The State of the Union: The Path to Tyranny continues

An essay this weekend at Politico looks at the similarities between the fall of the Roman Republic and the United States today. I was asked by a friend to give my opinion.

The parallels between the fall of the Roman republic and our country are so numerous. Decline of virtue. Loosening morals. Redistribution of wealth. Multiplicity and mutability of laws. Ignorance and disdain for religion and the Constitution (way of the elders). Debt and monetary devaluation. Panem et circenses.

In The Path To Tyranny (2010), I wrote, “As of 2009, the federal debt held by the public was 55 percent of GDP,[1080] a large but manageable amount. The debt was just 41 percent at the end of 2008 and the 40-year average is 36 percent. The problem though lies in the future, not the present. By 2035, the debt is projected to be between 79 and 181 percent of GDP and, by 2080, it is predicted to be between 283 and 716 percent of GDP. The United States is clearly on the road to bankruptcy if the situation does not improve. Given that the deterioration intensifies just after 2020, we have just ten years to fix our government. Ten years may sound like a long time, but barring a real revolution, one with guns and violence, governments rarely change that quickly. It has taken the progressives and modern liberals a hundred years to produce our large government, but we have just one-tenth the time to reverse the trend. Not just stop new spending programs, but actually reduce the current commitments of the U.S. government.”

Unfortunately, we have kicked the can down the road for the last four years. If anything, the fiscal problems have gotten worse, not better, and the political situation has certainly gotten worse.

What scared me most, short term, is that this economic recovery officially started five years ago. As far as recoveries go, this one is a little long in the tooth. Some time, we will experience another recession. Deficits will go from the current $700-$800 million up to $2 trillion or so. Starting from such a weak economy to begin with, it this recession hits sooner rather than later, the lower and middle classes will be hit hard and will demand action from the government. It is in the throes of such economic despair and political incompetence that power accumulates in a single hand. I truly believe we are just one recession away from seeing a Caesar in our country. The apparatus is already in place (executive orders, non-enforcement of the law, NSA spying, etc.). One good crisis is all that is needed.

Fortunately, I don’t see anyone on the horizon with the charisma and skills to be this Caesar. Caesar was a great man, a great warrior, great politician, and great speaker. Obama is none of those, though some think he speaks well. If he had been competent, he could have done even more damage. God bless incompetence. Hillary Clinton is no Caesar either. Fortunately, I don’t see one, but then I am not predicting a potential rise of a new Caesar in the immediate future. It won’t happen until after the next recession has run a number of years. Think of the German economic misery of the 1920s that gave rise to Hitler. It takes many years before the people give up hope and give up their freedoms. As I wrote four years ago, I am looking for such an event to take place around 2020, if we don’t fix our problems, which so far we have only made worse.

Another trailer for The Path to Tyranny

The Path to Tyranny book trailer

Tea Party Tyrants

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) called the tea party “tyrants” in a tweet on August 7 because its members supposedly blocked a bigger and better deal from being approved.

Disregarding what effect the tea party had on the debt ceiling negotiations, there is absolutely no comparison between the tea party and tyrants. Aristotle writes:

A tyrant, as has often been repeated, has no regard to any public interest, except as conducive to his private ends; his aim is pleasure.

The tea party has not promoted a single idea to promote its “private ends.” Instead, it has promoted ideas that it believes would benefit the entire nation. Democrats may disagree with the tea party’s agenda, but it is ridiculous to assert that the tea party’s “aim is pleasure.”

I can hear the liberals complaining that Aristotle’s definition of tyrant is old and out-dated. Let’s turn to a more modern and American definition. A definition that was essential in the creation of the Constitution and our republican. James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 47:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Let’s see here. The tea party controls none of the branches of government. In fact, the Republicans do not even fully control a branch of government. (They control half of the legislative branch and 5 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices could be considered Republican, but the Senate is Democrat as is the President.)

But James Madison wrote that more than two hundred years ago. Many liberals don’t think the Constitution and our Founding Fathers are relevant any more. So let’s check an even more recent definition, Merriam-Webster:

1
a : an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution
b : a usurper of sovereignty
2
a : a ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally
b : one resembling an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power

Hmm, the tea party fits none of those definitions either. The tea party is not an absolute ruler, has not usurped the nation’s sovereignty, is not a ruler with absolute power acting oppressively or brutally, and is not an oppressive ruler acting harshly.

I’d be very interested to hear by what definition the tea party are tyrants.

– Michael E. Newton is the author of the highly acclaimed The Path to Tyranny: A History of Free Society’s Descent into Tyranny. His newest book, Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers: The Fight for Control of the American Revolution, was released by Eleftheria Publishing in July.

President Obama: The Health Care Tyrant

The incoming governor of South Carolina challenged President Obama to repeal the health care bill. TheSunNews.com reports:

Obama rejected Haley’s request to repeal the health care bill – but said he’d consider letting states opt out of its mandates if they ran exchange programs, banned insurance firms from denying coverage of pre-existing conditions and enabled people to pool together for better rates.

Now, I must admit that I did not read the 2,600 page health care bill, so I don’t know if there is a provision that allows the President to issue such exemptions under those terms. Either way, this is very disturbing.

According to this story which is based on Nikki Haley’s comments afterward (there is no way to know what exactly the President said), President Obama “said he’d consider letting states opt out of its mandates…” He apparently is under no obligation to do so even if a state complies with his demands.

According to Obamacare or the government interpretation and enforcement of it, the President has dictatorial powers. The President can grant exemptions to whomever he pleases and deny exemptions to others who comply with the very same provisions.

We have already seen the government issue exemptions for individual corporations, but I was under the impression that there were strict rules to follow and those who follow those rules and apply for an exemption would get one. But now, at least with the states and maybe on the corporate side as well, the exemptions require Presidential approval and the President can make up his own rules.

Hail to the Health Care Tyrant!

Britain on the path to tyranny?

The title of my book and the blog is The Path to Tyranny. The book describes how the demand for free gifts from the government leads to tyranny. But this road does not always lead straight to tyranny. It often falls into anarchy first.

Today’s headline at Drudge Report:

So how exactly does anarchy lead to tyranny? First, I’ll share a couple of quotes from some people much smarter than me.

John Adams in A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America:

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

Plato’s Republic:

And so the probable outcome of too much freedom is only too much slavery in the individual and the state… from the height of liberty, I take it, the fiercest extreme of servitude.

Montesquieu explains exactly how anarchy leads to tyranny in his Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline:

For in a free state in which sovereignty has just been usurped, whatever can establish the unlimited authority of one man is called good order, and whatever can maintain the honest liberty of the subjects is called commotion, dissension, or bad government.

I already expounded upon this quote in a previous blog post:

This is the real reason so many today advocate anarchy and anti-globalization. They do not really want anarchy. Instead, they want to establish a situation which would call for immediate order, to be established by the government and “intellectual elites.” First stage is anarchy, second is totalitarianism. These “anarchists” hope they can direct events towards socialism, as they successfully did in Russia in the 1910s and attempted to do in Italy and Germany, though other collectivist regimes beat out the socialists and communists, though both the Fascists and Nazis adopted socialist platforms to win favor among the people.

The ultimate result of the anarchy spreading through Europe is not yet known. History shows that this often, but not always, leads to tyranny.

The situation reminds me of Germany in the 1920s, except that all of Europe and the United States is in a similar situation to the Weimar Republic with huge deficits and debts that cannot be paid off. That led to the tyranny of the Nazis. Will we be able to avoid the mistakes of the past?

Classic quotes about Liberty vs. Safety

Montesquieu: No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice… [Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline]

Benjamin Franklin: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Alexander Hamilton: Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of…national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. [Federalist #8]

John Basil Barnhill: “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” [1914]

The Causes of the Greatness of the Ancient Greeks and their Decline

Time to support the independents. Time to support the Constitution!

For years we’ve heard anger directed at the two-party system. “The parties don’t represent us.” “They are all just a bunch of crooks.” Even I have said on many occasions, “There is only one thing I hate more than a Republican; and that’s a Democrat!”

Now American’s will have to put up or shut up. After the remarkable success of tea party candidates in the primaries, let’s see how these naysayers vote. We now have candidates who are well-educated in American values, whose stated goal is to uphold the Constitution, and are not beholden to either party. Yes, these candidates are all nominally Republicans, but so many of them were opposed by the party and, therefore, they have no allegiance to the party leadership.

The main argument against these candidates is that they are “too far to the right.” Right and left is not the issue here. The issue today is constitutional republicanism or collectivist tyranny. I know how the tea party candidates and supporters stand on these issues. And I know what those on the extreme left believe.

How about you Mr. Moderate and Mrs. Independent? Do you stand for law, order, justice, and liberty? Or do you stand for rule by men, corruption, party loyalty, and government handouts?

For the first time in many years, you will show us in November what you really believe. I urge you to vote for the tea party candidates whose loyalties belong to the Constitution and not to the Republican or Democratic Party.

Making Charity a Crime

Capitalists argue that government spending on welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies, etc. crowds out charities. If government is providing the poor with everything they need, then what is there for charities to do?

Now, the socialists have turned that argument on its head:

SPIEGEL: Forty super wealthy Americans have just announced that they would donate half of their assets, at the very latest after their deaths. As a person who often likes to say that rich people should be asked to contribute more to society, what were your first thoughts?

Krämer: I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That’s unacceptable.

You got that? Giving money to charity is unacceptable because it is taking the place of the state. But wait, there’s more:

SPIEGEL: But doesn’t the money that is donated serve the common good?

Krämer: It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it’s not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That’s a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?

Understand? Only the government is able to determine what is good for the people and people have no legitimacy to give their own hard-earned money to charity as they see fit.

Next thing you know, acts of charity will be a crime against society.