- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- That way the mob can delude itself that it is actually
participating in government while the policies the Establishment cares
about remain the same.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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?
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- There were elections in Stalin's day. Somewhat like our
own Establishment, the communists offered people a choice: Communist A
or Communist B.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-oped-reese071701.colu
mn
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