Topic: Collectivism
The Official Administration of Liberty-Part 1 Liberty is far too dangerous to the People at large to be self-administered, at least that is the view most of our politicians take.by Republicae
(Libertarian)
Saturday, August 2, 2008
PART 1
Liberty is far too dangerous to the People at large to be self-administered, at least that is the view most of our politicians take. So, instead of liberty as liberty, freedom as freedom, it is carefully manicured, managed and manipulated by those who feel it are not only their duty, but also their calling in life. The government has assumed the administration of liberty and freedom to ensure that it is doled out appropriately.
The beginning of this official administration was to ensure that the wealth of this nation was equalized, at least in the eyes of government management, redistributed in a manner far more equitable than though natural free market forces. These master planners, these official administrators have been around for a long, long time and were even present at the Constitutional Convention. They seek a type of central control over the country that will provide an ease of administration, a perfect balance of power of centralized planning on all levels of society, a utopia administration that grants its subjects their quota of liberty and freedom for the good of the whole, or course.
Of course, power, unleashed and un-contended, is necessary for such centralized planning to be effective and such power is nothing less that massive intervention into the lives of the People themselves. Controls on a multitude of levels are implemented and the restrained on government by the Constitution must, of course, be effective neutralized while giving lip service to Constitutional order.
The primary instrument of control is always economic for it allows the government inroads into every area of the lives of the People. For such a plan to work, the country's money must be transformed from actual property, belonging to the people in exchange for their labor, to an official government document issued, managed, and tracked, thus effectively under the control of those professional administrators. Without such monetary control, the government has absolutely no hope in extending its control over the People; once the People's money is neutralized and transformed, the administrators have free reign over all the other areas of life in a country.
Through such techniques, government becomes the effective official purveyor of the People's liberty and freedom. The government now interprets the People's Rights, not by the People's consent, but by edict, decree and judicial opinion. The sphere of the government's reach is expanded while the individual's liberty, freedom and rights are curtailed, all for the betterment of society, of course. It appears that the trade-off has been generally accepted by the People, unknown to them the demise of what it means to be an American. While they may not have been aware such a trade-off was happening, they seem to be relatively satisfied with the results. Americans have traded the ability to be completely responsible for their lives, their finances, their futures into the hands of those elected and hired to provide leadership and administration for the country.
Of course, the construction of such an administered society was decades in the making and required numerous interventions, wars and economic crisis to implement, but with each event, the People clamored for action from those chosen political saviors. The People, conditioned by such events surrendered the control of their government to professional managers, as Voltaire said: "shackles upon sleeping men."
People have traded their liberty and freedom for the solace of administered security, with each crisis event, the government assumed more authority, more power and far more intervention into the lives of the People. With each event, the People assumed habits of dependence upon the government; it is now to the point that many cannot imagine a world where the government didn't have such powers or authority. On whole, the People have become acceptingly compliant with the perspective that the government has a central role in their lives and their future. Over time, the People relinquished their citizenship responsibility over government to become the responsibility of government. It was, apparently, an easy trade to make.
The first major push by the government was during the Lincoln administration, which defied every principle upon which this country was founded to impress itself over the consent of the People themselves. The centralization of our system of federalism began under the watch of Lincoln, but was later enforced by the Radical Republicans as they sought to nationalize all government functions, incorporating the retained powers and authorities of the several States into the nationalized central government. It was the vision of Hamilton realized and by the time of the election of James Garfield, those advocates of nationalization and central planning thought effectively exterminated the ideals of Jefferson.
Mr. Garfield himself stated: "The influence of Jefferson's Democratic principles is rapidly waning, while the principles of Hamilton are rapidly increasing. Power has been gravitating toward the Central Government."
A newspaper at the time stated: ""Garfield's rule will be the transitory period between State Sovereignty and National Sovereignty. The United States Senate will give way to a National Senate. State Constitutions and the United States Senate are relics of State Sovereignty and implements of treason. Garfield's Presidency will be the Regency of Stalwartism; after that-REX."
Indeed, their goal was REX, a highly centralized oligarchy, it perfectly described what they intended to create in this country. Their goal was, and still is, a very nationalistic Central Government empowered to dominate both political and social structure within this country. A multi-geared machine of body politic that would maintain their own version of government under the carefully maintained guise of a Constitutional Republic without the restraints of a Republic. The whole purpose of such a guise is solely for the comfort of the People, to serve as a salve of patriotic symbolism, all the while the goal is to continue with the centralization of government powers.
With the nationalization of government the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties gradually began to disappear under the weight of centralization and the lust for power that always accompanies it; it became the focus of the political process replacing the consent of the People with the requirements of the government. By the time of the Wilson Administration, the process was almost complete with the push of interventionism and the focus of Washington, D.C. as the focus of the political universe.
The policies of Wilson helped set the stage the next push for centralization during the 30s and 40s with FDR's New Deal designers who provided very specific solutions to problems that were almost exactly what was required for the next step in the nationalization of the country. It was a time of crisis, an economic crisis specifically created by centralized economic planning and monetary policy of the Federal Reserve during the 1920s. It was almost a dream come true for those grand nationalistic designers, indeed they could not have planned it better for they found the country falling on its knees in economic distress. Such a state of economic panic and confusion provided the perfect setting for a government rescue.
FDR repudiated the obligations of the U.S. government to pay its debt, reneged on the payment of Liberty Bonds defying the full faith promises of the government to the People. FDR then went further by confiscating as much of the People's gold as possible, debased the currency over 50% and in the process drained away all those nasty little hoards of savings that were hidden away. The quickest way to gain the necessary power in such a capitalistic system was to gain total control over the money itself. It then began the long and at times arduous process of deficit spending, the monetization of debt and the centralized doctrine of economic planning.
On top of it all, FDR implemented a system of grants for the redistribution of wealth, class subsidies all of which were calculated to basically reduce this country and its citizens to a subservient position to the central government. It was also intended to bring down the sovereign status of the States to that of provincial territories under the federal umbrella. It became an executive principle, providing the federal government with extensive powers outside the purview of Constitutional order by allowing for the execution of law by the act of bureaucratic decree by publishing rules, acts and regulations, having the color of law, without the need of Congressional legislation. Indeed, today Congress actually writes little that it actually legislates; the vast majority of law is issued by decree with entry into The Federal Register. This move began the relinquishment of the power over both the purse strings and the ability to declare war, placing more and more of that combination of power within the hands of the Executive.
Of course, the People, in economic distress, bought into the system completely and hailed FDR as the "nation's hero" because he had offered immediate relief and the promise of life-long economic security, but they were unaware of just what they had really surrendered during that fateful period in our history. They had traded their freedom for benefits, entitlements and supposed economic security. The massive Welfare/warfare State was almost complete and it was hailed by most, as a miracle the problem was that few read the fine print.
At the time, the overall popularity of the Social Security system was impressive and the compulsory nature of the system insured compliance by both the People and their employers; it effectively took the ability and the freedom of private contract out of the hands of the People and those who employed them, placing it in the hands of bureaucrats and administrators. Social Security was, and is, synergistic with the fiat monetary system; they work hand in hand to effectively drain wealth from the People and the country. The professional administrators offered the tempting fruit of security in one hand while slipping a canker worm called inflation into the system with the other. The only security offered by the system is to maintain government power by increasing its ability to create massive credit for its unrestrained, unquenchable hunger for expansive growth.
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