Jeff Davis
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Jeff Davis is a retired radio-TV journalist living in Gainesville, GA. Active in
civic and political affairs, he is past president of the Georgia Jaycees and former campaign chairman of the Georgia
Republican party. He volunteers as chairman of the Georgia Heritage Council.
He is a collateral descendant of President Jefferson Davis and a member of SCV Camp 1404 in Gainesville and National
Chairman of Public Relations and Media for SCV.
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Steve Scroggins is a volunteer contributor to the Georgia
Heritage Council who lives in Macon. He is the deranged creative force behind the
X-Files parody and satire feature.
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Steve Scroggins
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The Perils of Democracy, Part 5
The Enemy Within, continued... -
Commentary by J. A. Davis & Steve Scroggins
"The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly
defended." -- Frederic Bastiat
In
Part 4
of this series, we discussed the subversion of our Constitution by federal courts, by our leaders who failed to
preserve, protect and defend it, and by special interest groups. Ultimately, the people must bear part of the
responsibility for the subversion and destruction of the Constitution. After all, they continue to re-elect
career liars to Congress in the hopes that their representative can out-steal the other people's representatives and bring
home more bacon than their district or their state paid into the system----or based on the promise to deliver
the impossible and have someone else pay for it.
In terms of elected President, the American people
apparently have come to expect and desire an omnipotent Sugar-Daddy to take care of their every need and want rather than a servant, a chief
executive and civil commander-in-chief. According to the
surveys published
each year on President's Day, the American people and various court historians most admire those Presidents who most savagely trampled the
Constitution, those who seized powers far outside the limits of the Constitution. Two of the worst abusers, Lincoln
and FDR consistently rank in the top three.
There is a lot of myth and disinformation published about these
tyrannical figures, but that is an inadequate defense of the rankers. As we noted in
Part 1, historical ignorance
is a major contributor to the People's dereliction of duty and their inability to govern themselves and guard their own
liberty.
Robert Higgs, in his essay entitled,
"Instead of Stimulus, Do Nothing---Seriously,"
wrote that, "Until the 1930s, the Constitution served as a major constraint on federal economic
interventionism." Author Walter Williams, in his essay entitled,
"To Hell With Our Constitution,"
responded to Higgs' observation by noting a more
significant fact: "By bringing up the idea of constitutional restraints on Washington, I'd say Dr. Higgs is
whistling Dixie. Americans have long ago abandoned respect for the constitutional limitations placed on the
federal government. Our elected representatives represent that disrespect." [emphasis added by the authors]
In the early 1930s, the economy (world-wide) was in bad shape, and Americans elected FDR who promised to use the power of
government to fix everything. Of course, his New Deal "stimulus package" made matters worse and lengthened the recession into a
Depression. Along the way, FDR trampled the Constitution, enlarged government power, and created the Ponzi scheme
known as Social Security. Americans rewarded him by electing him four times. Evidently by that point, a
majority of Americans believed that government was more of a solution rather than the problem itself.
FDR used technology and charisma to hoodwink Americans. His Fireside Chats on radio
were some of the first uses of electronic media to persuade. Rather than persuasion in cold hard print, where the mind more easily
detects deception and challenges disinformation, FDR's silver-tongued oratory came across as personal chats. He apparently
convinced many Americans that his destruction of the Constitution was necessary and represented a triumph of "democracy" over
the "outdated" parchment.
FDR effectively discredited the Constitution (per the Communist plan documented in
The Naked Communist
discussed in Part 1)
by characterizing the Constitution as "inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to
cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis." As the Founders predicted, a crisis would be used as the pretext
for the seizure of unauthorized power. Analysis of some fireside chats ---what Samuel Adams called "the artifices of
false and designing men"--- will follow in future commentary.
Not everyone was beguiled by FDR's charm. The U.S. Supreme Court resisted
FDR and issued some 1600 injunctions to prevent the enactment of much of the New Deal stimulus passed by Congress.
FDR threatened to pack the court and the court, in short, caved in. Evidently, the American people
supported FDR's egregious actions
and as Williams noted, they more or less said, "To hell with our constitution."
In Part 4,
we included a longer quote from Robert Higgs, but a shorter excerpt echoes the preceding paragraph and offers a motive:
"The trouble is....the American people have little interest in liberty. Instead, they want the
impossible....they want it now and they want somebody else to pay for it."
At the end of Part 4,
we promised to discuss the "moral change" in America. As we noted in
Part 3,
the Founders believed that Liberty and
the Republic they designed could only be maintained by a moral and virtuous people.
"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is
a chimerical idea." ---James Madison
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government
of any other." -- John Adams
Does "a moral and virtuous people" expect someone else to pay for their comfort and welfare? As we already
noted, there was a time when most Americans recoiled at the idea of accepting the charity of others or
government handouts; they took great pride in being self-supporting, even if their living conditions were harsh.
When did America change from a country of self-reliant rugged individualists to a nation of moochers and whiners who want
to live in comfort and without WORK at someone else's expense? When did Americans decide the Nanny State
should take care of them? From before FDR's New Deal to LBJ's War on Poverty to Obama's "Change" stimulus we have
stumbled from relative liberty to slavery and dependence.
Of course, the urge to spend public money on charitable efforts has always been with us. In 1794, there were
such proposals and James Madison's reaction was to remind proponents of the Constitution's wise
restrictions. "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a
right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
The Founding Principles
included respect for private property as a fundamental support to liberty. The Founders
knew that the surest way for Man to become dependent on and subservient to government was for government to
control his property and labor (high taxation). In
Federalist Paper #79,
Alexander Hamilton writes that, "In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence
amounts to a power over his will." The underlying philosophy is that "Man is endowed with the capacity of
being economically self-reliant and independent, without the need of being supported by his creature and tool:
government." We know that governments do not create wealth or produce anything; they can only take the property
of citizens and redistribute it to favored others.
The Declaration of Independence affirms that governments are instituted by people to protect their
God-given inalienable rights including their rights in private property. When governments become more "energetic"
than is necessary for only that purpose, they become oppressive.
Embedded in this philosophy is the basic Protestant/Calvinist tradition of work ethic. There is a
recognition that every right comes with a responsibility. God's 8th Commandment is "Thou shalt not steal."
From this, many derive the moral conviction that God expects us to earn our own living.
Christianity and
American tradition induce us to be charitable and willing to help others, but that is traditionally a local
and voluntary action with no coercion by government whatsoever. The ideas and precepts of socialism, collectivism and
egalitarian ideology are the polar opposite of the tradition of Work Ethic and they are contrary to the
Founding Principles.
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
--Benjamin Franklin
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he
disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people under the pretense of taking care of them." --Thomas Jefferson
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of
good government." --Thomas Jefferson,
First Inaugural Address, March 1801
H. L. Mencken had it right when he wrote of 20th century socialists and progressives,
"the urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." Do Americans really
want to avoid personal responsibility so badly that they prefer to be ruled by elite socialists?
All of us know or knew people with a strong self-reliant streak.
Charlie Daniels expressed their attitude well in the choral refrain of his song "Long Haired Country Boy":
"I ain't asking nobody for nothin', if I can't get it on my own...." Frank Gillispie concluded his
essay on Work Ethic,
with these words: "My grandfather who spent most of his life as a
sharecropper considered it a major insult to have to live on charity. He took pride in the fact that he
kept his family fed, clothed and housed by his own efforts. We need to get back to that particular
"family value."
Self-reliance is not only a family value, it's a western moral tradition. But as all the evidence shows, that
tradition is rapidly dying. In his essay entitled
"A Nation of Thieves,"
author Walter Williams writes about a
book entitled
"Stealing from Each
Other - How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit", by Edgar K. Browning. The book details
the moral infection spreading from the failed socialist concept. It's no surprise that the programs simply don't work.
Egalitarian and equalitarian
ideology is anathema to a free society and to Adam Smith's
Invisible Hand. Socialist ideology
is based on collective theft.
Examples abound in the record of American Presidents honoring their oath to preserve the Constitution by vetoing
benevolent spending legislation, not necessarily because the spending's purpose was objectionable, but because
the spending is not authorized
by the Constitution. James Madison vetoed a public works bill
in 1817 with these prophetic words:
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the
general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every
State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the
education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision
of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing,
from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under
the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would
subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America." --- James Madison
The general tendency to obey the Constitution (excluding Lincoln's notable exception) and restrain public
spending on unauthorized purposes came to an
abrupt end in the 1930s. As we already noted, FDR's trampling of the Constitution and "transmuting" of limited
government was rewarded by his repeated re-election. Government further expanded during World War Two. The U.S.
spent more money winning World War Two than in all the previous years' budgets combined. The subsequent Cold War
brought the rise of the Military Industrial Complex --- a permanent armaments industry. (This will be
discussed in future commentary.)
But in addition to corporate welfare to arm the warfare
state, we expanded government still further with LBJ's "War On Poverty." LBJ's programs spawned several generations
of dependent people with a sense of entitlement who believe that society owes them lifelong support. Furthermore,
these government dependents are trapped in poverty, kept on the grievance plantation by demagogues who harvest their
votes.
Demagogues and race hustlers reinforce their attitudes and use "white guilt" to extort monies from the treasury
claiming that racism continues to hold a segment of the population in poverty against their will. Politicians
incite class warfare to suggest that people with wealth somehow stole it from the poor and should be compelled
to give it back (via taxation) to the poor. Of course, very few recognize that the poor receive very little of
the monies taken and ostensibly spent for their benefit. Corruption ensures that many middlemen get their cut first and
the poor get only the dregs.
Politicians exploit government dependents for their votes knowing all the while that government cannot ultimately
solve their problems. There is no desire or intent to solve the problem; that would render these politicians without a
constituent power base --- the votes to stay in power.
Several generations of Nanny State dependents illustrate the folly of government solutions. Government
payments have rendered fathers unnecessary---in fact, penalized--- as economic providers. Hence, we have 80% of
black children born to unwed mothers (compared to 25% for white children). Illiteracy, crime and a score of social
problems plague these children of the Nanny State. The destruction of the traditional nuclear family wreaks havoc
in many ways, seen and unseen.
Federal meddling in education has indoctrinated several generations of Americans with a twisted idea of the
Constitution and how our central government should work. Traditional work ethic is being replaced with the
slacker/hippie idea that "work is for chumps." Get a job and much of what you earn is taken in taxes....and then you lose
many government benefits for making the effort. It's easier and more economically rewarding to just let the
government care for you. These people spend all their intellectual energy and talent learning and exploiting
ways to "milk the system."
Working and taxpaying citizens have been excessively taxed for so long that too many are willing to go along
with theft, to support class warfare, to rationalize that it's OK for them to take a small piece of the pie. After all,
they think, look
at all the loafers who live on my tax dollar. Yeah! Let's soak the rich! Take the money from Bill Gates so
that I won't have to pay so much. We need to establish in the public mind that income
redistribution, by whatever names it's called, is theft and theft is always wrong.
It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of
others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. -- Thomas Jefferson
It seems that restoring our Constitution to practice will involve restoring America's traditional work
ethic and its moral compass. Author Joseph Sobran was right to note that "Too many Americans depend on
government money under
programs the Constitution doesn't authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy.
Ignorant people don't understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their
names on them."
The authors acknowledge that we can't muster eloquence to match Shakespeare, much less the eloquence to outdo a
government check, but we know that sooner or later the government's Hotel of Impossible Promises will
start to crumble at a faster and faster rate. We need to arm a minimum number of "watchful" patriots with knowledge
and to assure the word gets passed so that we are prepared when the time is right.
It has been noted that if we restore the Constitution to practice, we will have overthrown the current
government. Socialist democracies always self-destruct and, it appears, we won't have to wait very long.
When that happens, the Constitution is there for the people to
rally around --- if enough can see the wisdom of doing so.
Obviously, our Constitution requires the acceptance of responsibility,
it requires self-reliance, it requires the discipline and vigilance to insist
on only a literal reading, and to discard the absurd notion of a "living document." We must insist on the
rule of law rather than the whim of a tyrannical democratic majority or Nanny State elite rulers.
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another
form." ---Jefferson Davis
"Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which
those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of
their political creed." ---Thomas Jefferson
In Parts 1 through 5, we have reviewed the original intent and
Founding Principles of
our Constitution's Framers. We reviewed the God-given nature of our rights and government's sole purpose to protect
those Rights. We reviewed the pathetic track-record of failure for every democracy and socialist government in human history. We
have discussed the political, economic and moral forces that have combined to subvert and pervert the republic defined
in the Constitution into the welfare/warfare
leviathan State of today. We
reviewed the array of forces threatening the complete obliteration of the remaining threads of the Constitution.
In Part 6 of this series, we come to... Decision Time.
Contact: Telephone 770 297-4788 P-6, 2363 North Cliff Colony Drive Gainesvlle,
GA 30501
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