American Politics: We are on a Dangerous Precipice

I’ve seen debates, read articles, and watched Internet clips of stump speeches. From what I can tell of the character of the contest, from positions on issues, the process has not yet emerged from the Democratic Party primaries. Perhaps more accurately still, it seems we no longer have two distinct American political parties. The donkeys and elephants have been “put to sleep.” The limited democracy of the de facto two-party system has given way to a single predefined political agenda.

The only political choice on offer is a more complete transformation to international socialism. The established drivers, including extremism in entitlements for women along with the destruction of marriage and family, environmentalism and energy control, and financial control are moving along unchecked, without the benefit of fact and reason, without any real account of cost verses benefit or damage verses good. The domestic agenda has been decided, internally by the party factions, away from where it might be effected by popular votes. Democracy is dead in America – murdered.

As an older guy, I should do something to provide younger readers with an orientation. There is a rumor that schools no longer do a sufficient job of acquainting students with the American system of government and its liberal roots. What I’ve seen quite regularly in Internet discussions bears this out; as so many seem to have no clue what the word “liberal” means. It does not describe what candidates are currently offering.

The Constitution of the United States was formulated on liberal political principles. A basic premise for these principles is that power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The premise is not speculative. Thousands of years of history and a rather thorough review of governmental systems throughout the world at the time the Constitution was formulated, provided its authors with the fundamental understanding that unchecked power produces tyranny. It is as good as any mathematical formula in physics and engineering. It is an established fact.

The Constitutional authors created a structured system of checks and balances against government power, a framework for democracy, and guaranteed individual rights – freedom from arbitrary government intrusion and control. It is much more important than may be immediately apparent that the powers of the federal government were quite limited, with the whole of the remainder of authority left to the states and to the people. State power is – in theory – Constitutionally limited for the protection of individual rights. These individual rights, both explicit and derived, are also known as fundamental rights and have traditionally for good logical reason also been referred to as civil rights.

There are no trivial applications of civil rights, but those having the greatest impact on change within my lifetime have involved forcing government institutions from behaving arbitrarily through enforcement of individual rights. In accordance with Constitutional structure, the federal government, especially including federal courts, played a strong role in enforcement of these rights. State courts were overruled when they acted with unreasonable prejudice. Schools were pushed to provide a more equal education, independent of race. Higher educational institutions were forced to accept students on academic merit. The process of awarding government contracts became color-blind.

A careful balance is required to maintain a free and democratic nation. If we celebrate the power of government too little, we are cheated from its virtues. If we celebrate too much, we are cheated from our freedom. Over the past half century, there have as well been insidious elements in the process. They celebrate the power of government too much. They distort the past so that the power of limits on government are no longer seen as important to the benefits received.

It is more than simple transformation of rhetoric. There are at least two factors that must be understood in order to clearly see the very dangerous precipice upon which we now stand. Our system of individual rights has shifted from Constitutional guarantee to political whim and we do not have a sufficiently democratic system with which to steer political power.

The mechanism for diminishing individual rights has been found in the classification of laws. Taxes, entitlements, and certain business regulations are classified as social or economic policy. They are under political control and therefore classic issues in election campaigns. In matters of social and economic policy, you have very limited individual rights. Examples include equal treatment, and at least traditionally freedom from incarceration for not doing what you cannot do however strongly you are ordered to do it. Your “rights” in these matters are derived primarily through the ballot box and the conviction of politicians to carry out the will of the people.

Over the past two decades, federal courts have relinquished their role in defending Constitutional rule. Congress has chosen to intrude in both governmental and personal affairs without regard to limits imposed by the Constitution. They have in effect purchased greater power with billions upon billions of dollars from the federal purse. Federal courts have accepted by reclassifying laws arbitrarily as social and economic policy; in effect, decommissioning the Bill of Rights. (See for example, P.O.P.S. v Gardner, 998 F.2d 764 (9th Cir. 1993) w.r.t. marriage and family.)

Those of you who consider the rise of socialism in America based on other examples in the world, which in some cases may seem admirable in some ways, need consider the strong compensation given for lesser Constitutional individual rights. European democracy is based on the parliamentary system accompanied by heavy grass roots political action. The myriad of parties present and debate a myriad of issues in a myriad of ways, keeping the largest parties honest in a way by providing broader representation. The people themselves, representing their own “special interests,” often through formation of special interest political groups are an integral and necessary part of their system of checks and balances. Politicians battling against special interest groups would be deemed fundamentally undemocratic.