Can President Trump Cure the Ills of America?

 

The United States new leader, President Donald J. Trump, promised to “Make America Great Again.” The real question should be can he cure the United States of her illness. This disease has numerous symptoms of which we will cover a few of the most threatening. The first on the list is a sinister little one which hides in plain sight. The current reproductive rate is 1.84 children per woman which is well below the 2.33 reproductive rate necessary for maintaining a nation’s population. This simply means that the United States will have fewer workers to support an aging population and this will only grow more and more serious over time. The only obvious solution is to allow for immigration, eventually massive immigration. From all expectation, any large immigration program will lead to a rebalancing of the predominant population statistics in the favor of whichever groups of foreign nations contribute to the immigration. The most readily available populations are from Central America and South America. This has been the trending for the past decades which is leading to a growing Hispanic population which is rapidly becoming the largest minority population and with time they will become the predominant population. There is a fortunate trait in that the vast majority of such immigrants hold similar religious identities and have a Judeo-Christian ethics and history which will make for a merging of the populations and not as much a shock to the culture or as much a threat for large changes in laws and outlook of the resultant population. Should the United States instead bring in immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) there would be an inevitable confrontation between the emerging culture and the currently existing culture. If history is any indicator, an increasing Islamic minority would at some point lead to an actual confrontation which the aging Judeo-Christian community who would most definitely loses.

 

The Donald-Make America Great Again-Trump

 

This problem has been traced from demographic studies to have a direct relation to the legalization of abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade decision leading to nationally recognizing a legal right for a woman to obtain an abortion. The good news is that the numbers of abortions have steadily decreased over the past few decades. The not so great news is that this has not led to any measurable increase in the reproductive rate as was expected. Demographic studies have shown that couples are waiting until later in life before getting married. This had led to the obvious postponement of starting families and, as in most cases both husband and wife are professionals with careers, they often put off having a family until even later leading to many couples having a single child , or worse, deciding not to have children at all. Societal studies have also seen a trending in millennials for their deciding to forgo marriage, children and even permanent relationships instead settling to have small groups of friends who have open partnerships or some simply leading singular lives dropping in and out of relationships never desiring to become involved in a permanent relationship. Perhaps these individuals will settle down later in life but that will likely lead to a childless relationship as they may wait until past the point of fertility. Whatever the future, the current trends indicate that the only solution to the American childlessness will be through immigration and praying that the new immigrants prove immune to the childless culture as they come from a more reproductive friendly culture.

 

Islamic immigrants would also have a higher reproductive rate than the current American culture. The one catch is that it has been found that as financial wealth of a society increases, reproductive rates plummet. This was what has struck Europe and has been given as one of the reasons the political rulers have been allowing a free import of Syrian and other MENA refugees. Whether such a program was a good idea or a potential allowing for an infiltration leading to an eventual takeover by Islamic policies is something which is still being debated. Time may settle that debate before any conclusions are forthcoming. The one certainty is that many of the existing European populations are not overly excited about the newcomers and may be voting in a whole new and opposing set of leaders as elections sweep across the continent. Should Europe start to become an Islamic based society, then that may play well for solving some of the system shock for the United States as many of the elite, and any others with sufficient means, would flee Europe for the apparent safety of the United States. Much of this future will depend on socioeconomic developments and for the existing confrontations and other dangerous situations not developing into a far broader set of conflicts leading eventually to an all-encompassing conflict. This might actually have the effect of shocking the current Western World out of its self-serving egoism and realizing that there is only a future if there exists a prodigy to which to hand over that future and that depends on having said prodigy. Having such a revelation sweep Western society would be a blessing though it would be preferable for it not to have to be impressed through some horrific conflict as such changes have been initiated in previous eras. Such conflagrations have also brought down empires which not much earlier had been considered a permanent fixture assured forever into the future. The lesson there for the United States is that nothing remains on top forever, not Rome, not the British, not the Spanish, not the Egyptians, not Alexander’s Greeks and not even China, one of the longest continuous empires still existing and asserting a presence in the modern age.

 

Another serious illness striking the United States is the political divide which has not only grown wider this century but has also grown far nastier and more toxic. This past week proved this beyond any shadow of doubt. When President Obama was first elected in 2008 there was disappointment on the Republican side but most Americans hoped for the best. Many were disappointed but still believed there was hope and President Obama was reelected. After the 2012 election there was a smattering of protests which were nonviolent and largely quiet. The media made sure they had a short self-life by largely ignoring their existence. This present Inauguration brought back the protests and cries of foul from 2000 except with far more violence and vitriol. Madonna spoke of dreaming of blowing up the White House. That was quite far overboard as that would be such a waste of the rebuild after the War of 1812 which was finally completed in 1817 and President James Monroe moved into the new and improved White House. The demonstrations were boisterous and somewhat over the top including the burning of President Trump in effigy. The problem was with the violent actors who destroyed property, attacked police, attacked injuring innocent people who were simply attending Inaugural Dances including the insulting, spitting upon and injuring of a Gold Star widow and her sister. Spirited protests and debate are one thing and destruction of property and assaulting people and police is a completely different and unacceptable form of protest and should be considered beyond the pale. People work and depend on those places for their families and futures and the destruction of their workplaces hurt innocents and since a good many of these places were in major cities, especially those in Washington D.C. where over 90% voted for Hillary Clinton, most of the people hurt by these unscrupulous acts were Hillary supporters. Whatever the presumed excuse, such violence, if left unchecked, only grows and eventually leads to the destruction of the society.

 

The other problem with the violence was that it was presumed to be in support of groups which resemble numerous fascist entities of the past such as the infamous Brownshirts which used violence in order to scare the German people into demanding the government do something, anything, just end the violence. Once the people agreed to the government assuming emergency powers giving them absolute power, the Nazis wiped out the Brownshirts replacing them with the SS who became the new enforcers. The possibility that hidden somewhere within the leftist ranks are those seeking a repeat from history, using the rabble to stir up sufficient troubles at some point in the future to takeover and put in place a dictatorial fascist governance is all too possibly the end result. This has been the manner in which virtually every democratic based government has fallen throughout history; so saying it could not happen here is a fool’s gambit. Many of the demonstrations resembled the Red Guard demonstrations at the beginning of the Communist takeover of Russia deposing the Russian Provisional Government which was democratically elected in a limited vote and was presumed to be setting up a democratic form of government when the Communists decided they didn’t need any democracy, they simply desired replacing one dictatorial government with another. Caesar also replaced a democratic republic of Rome relegating the Senate into an echo chamber until they decided to depose him old school. The assassination of Caesar did no good as all it did was immortalize his name making it the title for the reign of dictators until the fall of Rome centuries later. Obviously saying it cannot happen here is a blindness that no democracy can afford. Reportedly, American Abolitionist and liberal activist Wendell Phillips on January 28, 1852 speaking to members of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society stated,

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

A Plea to Conservative Christians in America, an Election Reminder

 

Normally we would not make such a direct argument on the election, but this is anything but a normative election. First and foremost, please get out and vote for good, solid conservatives for the House of Representatives and the Senate. Start a committee if there is not yet one and take back your schools and local school boards. Install a curriculum which represents traditional Judeo-Christian values even if that requires eschewing Federal Education Aid Dollars as they come with more than strings, they come with ropes, cables and dictates on who you may hire as teachers, what your courses must contain, and even what courses based in liberal and immoral lessons must be taught. Their money leads to free condoms for students in all grades; sexual education which teaches if you desire, act; the school will teach you untruths as truth your parents are too ignorant to know and other means which breaks down the traditional family. Lastly on education, partner with private small and medium local companies and some carefully vetted national or international companies who employ in your area and see if apprenticeships can be arranged and even some classes taught by company personnel whose salary might be subsidized by the company or even some school funding directly from the companies. Choose your teachers carefully and monitor their classes and be wary of teachers’ unions and make your school system free of their poisonous influence. Taking back our schools in the United States is the first, most necessary and vital step to winning back our nation, governments and families.

 

Next is to select judges with care. Vote solely for vetted judges whose rulings and beliefs are known and tested. Newly appointed judges need to be monitored and vetted. Similar systems need be in place for every level of judgeship, police officials, sheriff’s department and any other elected official. Take the required steps to free your local jurisdiction from virtually, if not all, Federal oversight even if it costs reasonable and affordable loss of controlling funds from Washington D.C. If the healthcare system is not returned to a free market system then health maintenance groups may be required setting up with local physicians and hospital privileges with church, synagogue and other houses of worship as the central planners. Take back every single part of your local community. Start with your block, your neighbors; then the local community using churches, synagogues and worship centers; enjoin civic and business groups and clubs including Elks, VFW, Masonic Temples, Lions, shooting clubs and any others who are willing; and eventually with increasing success you will regain control of your community, then the county, and perhaps the state and a nation reborn working as was the original vision, from the bottom up with less power the higher in governance one rises. The community must become the highest nexus of power in the land in affecting individuals’ lives.

 

Finally to voting for either Trump or Clinton which we assume will be difficult no matter whom one has chosen, as this election places two very different choices with each having their own litany of sins against Hashem and against our laws. First thing we must remember as was taught by the sages and ever since and as the title of a short piece about mitzvah (deeds sanctified by Hashem and Torah) by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran titled, “Love the Sinner, Not the Sin.” This does not mean forget the sin but would recommend we investigate the person over the transgressions. The first question is are the allegations true as hearsay, rumor, innuendo, false accusations, lies and motivated accusations serving a desired end have ruined many people even beyond politics, and countless politicians through the ages. Plays and novels are written of such ruinous lies. Too bad many classics such as The Count of Monte Cristo are no longer on required reading lists as they teach valuable lessons in writing, morals and life. Then one need seek to see if the accused has taken ownership and made an honest repentance. Finally, if time has passed, do their current actions depict one who has altered their wrongful ways. Finally, if all else is not favorable, are there indicators the person wishes change. Vote your conscience, your heart, even your gut because there is one last little quibble which is about the uniqueness of the United States in today’s world. The United States is the sole backing of the modern free world by her own design. Here is a lesson for Donald Trump from that day in American History class that he apparently missed. At the end of World War II and as a part of setting up the newly liberated Europe the United States made a little demand largely of London but also Paris and Berlin. No longer was the United States going to come to the rescue Europe from another debacle and to make this a certainty the British were to scuttle much of their naval vessels making them scrap to be smelted and all three powers were to keep military strength below levels acceptable to the United States. In return, the United States would assist greatly in protecting them from outside threats, namely the U.S.S.R. There was no real demand for payment as not returning to end another conflict was payment enough.

 

The Ten Commandments

 

This deal passed down an unspoken but sacred in nature promise to the world which stretches back to the receiving of The Law at Mount Sinai. Let us trace from the giving of The Law, the Ten Commandments and Torah. Also reestablished was the basic code for civil society, the Noahic Code which was to be required to be accepted by those residing within Israelite Lands as the minimum of acceptable comportment. The code of Noah was spread along with the Ten Commandments throughout the greater campsite, both the Israelites and the others who sojourned with them from Egypt. These two camps went their separate ways after the initial fighting started claiming not to have any argument with the locals and some claim they fashioned boats and set off into the Great Sea (Mediterranean Sea). There has been some archeological evidence from gold and silver jewelry and many of the basic laws expounded by the early Greek philosophers with references to limited power of a king or ruler, rights of the individual, and even the republic which was reminiscent of the power structure of the tribes under Moses once his father-in-law, Jethro, suggested that he delegate and allow more local authority to tend to the minor and daily demands. From the Greeks, this freedom, liberty and individual rights covenant was passed to the Romans where it was written in the many languages of the empire. The covenant fell all but lost but reemerged in Britain with the Magna Carta. These ideas spread and with the birth of the United States exploded in France and were heard across the political and philosophical world. This covenant of freedom, liberty and individual rights was kept by Britain, France and attempted to spread to Germany by the Weimar Republic and Russia after the Czars with the Временное правительство России (Vremennoye pravitel’stvo Rossii or the government of the Russian Republic) though failing and falling to dictatorships much as France had after her revolution for Revolution de Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité which dissolved, bringing Napoleon while the Germans wrought Hitler and the Russians Lenin and Stalin.

 

 

Please let us never know what monster the dissolution of the United States governance based on freedom, liberty, individual rights and societal respect might produce. Just a little reminder of what values the United States fought for in the American Revolution and a hope that these elegant and humanely noble thoughts never be allowed removed from the human conscience. Next to the Bible they are probably the most noble of declarations of the holy spirit which resides in every person.

 

The Declaration of Independence

    July 4 1776

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

 

Declaration of Independence
of the United States of America

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Ancient Thoughts and the World Today

 

I read an e-mail article which listed what it claimed in its title to be “20 Quotes From Ancient Greek Philosophers That Liberals Still Don’t Understand” and four of these in particular got my brain reeling, drowning in swirling daydreams and thought perhaps it might be fun to share. I found myself gravitating to three philosophers where one was the most gifted student of the other and the other their sole peer. Below are the thoughts in decreasing order of relevance, or at least in ease of application and understanding. This dictates we tackle them in reverse order working from the sublime imperatives from which we then reach the inevitable brutal and undeniable truth.

 

“Republics decline into democracies and democracies

degenerate into despotisms.” – Aristotle

 

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs;

when he first appears he is a protector.” – Plato

 

“A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion,

a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.” — Socrates

 

“The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered

by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.” – Plato

 

 

Plato Socrates Aristotle

 

That places our starting point with Plato and the concept, “The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.” This is true in every government which depends on the opinions of the people discerned through an elective process. Be the system parliamentary, republic, direct democracy or other form where the voting public consists of eligibility of the greater part of the adult electorate and where promises gains votes those promises will come fast and loose. This will inevitably lead to greater and greater promises which will become more and more immediate often inventing problems and difficulties which are designed for easy quick solutions which can be readily enacted and implemented despite there being no reality to both the invented problem and an easy answer. Everything becomes something which requires an immediate solution and this demand continues to grow and now the people soon demand that even the greatest difficulties of the world be solved with the same brilliance, alacrity and without difficulty or complications. The expectations have become unrealistic but then when the people are demanding miracles, those who desire to hold office will make promises which they know cannot be solved with promises which they know will never be solved and only lead to greater problems as the half measures designed as quick actions which are definitive, definitive failures causing more and deeper problems. The demand for immediacy by the public eventually leads to the need for a savior.

 

That brings us to the next quote from Socrates which states, “A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.” This is where taking the false promises of charlatans who are the sole makers of empty promises selling them as definitive solutions to the most knotty and complex of problems starts us down a slippery slope. These have the ability to sell a framing of the problem in such a way that their solution appears obvious but nobody seems to think why if the solution which now appears so simple, easy and immediate that it did not appear for the last body of officials. Nobody wants to question whether the defining of the problem has been molded and crafted simply to facilitate the elevation of the individual and not done to reach a viable solution. These charlatans always play emotional weaknesses and know the desires of the people more than they understand the problems but emotionalism plays well, think Donald Trump with one difference, imagine Trump with a solution to the Middle East which is easy, immediate and apparently just hidden from view in such a way that only Trump could see it. Of course Donald Trump has not put forth such a solution and instead has simply sold that things will be great, trust Trump, great. Well, it is so completely different than Yes We Can. Both “Make America Great Again” and “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth” are empty boasts on which all problems can be put aside as the personality is sufficient to repair every problem. These set up a system of morality which is made of empty platitudes that caught the people up in an emotional defining of the world and choosing a leader purely on emotion which eventually leads to disappointment making the situation primed for the next step.

 

We go back to Plato where we read, “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” When the solutions are minimized such that false solutions become the norm, we reach a mire so deep that only a savior is believed to be the only possible solution. A person who is charismatic and has a plan, a plan that sweeps the public up with the promises, causes them to fall head over heels for the man with the plan which will heal their nation and restore it to greatness and return every glory which was once true and real. The savior and restorer of the greatness are seen as one who will revamp the government and streamline the process and accomplish that which formerly was not possible. The protector comes with promises if only you can and will trust what he knows must be executed to bring about the future promised by this protector. The promise is that once they are loosed from the restriction built into government and being freed from the tethers designed to limit and constrain government, but the savior cannot be constrained by such petty inconveniences. The releasing of the tethers and streamlining the methodology leads only one place, tyranny, and tyranny inevitably leads to one thing, despotic ruin.

 

This last revelation finished the slide defined so accurately by Aristotle who stated, “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.” The Republic was seen as the finest form of governance no matter the style, be it direct elections, parliamentary or anything between or alongside where the people hold the power and the government has to respect the people’s power. With time the republic governance reaches a point where their society actually needs minimal government and definitely does not need any interventions, new laws, programs or anything else but the government has to find relevance in order to form promises around which will grant them the support of the people and result in their next election. This leads to demagoguery and populism which tend to bring an end to the slow and deliberate governance and replace it with governance which has a tendency to divide the populace into groups based on positions on issues, some real and some manufactured by the politicians themselves. Such governance works by promising larger groups of citizens benefits which will be paid for by smaller groups treasure, usually unwarranted wealth made by abusing the workers and these political riders of white horses topped with a wide brimmed white Stetson hat riding off into the sunset after collecting the votes of the masses. This results in a government which will end in bloated inefficiency where the promises have far outstripped revenue collection and has built a deficit which only grows along with the government. The collection institutions are inefficient often using half the collected wealth simply to finance their department making it obvious an impediment to balancing the budget as that cost is rarely figured into the formulas promoted by the political charlatans.

 

As noted above the situation reaches some critical point where the population is primed for a savior, the one who can return sanity and prosperous times. This promise keeps growing and as this savior has made some progress they start to complain how the government itself is preventing them from rescuing the society from itself. Slowly but surely they strip down the government taking over one layer after another until they no longer stand for reelection, their continued leadership has been accepted as permanent. Soon the other governing bodies are replaced with sycophants and lackeys making them simply the echoes of the dictator allowing for them to hold ultimate power and makes for efficiency in all operations which saves revenue which further permits the dictator to show success after success.

 

But even an all-powerful dictator runs into problems eventually as they too continue promising more and more until it becomes necessary to find new sources of revenues. This has historically led to wars which eventually make for the end of the rule of dictators as once they start to attack neighbors, the neighbors are likely to form alliances and end the spread and conquest of the dictator and after conquest the people may eventually make their way back to representative governance. The one rule is that the generation which falls and allows the rise of a demigod will not return to free governance with it more often taking many years, even centuries, before the people will be permitted to rule themselves. This is evident today as Europe and the Western world is slowly lurching its way down that well-worn path to ruin while developing nations have shown a sign of seeking to develop representative republic governance, what Aristotle, Plato and Socrates all believed was the most favorable form of governance.

 

Where on this merry-go-round your nation is can be figured simply by measuring the freedom each has as an individual and the size and scope of the governance. In all situations where the people are more powerful than the government and are capable of changing the entirety of their legislature and their leaders with regular elections, that would point to a society with a great deal of freedom and is a republic. With the power shared or favoring the government agencies over the people, then one is likely no longer in a republic but in a mere democracy, a good place from which an engaged population can turn things around. But if the governance is under a single person or small cabal which is unelected and not dependent on the approval of the people and rule as they wish, that is the final stop of a democracy where it dies and will not be reborn during the lifetime of any of its citizens, even any infants born during the year of the final elections, a meaningless election at that.

 

That is both the end of freedom and the start of the path back to liberty, freedom and the rights of man. The unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of humankind has never known freedom or even truly elected governance and probably never will. For this majority of the planet will require great expenditures by the free world to instruct, educate, form and develop the basics, principles and understanding of the mechanisms required. After the entire world finds itself on the merry-go-round where we slide from freedom to despotism and finally revolution and a return to republic and the new optimism which will eventually end in disappointment until humankind learns to control their appetites and refuse to follow demigods who promise perfection and untold riches and joys, delivering none of them and few promises being realized. Perhaps that is our fate or maybe we will eventually learn to control our slide of our own personal weaknesses. Perhaps we will learn and our species finally break free of petty differences, greed and acting in a manner which eventually leads to our subjugation when our greed outpaces our good sense. Perhaps.

 

Beyond the Cusp