WHAT IS A REPUBLIC?

 by       

       M. Richard Maxson

      The word republic is from the Latin res,which means thing affair, or interest, and publica which means of everybody.  It literally means everybody's  thing or interest.  The Declaration of Independence contains the principle of republican government: that all men are created with equal, unalienable rights, that governments are formed by men to secure these rights, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Upon these principles, our forefathers established a body of law called the Constitution of  the United States to which they added a Bill of Rights as the first ten amendments to further restrict majority rule. 

  
       The essence of a republic is the rule of law, by which is meant the common or scientific
 law, which is certain and unchangeable. This law is discovered, not made,in that the
 tendency is to find the freedoms and restraints imposed by natural law, and base decisions 
upon them ("Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them," wrote Tom Paine)
 Since human nature doesn't change, what was right yesterday should be so today and 
tomorrow. Courts seek out and enforce a higher law as opposed to political or man-made
 law. As a result, the law seeks truth, transcends politics, is reasonable, consistent,
 predictable, and reflects or approximates natural justice. Government acts like a shield 
punishing the abuses of freedoms - assaults against the life, liberty, and property of 
innocent people - not the freedoms themselves. For example, the misuse of a firearm which 
 results in injury to an innocent party would be punished rather than the mere possession 
of such a weapon. Officers of the law are appropriately called peace officers, for they do 
not enforce political law, but protect everyone equally from force and fraud The military is 
used as a last resort to protect the nation.  

        Moral authority rests outside the political class who are held to a high moral standard through public pressure. Government's purpose is to protect rights and defend freedom. Taxes are voluntary assessments used to fund legitimate government functions serving the common good (in obedience to John Adams’ dictum that "No man may be taxed against his will...").

      Under this form of government, individual freedom and responsibility are maximized. The individual is sovereign and his rights are sacrosanct. Individuals are free to act without permission, but must never impose without consent. Everyone has an equal right to compete in the marketplace, succeed or fail on their own, and pursue their own happiness restrained only by the rights of others to do the same. Republics reject as a danger to liberty the public interest doctrine espoused in democracies. In a republic, the government has just enough power to carry out its proper functions, but is otherwise limited, inhibited and restricted. 

      Power is decentralized, divided, and regulated by an elaborate system of checks and balances, with the ultimate check held by the people in the form of free and open elections (the ballot box), trial by jury(the jury box), and an armed citizenry (the cartridge box). The law is neutral. No one is exempt; everyone is equal before it. All are held fully accountable to an injured party.

       In a republic, government is an instrument solely for collective security in which the 
people are served rather than regulated, represented rather than ruled. When the
principles of republican government are followed, free markets spring up automatically
followed by a growing middle class, abundance, harmony, a high degree of liberty, and
ethical behavior. The emphasis is on the creation of wealth, not the accumulation of 
power as in a democracy.

      Thomas Paine had a premise that: Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary
evil: in its worst state. An intolerable one. How far we have come from our Republic, 
our Founders ideals. Now, labeled an autocracy by the rest of the non-western world, 
we see this regime violating the constitution daily. We see the FBI weaponized and used
as the Stasi was in Communist East Germany. Retired members of the FBI, with decades
of experience, are shocked at what they are seeing in what was a country of laws. 
It is a sad time in the history of the states that were united. The wretched road from
republic to corporate socialist state continues.