Return To The Fundamentals

  Sometimes it behooves us to look back in our history and see what our founders had to say about governing the republic they left us to steward. Their foresight and wisdom was something we would have done well to adhere to, unfortunately we find ourselves suffering for thinking we have outgrown the wisdom they espoused.
  As I study the writings of men like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson I see men who understood the ramifications of disregarding history. They were learned men who studied world governments and the fall of kings and kingdoms. Their studies paid off for all mankind as they formed a Constitutional Convention to establish a new form of government that would prove to be the first and oldest government of the people by the people and for the people. As to whether that government will perish from the earth or not depends much on how modern Americans act in the very near future.
  At this point in American history most political leaders remind me of a typical teenager trying to become an adult.  Nearly every teen aged kid thinks that their parents don't have a clue of who they are talking to when they offer advice derived from their personal experience. The attitude of young people is "it won't happen to me", as though they are superhuman and have all the right answers to life.
 Eventually most wake up one day and realize that their parents weren't as dumb as they thought. This revelation usually comes as the now grown teens are themselves parents facing the reality of raising a child that is acting just as they had as a teen. It is at that point that they begin to try to recall the wisdom passed down to them from the previous generation. Its sad but true that few people take preemptive action but instead just try to glide through life hoping that a crisis doesn't arise, but almost always a crisis does come to us all.
  America is at a crisis point now and some people are beginning to awaken and seek solutions to the looming destruction brought on by our own "It won't happen to me". If enough of us wake up and if we act soon enough we may be able to save the republic from becoming a monarchy, but to do so we must be willing to return to the fundamentals expressed by our founders.
  The following is from a speech given at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 by Benjamin Franklin. His warning has been ignored for a hundred or more years but I believe it should be one of the first fundamentals reinstated if we are to save America;

"Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice—the love of power and the love of money. Separately, each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but, when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of su...ch men a post of honor, that shall, at the same time, be a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it. The vast number of such places it is that renders the British government so tempestuous. The struggles for them are the true source of all those factions which are perpetually dividing the nation, distracting its councils, hurrying it sometimes into fruitless and mischievous wars, and often compelling a submission to dishonorable terms of peace.
  And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable preeminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will not be the wise and moderate, the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your government and be your rulers. And these, too, will be mistaken in the expected happiness of their situation, for their vanquished competitors, of the same spirit, and from the same motives, will perpetually be endeavoring to distress their administration, thwart their measures, and render them odious to the people.
  Besides these evils, sir, tho we may set out in the beginning with moderate salaries, we shall find that such will not be of long continuance. Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations; and there will always be a party for giving more to the rulers, that the rulers may be able, in return, to give more to them. Hence, as all history informs us, there has been in every state and kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing and the governed; the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the princes or enslaving of the people.
  Generally, indeed, the ruling power carries its point, and we see the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes, the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partizans, and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh—get first all the people’s money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever. It will be said that we do not propose to establish kings. I know it. But there is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government. It sometimes relieves them from aristocratic domination. They would rather have one tyrant than five hundred. It gives more of the appearance of equality among citizens; and that they like.
  I am apprehensive, therefore—perhaps too apprehensive—that the government of the States may, in future times, end in a monarchy. But this catastrophe, I think, may be long delayed, if in our proposed system we do not sow the seeds of contention, faction, and tumult, by making our posts of honor places of profit. If we do, I fear that, tho we employ at first a number and not a single person, the number will, in time, be set aside; it will only nourish the fetus of a king (as the honorable gentleman from Virginia very aptly expressed it), and a king will the sooner be set over us."