The main thrust
of the political thinking I jotted down last night on my iPad, and shared with
you, is not new to me, nor is it in any way the product of Rush, or Glen Beck,
or Fox News, etc. Indeed, these thoughts have I held fairly consistently over
time, beginning in my high school years. They have developed, but the
continuity is clear. And especially while a graduate student in political
science I expressed similar views.
Although I have
long kept an eye on American politics, for the most part, I chose the option of
making an exodus from the political realm I experienced as alienating and
decadent into a more intellectual and spiritual realm. You both expressed some
similar views in your youth. You surely were critical of Nixon, Reagan, and the
younger Bush, often calling them “liars.” The main difference between us is
that you focused on personalities and one party as the target of your criticism;
and ever since I have known you, it has been the Republican Party, never the
Democratic Party as a whole, that you aimed at. But the larger difference
between us is that I focus my critique on the Federal Government, not on a
particular individual or ruling party. Indeed, the two Parties are in bed
together, sharing the power, the glory--and the shame.
I have written
essays since my youth on “the American Empire,” taking the phrase from Alexander
Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, in which he praises “the fabric of American
Empire.” I do not share his zeal for strong central government. On the
contrary, given the flaws in all human beings, I am closer to the James Madison
who wrote that “power must be made to check power,” and “ambition must check
ambition” (Federalist #51). For the most part, our Founding Fathers wanted a
government of self-restraint under law: limited powers, with most political
power residing in the people or in the several states (as in the 10th amendment
to the Constitution).
What has
happened in U.S. history may well in part be because of political necessities,
and especially because of the American civil religion, which believed that
America is indeed “the new order of the ages” (our national motto), a kind of
secular Kingdom of God on earth. I have written numerous papers on this
phenomenon, and it has been carefully studied. Under the guise of reapplied or
frankly perverted Christian symbols, American political thought provided the
kind of spiritual substance to justify the vast and overwhelming growth of
political power, the conquest of a continent, the destruction of Native
Americans by a “superior” culture, and so on, especially at the level of the
“General Government” (Jefferson’s term). The process was gradual, and
continues.
In effect, the
United States of America has evolved from a limited republic to a totalitarian
empire, to put the matter bluntly. I do not share these views in public, but
perhaps now I would be more bold in doing so. Potentially and really, our
General Government is far more powerful, and perhaps more totalitarian, than
what was developed in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, New Deal
America, and so on. The means of mass manipulation are much greater than had
been known before. But “power must be made to check power.” Increasingly in
this country, we see that no power can or does check the federal government. At
least in the days of Nixon, another President with clearly tyrannical
tendencies, the more liberal media elite served as some kind of check, calling
him to account, as we saw in Watergate. But a real problem is that American
“liberals” are no longer rooted in Liberalism, whose primary concern was
individual liberty over against the power of government. Now, the left-wing
forces in America have embraced concentrated power to an heretofore unimagined
extent. That was the main achievement of the “Progressive Era.” And so we have
had an unfolding of virtually tyrannical political leaders who have utterly
betrayed the American spirit of self-restraint and limited government. The
disease showed up early in Jefferson himself when he gained Presidential power;
it was marked in Jackson and in his attempt to manipulate the masses through
“democracy;” in Lincoln and the concentration of power under the name of
“preserving the Union.” But the movement into American tyranny--or at least the
marked potential for tyranny--took major steps under T Roosevelt and the entire
Progressive Movement. It was all about amassing power to benefit people,
without any due awareness that the very concentration of power threatened human
liberty and well-being. TR, Wilson, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, and into recent “leaders”
we see the emergence of what political scientists call “the imperial
Presidency.” Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama are just more recent examples of the
same coalescing of power in the Federal Government, and especially in the
President as a kind of new Caesar, the American Emperor.
These thoughts
are not new or original. To label me “crazy” for expressing them is at least
puzzling. What you may not understand (or may), is that millions of Americans
experience increased alienation from the Federal Government. The Body Politic
is sick, to put it mildly; I would say, dying. What we see is a vast power
organization devoid of any real spiritual substance, and that is dehumanizing
and potentially murderous. Probably to an extent not seen since FDR and the New
Deal, the Government is seen as “the problem,” as Reagan said--and then
continued the growth of power. It seems that the American Left (not true
Liberals, as I noted) and the American Right (not true conservatives) admire the
Power as long as they have it. Both Parties seek domination, both Parties
glorify, love, and seek power, as I have said repeatedly. The problem is the
concentration of power, the loss of liberty, the totalitarian control and
manipulation of nearly every aspect of life in our country.
We the People
have reached the stage in which the best solution may be a radical break from
the regime in two forms: as a spiritual exodus from “the powers that be,” which
has always been close to the heart of the gospel of Christ (Jesus was no lover
of political power); and as a political break in the form of rebellion,
non-cooperation, nullification, secession. The means need to be discussed. You
seem surprised, and have called this thinking “seditious.” As I wrote last
evening, recall that our present regime began with secession from imperial
power--from the British monarchy, explicitly, as in the Declaration of
Independence. And yes, the central powers saw our Founding Fathers as
“seditious,” and some would have been hanged if caught.
On the charge of
“sedition,” I turn the tables: It is now one’s patriotic duty openly to
criticize, to expose, to seek to limit the all-encircling and encroaching power
of the Federal Government in any way that is possible and morally good. Killing
one person--assassination--fails because the powers would only increase to
prevent such actions, and so nothing is really gained. No individual at the
helm is the real problem--something that so-called “conservatives” seem to
ignore. As Jefferson pointed out over two hundred years ago, a hundred elected
despots can be just as bad as one despot (words to that effect). The problem is
the astonishing amassing of power, wealth, influence, and manipulation at the
federal level. We have become a dictatorship--not of the People, not of the
Proletariat, but of the Federal Government. “Power must be made to check
power,” so ways to limit all-pervasive Government must be
sought.
APPENDIX:
You charge me
with being “seditious,” “crazy,” and “un-American” because, in effect, I present
views that are contrary to your own.
Consider: Would
it not be more “mad” or “crazy” to think that the fate that has befallen all
regimes in the past will be spared ours? Do you think that the deadening
amassing of power under Pharaoh, or under Caesar, or under an early modern King,
does not apply to the United States of America? Is our regime so unique in your
minds that it is spared the fate of all things in time: that whatever comes to
be must pass away; and that the great undoing of political regimes is the
concentration of political power and the neglect of spiritual substance? Am I
“crazy” to point out that the common trends of political history are repeating
themselves, or would those who neglect or refuse to see what is happening have
some kind of strange blinders on their minds? Human beings like to think of
themselves, their political regimes, as wholly unique, and that has been a
hallmark of American political consciousness. In some essentials we are like
the rest: governments ruled by self-restrained men and women, with highly
limited powers, generally thrive and serve the good of the subjects; governments
ruled by delusional, power-drunk men and women (even if “well-intentioned”), and
which amass huge resources of power and wealth at the national level do not long
endure the vicissitudes of history. Wisdom suggests dividing power, restraining
it, limiting it. The lust for power, the libido dominandi, always pushes
towards amassing, centralizing, using power as the rulers deem to be in their
interests, or in the “public good.” Self-restraint does not yield to the sway
of one’s passions. Sooner or later, unrestrained rulers over-reach, and the
whole fabric of the body politic suffers. Consider the fate of Athenian
democracy and its imperialistic expansion. Consider how the American Republic
has grown into an incredibly vast, powerful, influential, and at times
destructive empire. Naming the process for what it is ought not to be condemned
as “crazy” or “un-American,” but accepted as a civic duty.
