amerika.org theorized that human societies can have two forms of culture; Managerial and Organic. He describes these two options below.

• Managerial. Like attending a job, days at an American high school or going to a mall, the managerial state consists of people who have nothing in common except wanting to make money and not get murdered. As a result, a strong nanny/police state is needed to make lots of little laws, enforce them, and subject children to intense propaganda for the “morally right” way to behave.
• Organic. More like an extended family, this society has an organic values system arising from culture in the form of shared values, customs, language, heritage and beliefs. As a result, less police enforcement is needed and commerce is restrained by what the people value based on their shared ideals.

Nothing short of the Politburo of The Chinese Communist Party represents the Managerial culture better than the Eurocracy attempting to govern a continent from the smug, baronial confines of Brussels, Belgium. Greek Prime Minister George A. Papandreou is nearly a walking caricature of that entire school of morality. Yet recently, despite his Socialistic ideology, Greek Prime Minister George A. Papandreou, has decided to reassert the old Athenian Democratic ideal. He will put the latest EU Bailout plan for Greece up to a national referendum.

A “Yes” vote on the referendum would require Greece to govern their affairs in accordance with a harsh austerity compact dictated by the other co-members of The Euro Currency. In return for that, Greece would be allowed to skip out on repaying billions of Euros in borrowed money without technically going into default. A “No” vote would scuttle the entire deal and probably catalyze Greece’s expulsion from the Eurozone.

This has led to a major crisis within the Eurozone. Greece had joined the Euro, a unified European currency, and then proceeded to borrow way more money than it could reasonably pay back. They then used this money to buy industrial goods from Germany and thereby help German firms attain high levels of profitability. This equilibrium was metastable at best and led to a Corzine Event failure of leverage. Greek sovereign debt rollovers became impossibly costly when some of the short-term bonds expired.

Nobody linked to the Euro currency could afford to have Greece admit honestly that they were incapable of handling their debts. The amounts of CDS payments that would trigger would lead to bank failures throughout the European Union. With Greece unable to pay, and the banks that insured Greek bonds unable to survive egregious exposure to this fundamental truth, both the borrowers and the lenders showed up broke at the doorstep of the Eurozone governing body. This led to the EU bailout plan that offered to let Greece blow off 50% of its recent sovereign debt and not trigger CDS payments.

In return for which, EU officials would have de facto veto power over how Greek Parliaments spent future monies. When the Greek Prime Minister returned home with this result, his Parliament informed him that he could expect a no-confidence vote. This would be followed with permanent administrative leave from making decisions about anything else that really mattered. As a desperate gambit to stay on his horse, Papandreou’s referendum proposal shows what an awesome politician he truly is. He announced a referendum to let the Greek people decide, and then somehow sold this proposal to a Parliament that wanted his head in a basket.

Papandreou sold his cabinet the idea that the referendum would reaffirm Greece’s commitment to the Euro.

“The referendum will be a clear mandate and a clear message in and outside Greece on our European course and participation in the euro,” Papandreou told the seven-hour cabinet meeting…”No one will be able to doubt Greece’s course within the Euro.”

He then sold his opposition a totally different bill of goods.

“Citizens are the source of our strength and citizens will be called on to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the agreement. It is not for others to decide but the Greek people to decide … we have faith in the people. We believe in democratic participation. We are not afraid of it.”

Prime Minister Papandreou may or may not believe in Democracy more than the current Governor of North Carolina. He has acted with the same level of principal and integrity that inspired the Athenian Senate to go make Socrates drink hemlock. However, he had his ear to the ground and sensed the headlights of an approaching freight train in time to get out of the way.

He gets that the twin forces of democracy and ethnic nationalism within Europe are rising. This will make it difficult to continue Germany, France and Belgium’s subinfuedation of old and traditional European sovereign countries. He figured out that the Eurozone will probably disintegrate. Thus, despite Papandreou’s personal bias in favor of the Euro, he knew it was time to cut his losses and let the people speak.

Brett Stevens of Amerika.org theorized that human societies can have two forms of culture; Managerial and Organic. He describes these two options below.

• Managerial. Like attending a job, days at an American high school or going to a mall, the managerial state consists of people who have nothing in common except wanting to make money and not get murdered. As a result, a strong nanny/police state is needed to make lots of little laws, enforce them, and subject children to intense propaganda for the “morally right” way to behave.
• Organic. More like an extended family, this society has an organic values system arising from culture in the form of shared values, customs, language, heritage and beliefs. As a result, less police enforcement is needed and commerce is restrained by what the people value based on their shared ideals.

Nothing short of the Politburo of The Chinese Communist Party represents the Managerial culture better than the Eurocracy attempting to govern a continent from the smug, baronial confines of Brussels, Belgium. Greek Prime Minister George A. Papandreou is nearly a walking caricature of that entire school of morality. Yet recently, despite his Socialistic ideology, Greek Prime Minister George A. Papandreou, has decided to reassert the old Athenian Democratic ideal. He will put the latest EU Bailout plan for Greece up to a national referendum.

A “Yes” vote on the referendum would require Greece to govern their affairs in accordance with a harsh austerity compact dictated by the other co-members of The Euro Currency. In return for that, Greece would be allowed to skip out on repaying billions of Euros in borrowed money without technically going into default. A “No” vote would scuttle the entire deal and probably catalyze Greece’s expulsion from the Eurozone.

This has led to a major crisis within the Eurozone. Greece had joined the Euro, a unified European currency, and then proceeded to borrow way more money than it could reasonably pay back. They then used this money to buy industrial goods from Germany and thereby help German firms attain high levels of profitability. This equilibrium was metastable at best and led to a Corzine Event failure of leverage. Greek sovereign debt rollovers became impossibly costly when some of the short-term bonds expired.

Nobody linked to the Euro currency could afford to have Greece admit honestly that they were incapable of handling their debts. The amounts of CDS payments that would trigger would lead to bank failures throughout the European Union. With Greece unable to pay, and the banks that insured Greek bonds unable to survive egregious exposure to this fundamental truth, both the borrowers and the lenders showed up broke at the doorstep of the Eurozone governing body. This led to the EU bailout plan that offered to let Greece blow off 50% of its recent sovereign debt and not trigger CDS payments.

In return for which, EU officials would have de facto veto power over how Greek Parliaments spent future monies. When the Greek Prime Minister returned home with this result, his Parliament informed him that he could expect a no-confidence vote. This would be followed with permanent administrative leave from making decisions about anything else that really mattered. As a desperate gambit to stay on his horse, Papandreou’s referendum proposal shows what an awesome politician he truly is. He announced a referendum to let the Greek people decide, and then somehow sold this proposal to a Parliament that wanted his head in a basket.

Papandreou sold his cabinet the idea that the referendum would reaffirm Greece’s commitment to the Euro.

“The referendum will be a clear mandate and a clear message in and outside Greece on our European course and participation in the euro,” Papandreou told the seven-hour cabinet meeting…”No one will be able to doubt Greece’s course within the Euro.”

He then sold his opposition a totally different bill of goods.

“Citizens are the source of our strength and citizens will be called on to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the agreement. It is not for others to decide but the Greek people to decide … we have faith in the people. We believe in democratic participation. We are not afraid of it.”

Prime Minister Papandreou may or may not believe in Democracy more than the current Governor of North Carolina. He has acted with the same level of principal and integrity that inspired the Athenian Senate to go make Socrates drink hemlock. However, he had his ear to the ground and sensed the headlights of an approaching freight train in time to get out of the way.

He gets that the twin forces of democracy and ethnic nationalism within Europe are rising. This will make it difficult to continue Germany, France and Belgium’s subinfuedation of old and traditional European sovereign countries. He figured out that the Eurozone will probably disintegrate. Thus, despite Papandreou’s personal bias in favor of the Euro, he knew it was time to cut his losses and let the people speak.

To say that Obama is a Bolshevik may sound extreme, but as someone who grew up in the former Soviet Union, and holds a degree of economics and political science from the University of Marxism – Leninism, viewing the American political landscape through red communist glasses reveals a scary reality: the United States elected a Radical Socialist Government. The government committed to the transformation of the American capitalist – free enterprise system into an egalitarian society with state controlled political economy.

As Patrick Henry said, “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.”

To this observer, judging by the past, Obama’s and his comrades objectives, strategy and tactics bear a mirror resemblance to the Bolsheviks who seized power in Russia in 1917 to establish a totalitarian communist rule. I recognize familiar patterns and appreciate their irresistible inducements.

The great historical irony is that unlike the Russian people who understood the perils of socialism and fought the Bolsheviks in a bloody three year civil war that by some estimates took fifteen million lives, the freedom loving Americans simply voted themselves into socialism. The communist leaders from Lenin to Brezhnev are turning in their graves watching what proved impossible for the Soviet Union to accomplish with all its military might and nuclear arsenal could be achieved by duly elected American president with the support of American voters.

Obama’s came at the right time: the lack of education, historical perspective, and political illiteracy turned the American electorate into what Bolshevik Trotsky called the “Voting herd.” The combination of impending economic crisis and the weak candidacy on the Republican side created fertile ground for a talented demagogue to seduce the nation.

His playbook reads as if it comes straight out of the University of Marxism-Leninism. There is nothing new here but the striking parallels between the Russian Bolsheviks and the Obama’s government: both utterly convinced in their own righteousness and fanatically believe in economic equality, and obsessed with power and control.

In order to control the masses, as the Bolsheviks’ teaching goes, the leader should instill fear and hope.

There is plenty of hope in the “Audacity of Hope” and plenty of fear being peddled in the president’s speeches and actions. He has been frightening the country with the threat of such enemies as Wall Street, and the undue influence of big corporations, special interest groups and the so-called extremists of the Tea Party.

The other important criterion for the socialist egalitarian dream to succeed the government needs to take control of the economy and dominate everyday life by making the people dependent on the government. The Bolsheviks’ promise of a social paradise was a lure to make Russia’s citizens dependent on government handouts. “To accomplish this”, Lenin said, “Debauch the currency and you debauch the nation”. The Bolsheviks created hyper-inflation that made the currency, the Russian ruble, worthless thereby destroying personal wealth. Russia’s economy was paralyzed and the Bolshevik government was able to solidify their control over all aspects of their citizens’ life.

Obama is clearly following Lenin’s script, spending and printing money at unprecedented levels. The plan is simple: replace American self-reliance with government dependency. Increasing government spending in ever growing numbers, be it for bail outs, stimulus plans, health care, manure management, tattoo removal, condoms or solar energy is the program – the area doesn’t really matter. The objective is to spend until the country is in such debt as to result in default or hyper-inflation causing the destruction of our currency and the obliteration of wealth. The more the American people are indebted to government, the more they will turn to the government to save them, assuring Democratic one-party rule for the future.

In a sense, Obama is taking a page from FDR’s playbook who successfully exploited economic difficulties to ensure the Democratic Party continues domination and appoint himself president for life.

Historically, democracies failed as a permanent form of government. As soon as politicians discover that they can buy votes offering the voters largesse from the state treasury the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits. Eventually the situation becomes unsustainable and a democracy collapses followed by dictatorship.

The slogan of the original Tea Party was “No taxation without representation.” The objection at the time was to being taxed and not having a say in their governance. Today, we face a different and more subtle problem “Representation without taxation”. And, now when almost 50% of Americans do not pay the income tax, they are voting to spend other’s people money. The Democratic Party has successfully corralled these voters with promises of a better life, a socialist paradise if you will, of free health care for all, better job benefits for workers, stronger unions, and a government that will pass laws to pay for all of this out of our own treasury. De facto almost half of our population is already getting according their needs without much of ability and/ or desire to contribute to the society.

For this segment of the population, who is on the receiving end of the CHANGE, it will be perfectly OK if Obama makes us who are unequally rich equally poor. This should explain why even in an economy with an unlimited deficit, where jobs have ground to a halt and the future is bleak the President still enjoys a 47% approval rating.

If the Grand Plan succeeds this great tragedy will run its course: the course is reasonable predictable. It results in high taxation, hyperinflation, depleting savings and devaluation of the dollar; prolonged economic stagnation, destruction of our democracy culminating in one party rule. The fellow Americans would be invited to join social-democratic Obama era. For many, a better life awaits in the short run. In the long run, however, as we well know, history usually repeats itself; first as a tragedy and second, as a farce.

As a Russian journalist recently wrote, “The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is.”

The Russian could be proven wrong and Obama turn to be the best thing that happened to this country. The 2008 elections could be a political wake up call for this nation like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. In the elections next week, and in those in 2012, Americans will choose whether to pursue the utopian Karl Marx working people paradise and equality in poverty or to face the reality and regain their democracy so that the country can thrive and prosper for another 200 or so years.

This is the history turning point.

Today, we celebrate the 214th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution (September 17 falls out over the weekend this year).  On this day, it is imperative that we reflect on the importance of our constitution and celebrate the roots of our founding.  As our nation comes under attack from the forces of tyranny within, we must reaffirm our commitment to the ideals of our founders and founding documents.

Most people often mistakenly refer to our nation as the greatest democracy on earth.  They are mistaken because we are not an absolute democracy; we are a constitutional republic.  That is what makes our nation great, for if we were merely a democracy, we would be anything but great.  And to the extent that we no longer function as a constitutional republic, that greatness is rapidly ebbing away.

Why did we need a constitution?  Why are popular elections not a sufficient means of preserving liberty?

A pure unbridled democracy is a political system in which the majority enjoys absolute power by means of democratic elections.  In an unvarnished democracy, unrestrained by a constitution, the majority can vote to impose tyranny on themselves and the minority opposition.  They can vote to elect those who will infringe upon our inalienable God-given rights.  Thomas Jefferson referred to this as elected despotism in Notes on the State of Virginia (also cited in Federalist 48 by Madison):

An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Thus, a constitution that limited and divided the power of government was necessary to preclude elected officials from imposing tyranny on the people.  This is why they adopted a constitution with limited enumerated power, divided and checked across several branches and levels.

Sadly, we are currently living through the paramount form of elected despotism that our founders so presciently sought to forestall.  At some point during the progressive era of the early 1900′s, elected officials began to deviate from the constitution in a dramatic fashion.  At present, we find all of our founding principles under assault.  Many prominent political leaders in both parties seek to destroy our free markets, infringe upon our personal liberties, and abrogate our social values. Unfortunately, they have accrued a high level of success.  Moreover, they have prosecuted this revolution without firing a shot.  Instead, they have used the soft edge of the sword of elected despotism.

How have the elected officials been so successful in radically voiding our constitutional republic?  The answer is simple.  They have cynically manipulated their electoral mandate to create enough dependency for them to enjoy perennial power through democratically held elections.

We have reached the point at which almost every American is involuntarily subservient to the federal government for his or her retirement security and healthcare.  Over 45 million people, and one in four children, rely upon government for food stamps. By 2014, under the new Obamacare mandates, an estimated 79 million Americans will be enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.  This circuitous cycle of dependency, perennial electoral power, and breach of constitutional restraints has transformed our nation from a constitutional republic to a majority-rule democracy.

This is the same majority-rule democracy that is being foisted upon the Middle East in the Arab Spring.  Democratic elections were held in Gaza and Lebanon, and they elected tyranny.  They will be held in Egypt, and they will undoubtedly do the same.  In the Middle East, elected despotism will manifest itself in Islamic tyranny, while in America, it has fostered redistributive socialism.  The fact that Arab nations are deposing of their dictators is meaningless.  As Jefferson observed in Notes on the State of Virginia, “it will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.  173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one.”

This form of tyranny can only succeed beyond the confines of a constitution that is preserved with vigilance – a constitution that limits the power of government and preserves our rights as granted by God.  As founder John Witherspoon noted, “pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Unfortunately, even many political leaders who purport to abide by the constitution are misinterpreting the Tenth Amendment to promote tyranny on a state-level, if not on a national level.  In many respects, the hard core blue states exercise even more officious nanny-state power than the federal government.  Dependency is so rampant among a broad section of some of these states that nobody but those who purvey socialism can assume power.  These states exemplify the worst fears of elected despotism that Jefferson decried in his writings.  In fact, he was specifically addressing unbridled power at a state-level in his book.

Article 4 section 4 of the Constitution prescribes that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.”  It is incumbent upon us to restore our constitution as the supreme law of the land, so that our God-given rights are not revoked by democracy.

Happy Constitution Day!

Today, we celebrate the 214th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution (September 17 falls out over the weekend this year).  On this day, it is imperative that we reflect on the importance of our constitution and celebrate the roots of our founding.  As our nation comes under attack from the forces of tyranny within, we must reaffirm our commitment to the ideals of our founders and founding documents.

Most people often mistakenly refer to our nation as the greatest democracy on earth.  They are mistaken because we are not an absolute democracy; we are a constitutional republic.  That is what makes our nation great, for if we were merely a democracy, we would be anything but great.  And to the extent that we no longer function as a constitutional republic, that greatness is rapidly ebbing away.

Why did we need a constitution?  Why are popular elections not a sufficient means of preserving liberty?

A pure unbridled democracy is a political system in which the majority enjoys absolute power by means of democratic elections.  In an unvarnished democracy, unrestrained by a constitution, the majority can vote to impose tyranny on themselves and the minority opposition.  They can vote to elect those who will infringe upon our inalienable God-given rights.  Thomas Jefferson referred to this as elected despotism in Notes on the State of Virginia (also cited in Federalist 48 by Madison):

An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Thus, a constitution that limited and divided the power of government was necessary to preclude elected officials from imposing tyranny on the people.  This is why they adopted a constitution with limited enumerated power, divided and checked across several branches and levels.

Sadly, we are currently living through the paramount form of elected despotism that our founders so presciently sought to forestall.  At some point during the progressive era of the early 1900′s, elected officials began to deviate from the constitution in a dramatic fashion.  At present, we find all of our founding principles under assault.  Many prominent political leaders in both parties seek to destroy our free markets, infringe upon our personal liberties, and abrogate our social values. Unfortunately, they have accrued a high level of success.  Moreover, they have prosecuted this revolution without firing a shot.  Instead, they have used the soft edge of the sword of elected despotism.

How have the elected officials been so successful in radically voiding our constitutional republic?  The answer is simple.  They have cynically manipulated their electoral mandate to create enough dependency for them to enjoy perennial power through democratically held elections.

We have reached the point at which almost every American is involuntarily subservient to the federal government for his or her retirement security and healthcare.  Over 45 million people, and one in four children, rely upon government for food stamps. By 2014, under the new Obamacare mandates, an estimated 79 million Americans will be enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.  This circuitous cycle of dependency, perennial electoral power, and breach of constitutional restraints has transformed our nation from a constitutional republic to a majority-rule democracy.

This is the same majority-rule democracy that is being foisted upon the Middle East in the Arab Spring.  Democratic elections were held in Gaza and Lebanon, and they elected tyranny.  They will be held in Egypt, and they will undoubtedly do the same.  In the Middle East, elected despotism will manifest itself in Islamic tyranny, while in America, it has fostered redistributive socialism.  The fact that Arab nations are deposing of their dictators is meaningless.  As Jefferson observed in Notes on the State of Virginia, “it will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.  173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one.”

This form of tyranny can only succeed beyond the confines of a constitution that is preserved with vigilance – a constitution that limits the power of government and preserves our rights as granted by God.  As founder John Witherspoon noted, “pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Unfortunately, even many political leaders who purport to abide by the constitution are misinterpreting the Tenth Amendment to promote tyranny on a state-level, if not on a national level.  In many respects, the hard core blue states exercise even more officious nanny-state power than the federal government.  Dependency is so rampant among a broad section of some of these states that nobody but those who purvey socialism can assume power.  These states exemplify the worst fears of elected despotism that Jefferson decried in his writings.  In fact, he was specifically addressing unbridled power at a state-level in his book.

Article 4 section 4 of the Constitution prescribes that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.”  It is incumbent upon us to restore our constitution as the supreme law of the land, so that our God-given rights are not revoked by democracy.

Happy Constitution Day!

Is there any one political or economic system that God wants everyone to follow?  I do not believe God has ordained any one type of government or economy as the divinely ordained path. 

The only government He ever instituted was a kingdom with Himself as the king and that was rejected by His own people when they instead wanted to be like the people who surrounded them.  And even though God had His prophets warn them that this earthly king would take their lands, their children, their goods and their freedom they persisted in rejecting a divine King for kings who would claim divine rights.

The only economy God has instituted is the divine economy where there is never a lack and always abundance.  With cattle on a thousand hills God does not participate in recessions and He has promised many times that those in His hands cannot be plucked out.  He promises that though a thousand fall on one side and ten thousand on the other destruction shall not consume those who trust in Him.  And though in the eyes of this world it may appear that the evil often triumphs and the good are forsaken He tells us, “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” 

Free choice is a major part of God’s plan.  As a matter of fact that is His plan.  He could have just as easily created humans who had no free choice, could not disobey, never fall and always remain just as He designed them.  But instead He desired the loving family that can only come about from love freely given and freely received.

Individually God has given each of us free choice.  Therefore, I believe freedom to make choices unencumbered by outside interference is a fundamental building block of human nature and thus a required element of any society which matches the reality of the human condition.  Each of us gets to decide which we are going to believe, our eyes of flesh or our eyes of faith.  Is the world true or is God true?  As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  That is my free choice and you are free to make yours.

I believe that God desires us to make free choices with regard to faith and lifestyle.  Therefore, personal freedom is necessary for life as God intended.  And this has a great impact upon the first half of our question, is there any one political system that God wants everyone to follow?

It is apparent that the only form of government ever devised by man that requires personal free choice as a prime component is democracy.  All other forms of government are some variation of the divine right of somebody to tell everybody else what to do.  By the way, that’s democracy as in one-citizen-one-vote not as in Democratic People’s Republic.  And since all forms of direct democracy eventually devolve into a tyranny of the majority the only thing that works over time is a representative republic which operates on democratic principles.  Meaning a system wherein the people have the opportunity to select their own representatives as long as those representatives actually represent the people and do not become the pawns of powerful special interests.

Also based upon the fact that personal freedom is a fundamental component of life as God desires for humanity which brings us to the second half of our question: is there any one economic system that God wants everyone to follow?  It is apparent to even a casual observer that free market capitalism is the only economic system ever devised by man that requires personal freedom to operate.  All other economic systems ultimately translate into some variation of a command economy. Some bureaucrat somewhere decides how many widgets to make and that’s how many widgets are produced regardless of need or demand.  Command economies foster disequilibrium and maladjustments.   There are always either too many widgets or not enough.  In a fee market capitalist system demand always dictates production and inherently guides supply.

America was originally launched as a representative republic based upon democratic principles with a free economy which based upon the above exemplifies the ideal for a nation-state.  This is what we have known.  If the Progressives continue to succeed in their efforts to fundamentally transform America what can we expect?

Look at the areas of American life so far transformed, massive government take-overs either through outright purchase or indirectly through regulation of industry, insurance, and finance. Taking this as a guide we should expect further intrusion of the central government into the economy thus transforming America into a command economy with all the problems inherent in that type of system.

The health care take-over which is scheduled to phase in like boiling water phases in for a frog, feeling so comforting until it’s too late to jump out.  Using the need to modify our behavior to cut health care costs we should expect the central planners to inch-by-inch transform our daily routines of eating and exercise until they are telling us when to jump and how high.  It is often the unintended consequences which have the greatest effects as a result of the Progressive impulse to create a Utopia.

The only way Utopians ever try to create a heaven on earth is to build nanny-states to protect us from ourselves with no thought of how the unintended consequences actually harm the people the intention was to help.  Eventually there is also no limit to the amount of force it takes to compel compliance once the bureaucracy has decreed something is good for the collective. An example from Obamacare is the provision forcing insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions for all children insured.  This sounds great.  And it will surely protect the Kids.  But what it really does is prompt many insurance companies to quit insuring children because they realize this government mandated provision will cause them to lose money, and despite the progressive belief that people should open and maintain private businesses as non-tax supported social agencies people who own businesses do so to make money. 

Another example is businesses either dropping insurance for their employees because the fines imposed will be cheaper than the insurance or seeking an exemption.  It is projected that 30% of employers will drop their employee healthcare once Obamacare is fully instituted.  So much for “If you have your plan and you like it,… or you have a doctor and you like your doctor, that you don’t have to change plans.”

The Financial take-over through regulation has not been unwrapped yet and even the politicians most involved in writing it say they don’t know what’s in it so its long term impact can only be imagined.  Does anyone imagine it will be good for free-enterprise, competition, and capitalism?  As the Progressives continue to experiment looking for some way to accomplish the impossible, heaven on earth, the uncertainty keeps people from investing, businesses from growing and the economy from recovering.  After two and a half years it should be apparent the current administration has successfully turned a recession into a new normal of lower expectations and a loss of hope.

But then again my hope was never in the government to begin with, and since they didn’t give it to me they can’t take it away.  My hope is in Jesus and He never fails.

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 View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens.