Charley Reese
July 17,
2001
Ozzie Spengler was probably right in his book, The Decline of the
West. He said the age of money, which we're in, will be followed by the age of
Caesar. He meant a return to authoritarian governments. I believe the trend has
already begun. The reason is simple: The Founding Fathers of this country were
right -- democracy can't work on a large scale.
That's why they didn't
create a democracy, but rather a republic with a limited franchise. We have, of
course, systematically dismantled that republic and now have, in effect, a sort
of mob democracy.
All one has to do is lay aside his or her ideological
blinders for a moment to see that it is most foolish, indeed, to allow the most
uninformed, the most pettily selfish, the most illiterate and ignorant people to
choose the leaders of a complex government.
The American Establishment --
the really rich guys -- have handled this problem so far by manipulating the
process. Working at the nomination level, they try to make sure the mob has a
choice of Establishment Candidate A or Establishment Candidate B.
That
way the mob can delude itself that it is actually participating in government
while the policies the Establishment cares about remain the same.
This
process was most clear in 1976. In that presidential race, voters had a choice
of Jimmy Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Rockefeller family foreign policy
adviser, or Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, a Rockefeller family foreign policy
adviser.
They voted for the "outsider" one of only two governors
personally chosen by David Rockefeller to be a member of the Trilateral
Commission and ended up with an administration and Cabinet straight out of the
Fortune 500. The only thing populist about Jimmy Carter was and is his rhetoric.
He is that most obnoxious and hypocritical of the human animal species -- a
Southern liberal.
I offer this challenge: See if you can determine any
differences in the foreign policies of George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson
Clinton, and George W. Bush? I mean substantive differences, not rhetorical
differences. In case you're the last to realize this, what politicians say
during the campaign has no bearing whatsoever on what they intend to do if
they're elected.
In the last election, we had two candidates debating,
essentially, which one of them could best carry out the same agenda. The
election victory margin was about as narrow as the real differences between the
two men.
Americans need to be especially on guard against moves against
free speech and their right to keep and bear arms. The purpose of passing
hate-crime legislation is simply to lay the predicate for passing hate-speech
laws. Canada, France and Germany can no longer be described as free countries
because, if you write or speak on certain topics, you can be prosecuted, fined
and imprisoned.
I have no doubt that certain elements in America want the
same kind of laws here and, if we aren't careful, they may get them. Just
remember that speech control is thought control and no country is free where the
government can outlaw thinking.
And, of course, no socialist country can
be called a free country. Yes, I know there are so-called democratic socialist
countries where elections are held, but what good is an election if the most
important aspects of government are off limits?
There were elections in
Stalin's day. Somewhat like our own Establishment, the communists offered people
a choice: Communist A or Communist B.
Socialism is a command economy. Our
socialist programs, Social Security and Medicare, are compulsory. People have no
choice. They are taxed to pay for both. If they should die before they can
receive any benefits, tough. The government just confiscates their
contributions. Freedom and compulsion are contradictions.
But the reason
democracy always leads to authoritarian rule is because the mob will bankrupt
the country voting itself goodies out of the treasury. It will also fragment
into warring factions, none of which cares a rat's toenail about the common
good. When this situation gets too extreme, someone must step in and impose
order.
The only advantage of getting older is just the perspective of
experience. I know, in the way a person under 40 cannot know, how much freer
America was in 1946 than it is in 2001. And it was freer in 1901 than it was in
1946.
Americans opposed to entry into World War II warned that the
country would never be the same. They warned that a war state would be created
and perpetuated. And they were dead-on right. So it has happened.
What
the present generation must do is guard against the growing trend toward more
authoritarian government. Government is never static. Its tendency is always to
move toward more power that means less freedom. But to do that, the present
generation must have more faith in itself than it does in government. You can't
have a free society unless you trust the people.
Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel