Below is an overly simplified summary critique of a socioeconomic structure within a governance model. Can you identify which governance model or “ism” it pertains to/describes: Marxism, Fascism, Socialism, Monarchism, Feudalism, Democratic Corporatism (a.k.a. Capitalism without pure competition), or Communism?
* Concentrates the means of production, property, and wealth in the hands of an elite class.
* Generates a working class where workers are employable as long as they generate results in the form of production goals, increased capital, and profits. Collectively, workers provide the necessary resource that is human labor.
* In order to perpetuate and increase their wealth, the elite class expands and exploits globally, with the goal of bringing world populations under a single governing umbrella.
* Causes most human motivation to be driven by self-interest and monetary concerns for survival.
Not surprisingly, the four summary attributes above apply to all the “ism” choices named and more. And therein lies the trick of most politics: to frame everything through competing political lenses so people don't notice there is not a hair's width worth of difference in any of the governing models' socioeconomic outcomes.
Every model has an elite few Haves controlling most of the wealth and resources, as well as a super majority of Have-Nots doing their best to survive on a fraction of the abundance enjoyed by the Haves.
Socialism is Fascism is Monarchism is Communism and so it goes. All are top-down, centrally controlled operations that lean heavily authoritarian, and quick to turn oppressive if/when people do not comply.
Democracies worldwide are systemically no different. This is because democracies are little more than mob rule or rule by 51 percent, leaving the 49 percent to suck it up. State charters are easily set aside by leadership, often with no remedy (or remedies) for its people.
This is precisely what makes the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence so remarkably unique compared to all other such charters and human rights documents worldwide—as founding documents, they comprise the bedrock law of the land.
Our Three Civic Super Powers
Nothing supplants our U.S. Constitution – no legislation, no executive order, no judicial ruling, unless we Americans permit such violations. The true power underpinning our governance is the people's full and final authority via consent, facilitated by our three civic super powers – the vote, the jury and the purse – that provide the civic tools with which to exercise our authorities … unless we cede them voluntarily via amendment(s), or by withdrawing consent, or by cowardly silence allowing the Administrative State to violate its way to power.
There is a Constitutional pecking order to keep in mind. Essentially, the only authority given to elected representatives and/or government bureaucrats is agency authority via the three Branches – Executive, Legislative, and Judicial – expressly delegated by our consent via the U.S. and State Constitutions, and assigned as contract by sworn oaths of office to uphold its mandates, including the nonnegotiable constitutional protection of our individual inalienable rights, gifted from God as part of our humanity (not bestowed by any government) and memorialized in these founding documents.
Sadly, most Americans have lost all connection with this extraordinary truth concerning our governance. The U.S. Constitution is a clear and present danger to the Precious' global agenda because Americans are foundationally governed by our own consent, our own inherent authority as sovereign individuals of a declared sovereign nation, originally founded as a Constitutional Republic.
As such, we are tasked with the oversight of our Republican form off government, from the legislature and judiciary to our military/Pentagon, intelligence agencies, DOJ and FBI, DHS, HHS, CDC, EPA, USDA, and the remaining 35-plus executive agencies – a responsibility we have utterly abdicated en masse, allowing an impostor, the administrative state, to usurp our authority by increasingly violating our rights and their oaths with impunity.
Why Would Leaders Risk Accountability When We Do Nothing?
Imagine for a moment that you are an elected politician or a bureaucrat, observing on a regular basis, fellow public servants' unrestrained grift, graft, grand theft, subterfuge, sabotage, perhaps even sedition, along with shocking levels of cheating and lying to the American people, all facilitated by the mainstream corporate media.
You recognize that much of this unethical, unlawful activity is blatantly obvious and detected, yet largely un-objected to by leadership, ever protected by the legacy media, and mindlessly ignored by the public, therefore completely unaccountable.
Why on Earth would you risk your livelihood, reputation, or future advantage by exposing any of it when voters could care less, evidenced by consistently reelecting the same scoundrels, both Democrats and Republicans, regardless?
Our Republic is failing primarily because we the people are no longer doing our part in holding government accountable. For this form of governance to work, our collective oversight is critical. The three branches will always cleave to each other to gain power, making our role arguably the most important one of all. We must jealously protect and exercise each of our super powers as needed because the Administrative state's efforts to systematically undermine them into oblivion is escalating.
Older Americans (Boomers) have forgotten their civic super powers, while most younger Americans [GenX, Millennials, GenZ(Zoomers)] never learned they have them. Whose fault is that?
I envision a time when enough Americans grasp these super powers (1) in their individual vote, (2) as a juror, and (3) with a hyper vigilance for where government specifically spends our taxes (the purse). Instead of anger, frustration, and impotent political division, imagine containing/eliminating funding (federal, state, local) of those things we resolutely reject by engaging in those processes up close and personal.
Consider all the negative energy, obscenely financed by taxes and billionaire donors, that maintains a highly toxic political arena of Democrat versus Republican, which inevitably means uni-party collaboration on behalf of special interests at the expense and betrayal of average taxpayers who ultimately pay for it all.
Elections have become selections of candidates who almost exclusively serve both American and foreign oligarchs (industry mega corps), and special interests who pay to play. Representation of America's constituency at large, the people, no longer prevails. So no more excuses because that epic failure to follow the Constitution is our fault for abdicating our super powers.
The time has arrived to reclaim our three civic super powers with all that entails with fierce determination. Transparency, access, oversight, accountability, cooperation, and consistency are the non-negotiables for engaging with our elected representatives and bureaucrats, all of whom ultimately answer to us, not the other way around.
Finally, practice leaving politics out when engaging with government, whether local, state, or federal. Politics is a fictitious foil and deliberate distraction designed to set us apart and obstruct, if not derail, our civic oversight. Instead be steady, considerate, and communicative. Eventually all parties should rise with such a committed, professional and productive raised bar.
The Declaration of Independence is provided for a careful read in celebration of July 4, 2024. Let the enormity and gravitas of this stunning document penetrate. The word Democracy is not found here because the word does not apply, as America is a Republic. The Declaration of Independence is a near-perfect proclamation asserting that to secure our inherent rights “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
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 endeavored 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 benefits 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 compleat 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 Brittish 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.
Signatories:
Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Massachusetts
John Hancock
Maryland
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
New York
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire
Matthew Thornton
Suggested articles about the Declaration from the National Archives
The article "The Declaration of Independence: A History," provides a detailed account of the Declaration, from its drafting through its preservation today at the National Archives.
"The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence" by Stephen Lucas. By closely examining its language, this perceptive article sheds light on the Declaration as a work of literature and of persuasion. From Prologue, Spring 1990.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the first part of the Declaration of Independence. It later provided the foundation for the Bill of Rights.
