America in chains, Part 1:
A long train of abuses and usurpations



L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers. (Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau , The Social Contract

All experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence



The times in America seem relatively calm, aside from the underestimated threat of Islam. The nation seems peaceful and relatively prosperous, the Dow Jones Index continues to thrive, and expansion is bringing smiles to business leaders everywhere. Happy days are here again.

We do not wish to place a damper on the festivities, but a cautious warning may be in order. Despite a surging economy, there is concern about America, or at least there should be: the planet's leading democracy is not in good health. And this concern is made urgent by a world growing daily more unstable, although politeness expects us not to mention the cause, but just to get on wiht our lives. How difficult it is to applaud while simultaneously washing one's hands.

As wise investors realize the immensity of the imminent upheavals, they may find themselves attracted to gold, real estate and Swiss Francs. Some suggest that the eschaton has begun, as well it might have, but if the end of the world is delayed, some worldly intrusions on freedom require our attention, particularly in America.

Of course, it is impossible to gain a realistic perspective from the mainstream media, who preoccupy themselves with trivia, irrelevance, and vilifying conservatives. Yet those who care about freedom must wake up and understand the tragedy engulfing America. Do Americans really want democracy and fair elections? And do they want it enough to tear themselves away from the seductive television and fight again for it? How will they even discover that they have been robbed? Are they willing to put up with second-best efforts at democracy, or should they attempt to perfect the process? Do we need primaries? If so, should they all be on the same day? Can we ensure that elections, primary and otherwise, are fair and held without the influence of the media? Is the system permanently flawed or are these just growing pains? Should money be a factor in elections? Recent scandals suggest that the time is ripe to change the system, yet many would prefer to change the subject. They assert that, compared to say, Iran and Syria, America is a model of democracy, and of course, that's absolutely true, but how does the US compare with Australia, Germany, Switzerland or the UK?

If a democracy is defined as a nation in which the government is freely and fairly chosen by the electorate, America fails the test. To set an example to the next generation of Americans and to the rest of the world, electoral justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done and this is where there is a problem. One only has to be in the United States for half an hour to discover both the preeminence of television and its liberal bias.

The freedom of Americans and of those in repressive nations depends upon an honest, principled US government. There is another difficulty in halting the degeneration of America's freedom: the burglars own most of the major media in America; how will Americans even know they have been robbed, except by using the Internet?

Democracy cannot be maintained without a strenuous effort to initiate, uphold, preserve and improve the process. It must be protected from those who would steal it - indeed who have already stolen it.

Can democracy be restored? A starting point might be the primaries. They are a recent invention and are generally a good idea, but the need for change may be illustrated by the 1996 New York Primary, in which only the favored candidate was allowed to compete. We interviewed the Director of the New York Republican Party in June 1995. He said: "We won't allow our people to see material that isn't strongly pro-Dole." When asked what he would do if Mr. Dole wasn't the eventual nominee, he replied: "Such a possibility does not exist." At the time, when Senator Phil Gramm was winning poll after poll, we found that remark extraordinary. We still do. Did he know something we didn't?

The parties could announce their candidate without primaries, but all people must be allowed to compete fairly and equally. Among other hindrances to be removed are cross-party voting, unequal ballot access, rigged votes, endorsements, media bias and frequent opinion polls. It cannot be democratic to effectively disenfranchise three-quarters of the nation by holding primaries on separate days. The people of New Jersey currently vote on June 4; should they not have the same choice of candidates as the voters of New Hampshire on February 20? In France, opinion polls are banned just before an election. Their primaries are all on the same day, exactly one week before the general election, and the whole process is simple, fair, quick, cheap and efficient.

Could America change to such a system and thus end the petty squabbling about whose primary comes first? It cannot be moral to rig elections or to smear opponents with lies. And neither will voters soon forget that, in 1992 and 1996, the Republican Party imposed on a reluctant electorate their favored candidate, a man certain to lose, thus denying Republican voters the opportunity of a fair crack at the White House.

As elections are affected by media bias, weighted primaries and vote counting irregularities, America is in danger of becoming less democratic than some developing countries. In a perfect situation, Americans would realize how their democracy has been silently stolen while they were out shopping, scrupulous rules would be enforced about media conduct, there would be no hint of reporting bias, equal time would be given to all candidates and votes would be counted not by computers or machines or the firm owned by the media, but by independent tellers under the full glare of independent television cameras.

When the Republican National Committee held an election for a new chairman, the outgoing Chairman went to great lengths to demonstrate that the voting was free and fair. It was shown live on television and was scrupulously monitored by accountants Arthur Anderson, whose clerk held up the empty ballot box to the audience and cameras before the votes were cast. Then, under the gaze of the rolling cameras and with scrutineers watching, the votes were counted and the results announced. Everyone knows without a shadow of doubt that the election was fair and honest. In these days of electronic voting, computerized vote-counting and a strong suspicion of vote rigging in strategic parts of the nation, if the process we have described is good enough for the Republican Party, why isn't it good enough for the rest of America? Or is the real truth that the powers behind the scenes would prefer to alternate power between a centrist Republican presidency and a left-wing presidency than risk trying a conservative one? Thanks to the corrupt electoral process and media, genuine conservatives are effectively excluded from the electoral process.

Meanwhile, America waits at the precipice. The Democrats, like other left-wing parties around the world, are devoid of a workable governing philosophy and have become a left-wing rump. Republicans and Conservatives should be having an easy time, unchallenged as they are for ideological supremacy. They should be leading the world into an era of small, efficient government, low taxation and freedom. Yet that's not happening. In Washington, the Republicans are terrified to do anything of which the Democrats might disapprove, thus negating their mandate and frustrating their voters. We are realizing that conservatism is a sensitive vehicle which must be steered with great care and with perseverance. If even Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had their share of difficulties, lesser mortals seem hopelessly under-prepared for the task.

America's freedom is symbolized by the electoral process. It is a good place to begin reform. An unjust system deepens despair: if citizens cannot even vote themselves a better government they become cynical about the whole process. Yet politicians cannot solve national problems even if they wanted to do so until the counterculture is replaced. Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks of replacing "the culture of poverty and violence with a culture of opportunity". Opportunity begins with self-determination, the right to express electoral preference at the ballot-box freely and without intimidation, media bias or the slightest hint that vote-counting may be improper, currently an opportunity denied to Americans, whose daily lives are ruled by ever-more invasive officials, police and judges.

The United States has been the nurturer, sustainer and protector of democracy. How sad it is, therefore, to find the United States in such a sad condition. The Statue of Liberty covers her eyes and weeps as totalitarianism stealthily approaches and real freedom shrinks away. Voters have effectively been reduced to serfs as taxation has become legalized theft; many judges and politicians are corrupt; the police are more concerned with violations of fictional "speed limits" than ending organized crime. And the supreme insult is that chunks of the electoral process have been tainted by, of all people, the despised media. This is not the American Dream: it is a nightmare, which has left a confused people wondering whether their nation can ever recover. The Wall Street Journal called this "a state of cognitive dissonance, evidence inconsistent with actions, creating a dissonance that must be resolved." Freedom and democracy in America are in dire peril, but the last people to know about it will be Americans themselves.

The dissonance comes when America celebrates freedom while it endures confiscatory taxation, news suppression, oppressive police powers and a government which desires to regulate increasingly more minuscule details of life. That isn't freedom. So is America still free? It would be wonderful to feel an affirming surge in the depths of the heart that would enable the question to be answered positively. The world draws inspiration from America's reputation as the land of the free, a land of plenty in which every citizen is endowed with the potential for prosperity; for everyone's sake, America's hard-won freedom must again become the subject of our concern. Yet the imperative to restore freedom must be coupled with an equal desire to build a moral society and to learn how it was quietly stolen, so that it does not happen again.

After all, what good is the freedom to own a gun if you must constantly sit at the edge of your property expecting an intruder to appear? Christians have an imperative to move out of their comofrt zone and do something. Steve Myers © 1997, 2006