Posted on 06/09/2002 10:34:35 PM PDT by GalvestonBeachcomber
Most Americans are so steeped in egalitarian thinking that they like to delude themselves that they share in running the country. We ordinary folks, in fact, don't run the country and have a slim-to-none chance of even influencing its direction.
Thomas R. Dye, a professor at Florida State University, has made a study of power. Since power in our country resides in institutions, he defines individuals with power as those who occupy the top positions in the government and in corporate, legal, educational, civic and cultural institutions.
He found that there are only about 7,000 of these positions in the entire United States, and some individuals occupy more than one of them. It might sound unbelievable at first, but if you think about it, you will see that it is true.
In a newspaper, for example, there is one position of power: the publisher. Now, he delegates some of his power to other people, but everyone knows that all decisions are ultimately his and his alone.
In the federal government there are only 546 positions of power. These include the president, the vice president, members of the House and Senate and the nine members of the Supreme Court. One hundred percent of the power of the federal government resides in these individuals who occupy the 546 positions. Everybody below them operates with delegated power. That is so because all power of the federal government comes from the Constitution, and these are the only constitutional offices. I don't include federal-, district- and appellate-court judges because any decision they make can be overturned by the Supreme Court.
So the individuals who occupy these 7,000 positions of power are the elite who run the country. Therefore, it is the character of these members of the elite that will determine the character of the country. What you see in government policies, in cultural products and in education policies are the direct result of the decisions made by this relatively small elite.
History affirms this. The reason America did not follow the usual path of revolution to dictatorship was solely the result of the character of one man, George Washington. Washington could have easily made himself dictator, and many of the officers in his army wanted him to do just that. But Washington's character would not allow it.
When the elite who run a country have good morals and high standards, then you have a good country. If the elite become corrupt, you have a corrupt country. The vulgarity, profanity and violence you see in entertainment are there only because those individuals occupying the positions of power in the entertainment industry said "Yes." If they said "No," those things would disappear from the screens and the magazine racks.
Our problem is that most of our elite have become corrupted. Many are nihilistic and hedonistic. The leadership of a country always leads the masses, and they can lead them to high ground or into the swamps. And there's not much I can see that ordinary people can do about it.
I have to confess that I have lost my Jeffersonian faith in the people. All I have ever seen them do, save for a few individuals, is follow like dogs whoever happened to be in leadership positions at the time.
Given the moral and intellectual climate at most of the elite universities our future leaders will attend, I don't have an optimistic outlook for the future of the country.
Of course, businessmen are a prime example of how they are not apart from the community in which they do business, and how their own success is dependent upon the success of others in the community. How can they depend on a workforce which is semi-literate but well-versed in the modern schemes of self-esteem? How can they manage the costs of doing business when a large chunk of their medical benefits they and their employees have to pay are going for the medical costs of self-inflicted diseases which shouldn't have to be a burden on society at all? Then there's the costs of treating all the emotional problems of the children growing up in broken homes, where both parents are not there for them. Again, our society has a whole bunch of needs, and we really can't afford to allow this moral-liberalism to go unchecked. Some businesses are thriving in this moral slide, the abortion industry, the pornographers, the mass media and entertainment industries. But really they are passing on the costs of doing their nefarious business onto others, which should not be tolerated.
Actually, every human being is corrupt.
I agree. I think this guy has a point. Business is an essential part of our nation. But business has run amok, its controllers only interested in extreme profit, no other considerations. Its gutting this country. I'm told that gut wounds are the worst, resulting in a long, painful death. Thats what is happening to our country. We are being gutted by the extreme greed of the top. Add to that the Left's indoctrination of our society by their elites and we have a lethal mix, IMHO, none of it good for the survival of this once great land.
The fatal flaw of all democracies is that eventually, the net tax consumers outnumber the net tax producers. That's why the nation's net tax producers are over $6 trillion in debt.
The nation's founders were completely correct in restricting the franchise to a minority of the populace.
Democracy is the reason the nation's net tax producers are $6 trillion in debt.
Thanks for one of the more memorable quotes.. I am going to remember this quote and use it.
Excellent observation.
Interesting discussion in the thread, to say the least.
I hope that someday you have the opportunity to have dealings with some of the "elite", and have something of considerable value up for contention. Let me give you a handy dandy phrase to remember while you are being, ahem, "educated".
"No candy, no flowers, no lube". This is the motto of the American ruling classes. Screw them all.
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