Having rejected the democracy model, the Framers defined a representative republic with elected representatives to speak for the peoples of the several states. Misinformed Americans fail to understand the contradiction when they vehemently argue that every citizen has the right to personally be involved in voice and vote on virtually every issue regardless of its relevance to the strictly limited central government's powers enumerated by the Constitution.

We often hear these folks talking about democracy, or representative democracy based on the representatives being instructed by public plebiscite on key issues.

Seldom do they ever recognize the distinction and refer to our Republic or those we elect to represent us with their own wisdom subject only to the consent of the governed, meaning, they can be re-called in some cases, or certainly defeated at their next election cycle.

Under this successful format the Republic has survived many leftward thrusts to remake it a democracy---- all the way to individuals being able to control every social or cultural issue they currently are crusading for or against.

In many countries this form of democracy is unofficially known as Communitarianism. It is, or has been, the popular vogue in Europe. For more information or examples, read some of our previous articles on the subject. Essentially, it contends that collectivist "community" rights trump individual rights. In essence, communitarianism advocates the Majority Unlimited aspect of democracy.

Communitarianism is being taught in American law schools and has indeed found its way into local governments throughout the United States.

Starving chickens come home to eat. Now, and indeed throughout history, all these expeditions into the various forms of democracy are sinking under their own weight, which includes the pursuit of Utopia, mass corruption and copy-cat stupidity. Like the democracies of antiquity and the socialist/communist regimes of the 20th century, modern socialist democracies are self-destructing as a direct result of unsound fiscal policy and oppression of minorities ....in Madison's words "as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death."

We have the recent news of the bankruptcy of Iceland and collapse of its government. Iceland, where the major banks have been taken over by the government, the people have lost the value of their currency. Riots and civil strife have broken out throughout the land.

Observers anticipate similar strife following closely in a number of other nations across Europe, beginning most likely in Latvia, (more than 10,000 just rioted there) then, probably the Ukraine. Hungary and Bulgaria are not far behind. Bailout talk in the U.S. has been equated by some to nationalizing the U.S. banking system and we're led to ask, "How close is America to following the democratic communitarian lemmings over the cliff?"

Please don't think we're trying to spread doom and gloom. We're concerned based on knowing the history of world wide economic collapse.

There is only so much a U. S. Treasury or the American taxpaying public can and should do. The same is true of the International Monetary Fund which is emulating the U.S. bailouts in Europe, or trying to.

New tricks like changing the currency in Europe, or printing more money in the U. S. without regard to the crushing debt that is mounting to almost impossible totals and that can never be repaid within the lifetimes of distant generations of our descendants.

Another perilous trick, we have various special interest groups pressing for a Constitutional Convention (Con Con for short) in order to address various political issues such as balanced budget, flag-burning, abortion, etc. As we've noted before, there are many (70% according to polls) who favor the abolition of the U.S. electoral college (designed by the Framers) in favor of a nationalist, presumably more 'democratic,' popular vote model. There are currently 32 state legislatures calling for a con con, that's just two shy of the 34 required to make it mandatory. We stand on that precarious precipice looking down into the abyss of the unknown.

Following the propaganda masquerading as 'news,' we see gathering interest in further restricting or revising the Bill of Rights. Proposals include eliminating the Second Amendment, regarding individual gun rights. There are proponents suggesting the revision of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, regarding speech and personal safety, including government intrusion---all in the name of "security" against foreign and domestic threats. The Tenth Amendment, which is virtually ignored these days by the Congress and the courts, should be eliminated --- they say--- to avoid inconvenient misunderstandings.

Article Five of the Constitution provides two ways to legally amend the Constitution. We've never used one of them, the national Convention (con con) approach, since 1787.

Messing around with the Constitution is dangerous. Columnist Phyllis Schlafly aptly called Constitutional Conventions " playing Russian Roulette with the Constitution." We have never (since the first) held a Con Con. Doing so would open the entire document to complete replacement or revision into who knows what form. There is no legal way with a con con to limit revisions to a specific set of issues.

The alternative amendment method provided is to adopt specific Amendments by ratification of three fourths of the states (after proposal by 2/3 majorities of both Houses of Congress). That process is dangerous as well and that's why the Founders made it difficult to make changes. They understood runaway passions and the need for sober deliberation.

Look what has happened with the addition of the illegal (not properly ratified) Fourteenth Amendment, and the change in our balanced power distribution by the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment, which places the election of U. S. Senators in the very largest populated cities in each state, virtually eliminating the people of the vast majority of the geography in the state, and more importantly, stripping the needed and necessary powers of the state legislatures and giving them instead to the big city political machines and moneyed special interests.

The income taxes Lincoln passed during the War of Northern Aggression were not legal and were overturned after the war. The income tax was proposed in the 16th Amendment supposedly to enable tariff reform and maintain required revenue. Those who supported ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment legalizing (?? -- was it legal? ??) the income tax could not have imagined the volume and complexity of today's federal tax code. In 1913, it was proposed as a low flat percentage payable by only the very wealthy. Only incomes greater than $3,000 per year had to file and pay the one percent tax; the average worker made $520 per year. Now, we can clearly see that the Sixteenth Amendment enabled modern tax slavery.

Runaway partisan passions and long-term frustration threaten our form of government and its defining charter with a con con. Combine that with threats to our economic foundation---made worse by irresponsibly excessive taxation, debt and deficit spending, and we may have the "perfect storm" that threatens to tip America into a violent crisis.

With looming economic chaos, as has already been shown in Europe, we're in for a rough ride. So far, proposed American solutions seem to be "more government" meaning more spending and borrowing, much of which is headed down the same rat hole of corruption by the business elite and politicians of both parties that cater to the wishes of special interests with the taxpaying public ignored or trampled ---other measures are simply delaying the painful reckoning. FDR's "new deal" in the 1930s only made economic problems worse and delayed recovery. The bailouts of 2009 will only make matters worse.

The Founders wisely provided for us various measures to fire those who oppress or threaten us and to check their power-grabs. Unfortunately, crisis distracts normally vigilant patriots and provides cover for power-grabbers. Desperation and fear from a world wide crisis enable tyrants and usurpers to grab unauthorized powers, powers they never surrender when the crisis passes.

Lincoln's abuses are well documented. Woodrow Wilson expanded government broadly during World War I. FDR greatly expanded government powers during the Great Depression and even more during World War II. But following the crisis, the central government didn't recede to its pre-crisis levels.

The Declaration of Independence declares it our right and duty to alter or abolish governments that fail to protect our God-given rights including property rights--the ownership of our labor. We did just that in the first American Revolution and we came pretty close in the Second one---a struggle postponed to a later date. The old saw that the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance suggests that the struggle to get---and keep--- liberty never ends. Our current government is clearly way outside its original bounds. What do we do about it?

"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