THE OBAMA REGIME AND THE SECOND FRENCH REVOLUTION

Sorry folks, but tonight’s entertainment feature on the Second American Revolution, replacing the Obama Regime with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, has been retracted.  You will now enjoy a rerun of the French Revolution instead.

What?  How can this be?  Here’s the sad story that will explain why you need to learn French and to buy our New high tech neck armor — specially priced at only $500 to save your neck from the French guillotine.  Also excellent protection against vampires.  But most of all, this is a surprise revisit from the past to warn us why we must prepare ourselves for the coming French Revolution in America.

You will recognize many of the Ministries issuing endless rules and regulations that you have nothing to say about but sadly there will be more, though there will be no Ministry of Silly Walks, because there is nothing funny about it.  Sit back, raise your glass of French wine, pick up your guitar and play, just like yesterday, you’ll get on your knees and pray,  We Won’t Get Fooled Again!!

(Yes, the classic by The Who is rated by National Review as the #1 Conservative Rock Song of all time.  The lyrics are here, you can listen/watch here.)

Written in 1971, it looks eerily prescient, because Obama’s America today looks more like it’s on the way to another French Revolution than another American one.  To learn why, we turn to a Frenchman who explained it over 150 years ago.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) is best known as the author of "Democracy in America" in 1835.  Yet we think "The Old Regime and the French Revolution" in 1856, on the unfolding of events that led up to the bloody French Revolution looks frighteningly like what is now taking place in America. 

In fact, it looks a lot like what is taking place in China as well.  The Chinese Communist Party is actually distributing de Tocqueville’s book and recommending it to its leadership as a warning of what can happen in a country under siege by corruption and the drive to centralize authority. 

Growing up in France, de Tocqueville witnessed the Revolution’s aftermath. His brilliant book is full of insights as to what led from growing public discontent to eventual slaughter.  L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution was originally published in 1856; the quotes below are from the English translation linked above.  

In the Preface, he states:

"In the eighteenth century, as readers of this book will not fail to note, the government of France was already highly centralized and all powerful; indeed, the range of its activities was prodigious. We find it constantly coming to the rescue of individuals in difficulties, issuing permits or vetoes, as the case might be; lavish of promises and subsidies.  Its influence made itself felt at every turn, not only in the management of public affairs but also in the lives of citizens and families." (pg. ix)

His startling conclusion is that the aim of the French Revolution was "to increase the power and jurisdiction of the central authority." (pg. 19)  As he makes his case, see how his words apply to Obama’s America:

"Rulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms — and so it  has been from the reign of Augustus to the present day. They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.  Almost all have failed in this endeavor and learned to their cost that it is impossible to keep up such appearances for long when there is no reality behind them." (pg. 45)

"Municipal government in the eighteenth century had everywhere degenerated into a petty oligarchy… But the only remedy they could think of was to tighten the central government’s control over the local authorities.  Actually, however, it was difficult to go farther in this direction… local laws were often thrown into confusion by hastily framed regulations issued at the instance of the Intendants [bureaucrats] without preliminary investigation and sometimes without the citizens being given any notice of them." (pp. 45-46)

"From letters that passed between Intendants and subdelegates we learn that the government took a hand in all local affairs, even the most trivial. Nothing could be done without consulting the central authority, which had decided views on everything.  …Town councilors were nothing short of abject in their deference to the representatives of government.  …Thus it was that the middle class prepared itself for governing and the French people for liberty!" (pp. 46-47)

"Under the old regime, as nowadays, there was in France no township, borough, village, or hamlet, however small, no hospital, factory, convent, or college which had a right to manage its own affairs as it thought fit or to administer its possessions without interference.  Then, as today, the central power held all Frenchmen in tutelage. The term ‘paternal government’ had not yet been invented, but the reality already existed." (pg. 51)

"Thus it was precisely in those parts of France where there had been most improvement that popular discontent ran highest. …For it is not always when things are going from bad to worse that revolutions break out. …Patiently endured so long as it seemed beyond redress, a grievance comes to appear intolerable once the possibility of removing it crosses men’s minds…. In the reign of Louis XVI the most trivial pinpricks of arbitrary power caused more resentment than the thoroughgoing despotism of Louis XIV." (pp. 176-177) 

"And it was now that theories of the perfectibility of man and continuous progress came into fashion.  Twenty  years earlier there  had been no hope for the future; in 1780 no anxiety was felt about it. Dazzled by the prospect of a felicity undreamed of hitherto and now within their grasp, people were blind to the very real improvement that had taken place and eager to precipitate events." (pg. 177) 

"Though, like all other government departments, the financial administration had been thoroughly overhauled, it still had the vices inherent in all despotic systems, and since the Treasury accounts were never audited or published, some of the worst practices of the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV still prevailed. Moreover, the very efforts of the government to increase national prosperity, the reliefs and bounties it distributed, constantly imposed new burdens on the budget with which incoming revenue did not keep pace." (pg. 177)

"He [Louis XVI] persistently kept his creditors waiting, like them he borrowed money right and left, without publicity and without stint, and his creditors were never sure of being paid the interest due on loans; indeed, even their capital was always at the mercy of the monarch’s good will." (pg. 178)

"When owing to the rapid progress of industry a larger number of people than ever before had acquired the possessive instinct and a taste for easy living, those who  had entrusted the State with a portion of their capital were all the more irritated by the frequent breaches of contract committed by a debtor who, more than any other, should  have made a point of keeping faith." (This passage quoted by de Tocqueville from an eyewitness) (pg. 178)

"There was nothing new in these delinquencies on the part of the administration; what was new was the indignation they aroused." (pg. 178)

"On the one hand was a nation in which the love of wealth and luxury was daily spreading; on the other a government that while constantly fomenting this new passion, at the same time frustrated it — and by this fatal inconsistency was sealing its own doom."(pg. 179)

"It is a curious fact that when they envisaged all the social and administrative reforms subsequently carried out by our revolutionaries, the idea of free institutions never crossed their minds. True, they were all in favor of the free exchange of commodities and a system of laissez faire and laissez passer in commerce and industry; but political liberty in the full sense of the term was something that passed their imagination or was promptly dismissed from their thoughts if by any chance the idea of it occurred to them.

"To begin with, anyhow, the Economists were thoroughly  hostile to deliberative assemblies, to secondary organizations vested with local powers and, generally speaking, to all those counterpoises which have been devised by free people at various stages of their history to curb the domination of a central authority." (pg. 159)

"The form of tyranny sometimes described as ‘democratic despotism’ (it would been unthinkable in the Middle Ages) was championed by the Economists well before the Revolution. They were for abolishing all hierarchies, all class distinctions, all differences of rank, and the nation was to be composed of individuals almost exactly alike and unconditionally equal. 

In this undiscriminated mass was to reside, theoretically, the sovereign power; yet it was to be carefully deprived of any means of controlling or even supervising the activities of its own government. For above it was a single mandatory authority, which was entitled to do anything and everything in its name without consulting it. This authority could not be controlled by public opinion since public opinion had no means of making itself heard; the State was a law unto itself and nothing short of a revolution could break its tyranny. Dejure it was a subordinate agent; de facto, a master." (pg. 163)

"’Nothing shall be personally and exclusively owned by any member of the nation,’ we read in the First Article of Morelly’s Code. ‘Private ownership of anything whatever is an abomination and anyone trying to reintroduce it shall be treated as a dangerous lunatic, an enemy of mankind, and imprisoned for life.’

"From Article Two we learn that ‘every citizen shall be provided for and given employment at the public expense. All produce and manufactured goods shall be placed in public warehouses, with a view to being distributed to all citizens and utilized by them for their needs.  All towns shall be laid out in the same manner and all dwelling houses alike. At the age of five children shall be taken from their parents and educated communally at government expense and on uniform lines.’ We well might think these words were written only the other day. Actually the Code made its appearance in 1755…’" (pg. 164)

As we get closer and closer to the brink, Tocqueville’s words get louder:

"True, routine of a kind still prevailed in the conduct of affairs of vital importance to the nation, but already no one knew from whom he should take orders, to whom he should apply, or how to solve those small private problems which crop up almost daily in the life of every member of a social group.

"Thus, the nation as a whole was now in a state of unstable equilibrium, at the mercy of that final stroke of destiny which was to have such tremendous effects and to produce the most formidable social cataclysm the world had ever seen." (pg. 203)

And in America today:

"45% Favor Candidate Who’d Raise Taxes on the Rich Over [41%] One Opposed to Tax Hikes"

"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey [5/25] finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for a candidate who would raise taxes only on the rich. Forty-one percent (41%) would vote for a candidate who promised to oppose all tax hikes instead. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided."

Note well this widespread popular urge to punish the "rich" in spite of this fact:

"63% Think No New Taxes Are Needed"

"The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey (4/11] shows that just 28% of Likely U.S. Voters think additional tax hikes are needed to fund the federal government. More than twice as many (63%) disagree and feel more taxes are not necessary."

And in spite of this one:

"50% Think Tax Increases Hurt Economy"

"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey (5/23] finds that just 31% of Likely U.S. Voters say that, generally speaking, increases in government spending help the economy.  Forty-seven percent (47%) believe spending increases hurt the economy. Twelve percent (12%) think they have no impact."

The bottom line to draw here is this:

When the OPM – Other Peoples’ Money – runs low, the addicts and their bloated central government will indeed undergo a social and economic cataclysm.  Moral legitimacy, even more than  money to hire enforcers, is the key to survival of the Old Regime. We may be nearing a collapse of this sandpile — spying on the press, Benghazi, and most of all, the IRS crimes — but that won’t necessarily produce a better outcome than what we have now. 

Remember:  After the French Revolution came the Terror, and after the Terror came Napoleon, who killed more Frenchmen than all the armies of all the French Kings in history, and at least 25 times as many as the Terror.

On the basis of the above Rasmussen polls, if a Second American Revolution occurs in the very near future, it is more likely to resemble the terrible French Revolution of 1789 than ours of 1776 . 

In other words, while we pine for another 1776 to rid ourselves of what we have in 2013, we may still be firmly on what Friedrich Hayek called The Road to Serfdom.  In fact, Hayek states in the Preface of his famous book that the title was suggested by the "new servitude" of "democratic despotism" feared by Tocqueville.

Hayek quotes Tocqueville’s description (from Democracy in America) of what he feared democracy in America could become:

"…after having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power than extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting.

"Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of which government is the shepherd.  I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people."

Hayek then comments:

"What de Tocqueville did  not consider was how long such a government would remain in the hands of benevolent despots when it would be so much more easy for any group of ruffians to keep itself indefinitely in power by disregarding all the traditional decencies of political life."

This could be our future.   Americans have a lot to learn before we can expect a substantive change for the better.  We better not get fooled again.