Our Elective Despotism

American Thinker ^ | 1-31-12 | Lawrence Sellin

[radioone]

There are many things obvious to ordinary Americans that cannot be mentioned publicly in the polite political company of the Republican and Democratic establishments or among their press agents in the mainstream media, who obligingly pirouette around the truth.

For example, both the Republican and Democratic establishments are composed of hopelessly corrupt, procrastinating control freaks, who seek fame and fortune through over-spending money they didn't earn and enthusiastically crushing any spontaneous outbreaks of democracy among U.S. citizens, for example, the Tea Party.

[Flintlock]

Lock and load, boys and girls.
I don’t think there is another way anymore, once they BOTH got rid of West..

[Jacquerie]

One of my vices is the habit of listening to C-Span’s Wash Journal.

Almost every black caller hammers conservatives for opposing the desires and diktats of The One. Too many Americans think our patriotic duty is to obey Him and His czars.

I'm not sure we are any longer fit for a constitutional republic. As long as the checks come in every month, many of us appear comfortable with despotism.

[TexasSecede79366]

"Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepared men for all this, predisposing them to endure it and often even regard it as beneficial.
Having thus taken each citizen in turn in its powerful grasp and shaped men to its will, government then extends its embrace to include the whole of society. It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd."
Alexis de Tocqueville

Are we there yet? I believe so.