DOES AMERICA STILL HAVE THE COURAGE TO BE FREE?

"It does little good to summon those very citizens who have been made so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power.  However important, this brief and occasional exercise of their free choice will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus slowly falling below the level of humanity."
— Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy In America, 1835

The Constitution of the United States was drafted by 55 delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island did not participate) who met in a Constitutional Convention held at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia.  They convened on May 25, 1787, and all summer long they deliberated in strictest secrecy.

On September 17, they held a signing ceremony for the completed Constitution.  But beyond the closed doors of the State House, no one knew what it said.  As they exited the building, the delegates found a large crowd of citizens anxious to know what had happened.  A delegate from Maryland, James McHenry, recorded in his diary that a lady named Mrs. Powel approached Benjamin Franklin and asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

Perhaps, if a time machine could transport Franklin to America today, his first reaction would be a gratified surprise that we have managed to keep our republic for 224 years.  But as he learned of our current situation, he would have serious doubts that we can keep it for much longer.

44 years after Franklin’s admonition, a French aristocrat traveled extensively through the young America to examine and write about its revolutionary new form of government.  At the end of his famous book, there is a chapter entitled, What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.

De Tocqueville wrote at a time when large numbers of Americans not only were alive during the Revolution but had fought in it.  Yet his astounding prescience accurately depicts exactly the unique form of tyranny enveloping and strangling us right now.  He had no name for it, as "the type of oppression which threatens democracies is different from anything there has ever been in the world before."

It is an oppression that its subjects willingly submit to.  It is a voluntary surrender of freedom.  It achieves an "immense protective power" through keeping people in "perpetual childhood."

Such a government "gladly works for the happiness of its citizens, but wants to be sole agent and judge of it.  It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, and divides their inheritances.  Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?"

Such a government "extends its embrace to cover the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules… It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it rarely destroys anything, but prevents much from being created; rather than overtly tyrannical, it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles and stultifies so much that in the end the nation is no more than a flock of timid, obedient sheep with the government as its shepherd."

A democracy with such an "administrative despotism" provides an illusion of freedom, as citizens can pretend it is truly "elected by the people."   They convince themselves that they have freely chosen to allow the government to "put a collar on their necks."

Thus, "under this system, the citizens quit their state of dependence just long enough to choose their masters, then fall back into it."

De Tocqueville concludes, "It really is difficult to imagine how people who have entirely given up managing their own affairs could make a wise choice of those who are to do that for them."

You don’t get more predictive of America 180 years into the future than that.  There’s good news and bad news to this.  The good news – which would have stunned de Tocqueville, for he thought that his "administrative despotism" would come about rather quickly –  is that it’s taken this long to reach its full florescence. 

For it to have taken this long means there has been constant, albeit waxing and waning, resistance to it.  There is a reservoir of resistance that has not yet been drained.  A reservoir containing, among other things, several hundred million guns and several billion rounds of ammo.

The bad news is, of course, is that "administrative despotism" in America has in fact finally been achieved.  We’re there.  De Tocqueville’s future is now.  So – what do we do about it?

We can start by asking, Does America still have the courage to be free?  The courage to break free of the chains of dependency upon government handouts wrapped around it?  The answer we have to face is:  Maybe not.

We can hope it does, hope that a majority of voters, for example, will choose wisely next November, rather than stupidly as in 2008.  How, though, can one choose wisely when there are no wise choices available?  It is beyond tragic, it is a cosmic farce that we now have two immensely flawed faux-conservative candidates as our only options to Zero.

The one legitimate for-real fiscal-social-national security 10^th Amendment conservative has today (1/19) been forced out of the race by voters who don’t have the courage to be free.

In turn, however, this forces us to get out of another kind of dependency – that of depending upon a White Knight politician to come to our rescue.  There is no White Knight now.  We need to come to our own rescue.

How do we do that?  Well, the purpose of RXII, the Plan B Rendezvous (May 25-27) is to learn how.

One TTPer who will be speaking to us is security expert David Evry, who teaches that:

"Individuals are not powerless —  in fact, they have the ability to protect themselves from most anything if they’re proactive.  Most of the time, people simply don’t see that they can affect change for themselves.  Once they do, the sense of powerlessness tends to fade and people can get involved more meaningfully with real solutions.  

"I would argue that there’s nothing more fundamentally American than taking the individualist approach and following the Boy Scout ‘Be Prepared’ motto to protect oneself, then getting out there and trying to change the system."

RXII is going to focus on practical real-world solutions to rescuing ourselves, our families and loved ones, from the tsunami of despotism and economic depression racing towards us.  We’ll also be discussing such tactics as "practical obedience," and "personal revolution."

These begin with the realization that no one has a moral obligation to obey an illegal law.  There are hundreds of thousands of federal rules, regulations, and laws that are illegal – that is, they are unconstitutional.  There is no enumerated power in the Constitution that gives the federal government the authority for them – as such, they are illegal and no one has a moral or truly legal obligation to obey them.

All people have is a practical obligation to obey them to the extent they think they will get caught if they don’t.  This is a personal judgment call, how close or far away from the edge to be.

The analogy that comes to my mind is that of penguins on an iceberg.  They’re hungry and want to go in the water to fish – but are afraid there may be a leopard seal or two hiding in the water waiting to eat them.  So they wait until one of them jumps off the berg – then they wait to see what happens.  If he’s okay, a few more will jump in, while the rest still wait.  If they’re okay, the rest jump in en masse.

So everyone who has the courage to be free will be practically obedient to the despots to the extent he or she feels they have to.  And they will conduct their own personal revolution, privately rebelling against the despots’ rules and publicly challenging their authority whenever and wherever they choose.

Imagine many icebergs with lots of penguins.  Sometimes, when one jumps in fishing for freedom, a leopard seal will gobble him up.  But more often than not – for there are a lot more penguins than leopard seals – he’ll be fine and the water’s safe for more to join him.

We all know now that the only way to recover our freedom is with a Second American Revolution.  But this does not necessitate an armed rebellion, and it certainly doesn’t need to start with one.  It needs to start with private disobedience, individuals conducting their own personal revolution. 

Social networks then learn what penguins are alive or eaten, individual revolutions connect and expand, until finally we have our freedom back while the leopard seals of despotism die of starvation.

The question of the moment, then, is not: Does America still have the courage to be free?  The question is:  Do we, you and I individually, have the courage to be free?  America being free again has to begin with us.

The important thing is that it can begin with us.  Millions of Americans have suppressed their courage to be free.  They have voluntarily surrendered their freedom, allowing Zero to turn America into a Food Stamp Nation.  Nonetheless, I fervently believe Americans have not lost their courage to be free – it is, rather, dormant.

If enough of us individually have the courage to be free – wisely courageous, neither too reckless nor too timid – it will awaken it in others.   Then others and still more others. 

There is no White Knight.  You and I each have to be our own White Knights riding to our own rescue.  It is up to us to teach America that it does indeed still possess the courage to be free.