by Chuck Rogér
What can we expect when a majority of Americans finally comes to terms with a disgusting reality that H.L. Mencken exposed 71 years ago? In an article titled “The Suicide of Democracy,”1 Mencken wrote:
In an ideal democracy, [the citizen] learns, property is at the disposal, not of its owners, but of politicians, and the chief business of politicians is to collar it by fair means or foul, and redistribute it to those whose votes have put them in office.
The Fathers of the Republic, who seem to have been men of suspicious minds, apparently foresaw that the theory of democracy might develop along such lines, and they went to some trouble to prevent it. Their chief device to that end was the scheme of limited powers. Rejecting the old concept of government as a kind of primal entity, they tried to make it a mere creature of the people. So far it could go, but no further. Within its proper province it had all the prerogotives that were necessary to its existence, but beyond that province it had none at all. It could do what it was specifically authorized to do, but nothing else. The Constitution was simply a record specifying its bounds. The Fathers, taught by their own long debates, knew that efforts would be made, from time to time, to change the Constitution as they had framed it, so they made the process as difficult as possible, and hoped that they had prevented frequent resort to it. Unhappily, they did not foresee the possibility of making changes, not by formal act, but by mere political intimidation — not by recasting its terms, but by distorting their meaning. If they were alive today, they would be painfully aware of their oversight. The formal revisions of the Constitution have been relatively few, but at this moment it is completely at the mercy of a gang of demagogues consecrated to reading into it governmental powers that are not only wholly foreign to its spirit, but categorically repugnant to its terms.
Dishonest, manipulative, agenda-consumed politicians who hold power will not easily surrender that power. Today, an overwhelmingly “progressive” mainstream media feed progressive politicians’ lies as truth directly to the people, thereby reinforcing the lies, giving the lies credibility in the minds of a mostly gullible electorate. The education establishment distorts school curricula and softens the brains of the young, creating sponges eager to soak up the media-reinforced political untruths.
But when the growing awareness of this nastiness reaches a critical mass, just what kind of ugly revolt will America be in for? Just what will happen when the cries of ”Stop!” reach deafening levels but the ruling class elites ignore the calls?
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1 H.L. Mencken, A Second Mencken Chrestomathy, Vintage Books, 1994, p. 49.
What “People?” If the USA will not stop the tsunami of new (and mostly illegal) immigrants, the Constitutionalists will become a minority in their own country. The overwhelming majority of the new immigrants have no real understanding of what Freedom is because they never experienced it in the “Old Country.” They, if at all, have a negative opinion of constitutions in general, because (like in the Soviet union) it was used to opress them. When they turn into a majority, the Declaration and the Constitution are as dead as the Dodo. Wake Up America!
1. We must fight voter apathy – tell everyone you know to get up to speed with what is going on and vote. There is no excuse for half the population, majority of whom are of conservative leaning, not to bother to vote on election day. Democracy ignored is liberty forfeited.
2. We must become active in PTAs and school boards to stop the cultural Marxism that has taken over our schools over the past half a century. Most well meaning people are like sheep unfortunately.
If taken from us all at once it would be noticed but it is taken from us piecemeal; incrementally.
To cite but one example, how many notice the 10th amendment is missing in action? How many notice that, as both Jefferson and Madison warned us, Congress has slipped the chains of Article 1, Section 8 and taken possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.
The destruction of the Constitution is not the event Mencken implied in his article, but a process occurring over many decades and done both to and by the citizens whose liberty it was meant to secure.