By
M.
Richard Maxson
What
a treasure our Constitution has
been
and how easy it
is
to take for granted. In a world facing accelerating change and
division, it’s a gift to have an anchor that keeps our freedoms
secure. Unfortunately,
our government today is not the constitutionally restrained protector
of personal freedoms the Framers left us. It has morphed into a
quasi-Socialist entity that the majority of the elite uses to forward democracy,
something the Founding Fathers never wanted. Our
Founders saw democracy as a variant of tyranny.
The
Framers believed in the presumption of liberty, which declares that
we are free to make personal choices, and the government cannot
interfere with our liberties unless we violate the rights of others.
The ideal way to organize human conduct is to
create a system that maximizes personal liberty for all.
They did this in a number of ways, including
establishing a system of federalism, which divided powers between the
federal and state governments. They also specifically enumerated
powers granted to the federal Congress and added the Bill of Rights,
which expressly restricted Congress' encroachment on a panoply of
individual liberties and also included the ninth and 10th amendments,
which reserve powers to the states and the people.
Yes,
America’s
Founders
abhorred the idea of democracy, which is why they fashioned a
constitutional republic with separation of powers between the states
and the central government and within the national government. Plus,
national borders and meaningful citizenship.
In
Federalist 10, James Madison warned of the dangers of a pure
democracy without republican safeguards:
“[S]uch
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.”
Other
Framers were just as adamant.
At
the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said, "...that
in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the
turbulence and follies of democracy." 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." Alexander Hamilton said, "We are now
forming a Republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in
the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline
too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some
other form of dictatorship."
It
is not a co-incidence that the
word democracy appears in none of our founding documents.
The
Founders recognized that we need some
form of government, but because the
essence of government is force, and force is evil, government should
be as small as possible. The Founders intended for us to have a
limited republican form of government where human rights precede
government and there is rule of law. Citizens, as well as government
officials, are accountable to the same laws. Government intervenes in
civil society only to protect its citizens against force and fraud,
but does not intervene in the cases of peaceable, voluntary exchange.
By contrast, in a democracy, the majority rules either directly or
through its elected representatives. The law is whatever the
government deems it to be at this time. Rights may be granted or taken away.
In
the 21st century the Founders could have never envisioned
Americans warping the meaning of the document in order to promote
Democratic Socialism as the country’s future. The continuous
twisting of the constitution to justify their Leftist agenda is
nothing short of disgusting to true Patriots. As the nation continues
the drift towards Democratic Socialism all Patriots must ask
themselves – Are we too late?
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