The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways. Millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic. Their commitment to build a free society with liberty and justice for all must be constantly renewed if the United States is to fulfill the destiny to which the Founders pledged their “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor.”
Saint John Paul II, December 16, 1997
Something for the weekend. There is only one song for Flag Day: The Star Spangled Banner.
Here is the history behind the song:
Back when I was young and dinosaurs ruled the Earth, it was customary for the National Anthem to be played before television stations signed off for the evening. This was always my favorite of such renditions:
Red Skelton’s immortal rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance seems called for on this day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HGHdFmu5GU
On second thought, there is another song that should be sung on Flag Day:
Don, why do you keep referring to American democracy? There’s no such animal. We’re a republic, not a democracy.
Saint John Paul II referred to Democracy and not I in the above post. More to the point, words change over time. The Founding Fathers, most of whom were classically educated, abhorred the idea of democracy because of the bad press that it got in Thucydides, Plutarch, et al. Over time the term democracy has become a descriptor of government “of the people, by the people and for the people” in Lincoln’s immortal phrase. My own personal preference is that we could use more democracy in this country, in the sense of legislatures actually making laws, rather than court’s acting like super legislatures and government agencies also usurping that role. Courts and executive agencies are the true foes of popular government in our time, rather than too much democracy as feared by the Founding Fathers.
Stephen Dalton is correct to the extent that Democracy means a system of government where a simple majority can take away the individual right to life, liberty or property (the fruit of one’s own labor).
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Donald is correct to the extent that Democracy refers to a representative system of government where:
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(1) The legislature makes laws consistent with the principle of the individual right to life, liberty and property (the fruit of one’s own labor)
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(2) The executive enforces those laws to protect individuals and families, and where the powers of both government and big business are limited.
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(3) The judiciary makes decisions based on the Constitution being a fixed contract protecting the sovereign citizen and not a living document subjugated to the dictatorship of relativistic morality.
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What Thucidides wrote is perhaps an ideal that we no longer have in this country:
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“Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.”
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Rather, the people of the United States have become like that of ancient Israel in 1st Samuel chapter 8: “Give us a king like that of other nations.” God granted us our wish and we have that godless man of sin and depravity – Barack Hussein Obama and his wife Jezebel. History repeats itself over and over again. The problem is not Democracy or Republicanism or Monarchy. The problem is the concupiscence of man’s heart. Until the heart changes, then nothing changes. As St. JP II is quoted above to have said:
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“But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic.”
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The Democratic Party is completely opposed to this and the Republican Party is hypocritical and toothless.
Donald: I do not know how you do it, but I am glad that you do.
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“My own personal preference is that we could use more democracy in this country, in the sense of legislatures actually making laws, rather than court’s acting like super legislatures and government agencies also usurping that role. Courts and executive agencies are the true foes of popular government in our time, rather than too much democracy as feared by the Founding Fathers.”
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Much like the prodigal son, Congress has spent our privilege, its power, in non-essential ways, handing our freedom over to tyrants on every level.
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For instance: Congress never voted on the HHS Mandate. No American citizen ever voted for or against the HHS Mandate, not anybody. Therefore, the HHS Mandate is unconstitutional, having not been ratified by the people or the voice of the people in Congress.
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The HHS Mandate was added after Congress had passed the ACA known as Obamacare, in the stealth of the night, because Congress allowed that anything can be changed in the bill at any time by anyone, making the citizens voiceless subjects under the existing regime. All bills passed have this open ended requirement. Thus, Congress forfeited the will of the people and the balance of power in government. Why should Hobby Lobby obey a law that was never a law? The HHS Mandate was never passed by the voice of and the will of the people. Whatever the HHS Mandate is, it is not a law passed by Congress and the will of the people.
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Now, the Supreme Court is being abused to impose an unconstitutional contrivance on the American People. Who in heaven and on earth gave Sebelius, or even Obama, the power to write law for the nation, using their own personal opinion to impose decrees and penalties? The people never gave Congress that authentic authority to ostracize the American people from participation in our Republic.
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Even if the HHS Mandate decreed that all American Citizens must have one ice cream cone every day, the law was never passed by Congress. The HHS Mandate is not a law. Whatever the HHS Mandate is, it is not a law passed by Congress and the will of the people.
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Heaven knows American citizens and our tax dollars have helped any one in need around the globe. All of American generosity was voted for by the people through Congress. Extorted charity is stealing and does not happen in any democracy or Republic.
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The HHS Mandate was not put to a vote in Congress, nor was the Mandate put on the ballot and therefore the HHS Mandate is not a law.
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The same goes for prayer ban, the destruction of the living human being in the womb, our constitutional posterity, and the absolute mockery of human beings by denying their rational, immortal souls, created in innocence and virginity, male and female.
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First, acknowledge God, next the sovereign person and then, and only then, proceed with government.
Donald M McClarey
Words do, indeed, change their meaning over time
Rousseau’s idea of democracy was drawn from the Landesgemeinde of his native Switzerland, as described by Lord Acton, “The idea was that the grown men met in the market-place, like the peasants of Glarus under their trees, to manage their affairs, making and unmaking officials, conferring and revoking powers. They were equal, because every man had exactly the same right to defend his interest by the guarantee of his vote. The welfare of all was safe in the hands of all, for they had not the separate interests that are bred by the egotism of wealth, nor the exclusive views that come from a distorted education. All being equal in power and similar in purpose, there can be no just cause why some should move apart and break into minorities.
Hence, his famous warning in the Social Contract, “As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall. When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home. By reason of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it.”
Stations also played the National Anthem in the morning when they began broadcasting for the day.
America was a different country back then.