Posted on 07/14/2013 8:57:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Egypt is on everyone’s mind as a democratically-elected government was overthrown by the Egyptian military. It is utterly necessary as the country was moving toward an Islamic state, slowly turning into, at minimum, an oligarchy if not a dictatorship. The question becomes why, after only about a year, did the government fail where ours has endured for 226 years?
The answer is right under our noses and we often do not think about it. Our government had the advantage of six giants of history involved from the start. Those men were Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Hamilton. Each one asserted an influence of deep dynamics that thrust us forward on the road to not only being the most successful democracy that has ever existed, but also the most economically successful and sound country in history.
As for Egypt, where are those people. For example, in our evolving time the world now has effective leadership from women, but you don’t see a female face in any of their councils. There may be a few here and there, but none at the highest rungs and none in the Muslim Brotherhood.
If you cast back to our leaders from our inception, these are people who stepped up to the times. As you may have noticed, the list includes our first four presidents who gave our country tremendous stability in the first 28 years. That was despite some severe disagreements. Shays’ Rebellion in 1787 threatened the newly-forming government before it even could get off the ground. Four years later the Whiskey Rebellion challenged President Washington in his first term and threatened the nascent government. Yet, because of the strength of the leadership and structure of our government that had been formed, we survived.
There rarely is any thought of a military coup in the United States. When you hear that comment from people, you can start looking for their aluminum hat. I have spoken to foreigners around the world who have expressed that such a thing would never happen in the USA. Yet because of a totally inept government In Egypt that has left their economy in total disarray, they have further exacerbated the crisis. The economy of Egypt is largely based on turning viewing their ancient sites and antiquities into Disneyland. It is clear only a few brave souls have visited Egypt since Morsi took over as President.
Alexander Hamilton as a protégé to George Washington created a structure for our financial markets. Through the leadership of Washington and his successors, ambitious people came to America and built the free enterprise system that made us the economic engine of the world.
What Morsi did as president of Egypt was spend his time jailing journalists. What he spent his time doing was making laws that subverted the rule of law established in the newly adopted Constitution (that had challenges itself), heading him toward being a dictator and not a president. What he did not do was calm the country so that people could start getting back to work. The people instead took to the streets. Over a quarter of the population (22 million) joined the protests to express Morsi had to go. With no apparent person on the horizon having the ability to unite the Egyptians to move the country forward, who then will take over?
Not only did we have the six giants listed above, we had a bevy of people who were right behind them. You could include John Jay, President of the Continental Congress and the first Chief Justice of the United States. Where is a similar person in Egypt stumping on Morsi’s subversion of the Constitution? John Jay and the other justices would never have let Washington take over as the ultimate ruler. But that never was needed as Washington established the custom of stepping down after two terms. No one ever thought of being a dictator.
We can all come forward with other consequential people in the early stages of America. Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Elbridge Gerry and John Hancock are just few. All these people and others made this country what it is today.
We were blessed with great leadership that established the rule of law through a Constitution and their actions. Democracy is not easy. Egypt is a perfect example. Hopefully, during this round Egypt will find some of their own giants. In the meantime, Americans need to be patient because democracy takes time.
1) Because we are a Republic.
2) I think it’s pretty clear that our “Democracy” has failed.
*democratic in the general meaning of rule by the people. I'm not trying to start a Athenian pure democracy vs. republican fight here.
I agree. Its so incredibly sad.
I would submit that there are two things that are overlooked here.
One, it takes a Judeo-Christian mindset to make a Republic work for all the people.
Two, the founding civilization may have been poor, but it could feed itself base on tapping the bounty of the land.
Egypt has neither of these things.
Our Founders where mental giants. Sadly, through time our fellow citizens have come to accept mental midgets.
having the atlantic and pacific oceans plus non aggressive neighbors to the north and south helped.
Duh. It failed because they’re Islamic. Republicanism is antithetical to Mohammedanism, which is a political/religious system.
Bush was clever in attempting to create a republic in Iraq. It weakens the grip.of Islam. If one tenet can be ignored, then other tenets become negotiable.
Give the author a buck to buy a clue.
No, it was the 16th Amendment that made our descent into tyranny inevitable.
According to Eleanor Clift, if you have a petition of 25% of the people, then a coup is justified.
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
Exactly, Democracy always eventually fails, it’s just a matter of time.
We were formed as a republic and have thus endured the test of time.
Until we didn't.
16 (enabled wealth redistribution), 17 (killed federalism), 19 (made the electorate more sensitive to emotional appeals) and 24 (mandated representation without taxation) all played a part IMHO.
I’ll add abusive interpretations of 14. As-written this amendment is fine, but it’s used to justify federal overreach.
Sorry for chopping the title.
But this is exactly right.
Succeeded can be the past tense of succeed. And that's where we are. Our Democracy is rapidly drawing to a close.
Are y'all pissed off enough?
If our republic was dependent upon great leadership, it would have failed under mediocre or poor leadership. Though it is hanging by a thread today, it has nothing to do with leadership.
The reason the USA was so successful for so long was primarily because of self-government and a population that was up to the task. At the time of the Revolution, the colonists already had 150 years of experience with self-government.
No other newly formed country already had the existing expertise within its population to be self-sustaining.
The problem we now face is that since the Fabian Socialists started infiltrating our academic system back in the late 1800’s, We the People have gradually abdicated our civic responsibilities.
About a century ago, we started the subjugation of the citizens with the 16th Amendment (personal income tax), emasculated our States with the 17th Amendment (general election of Senators), and initiated the elimination of citizen statesmen in the House with a House rule limiting membership to 435 (dramatically increasing the constituency of each House Seat over the next century).
It is now “accepted knowledge” that politics is distasteful and should not be engaged. The Frankfurt School and Russian communist infiltrators accelerated the trend with the New Deal, (Social Security) and War on Poverty, (welfare state).
We have lost the disciplines and skills of self-government. Unless We the People regain the determination, skills and disciplines, we will forfeit by our inaction the hard won freedoms we used to, and in some small part, still enjoy.
Sadly we are a failed Republic.
In 1787, Alexander Tyler of the University of Edinborough wrote that all
democracies go through eight stages, two hundred years being the average cycle
time. The stages are:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back to bondage.
This quote started appearing on the Internet during the 2000 election, but its actually authorship is a matter of some contention.
The full quote, BTW is:
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
"The average age of the worlds’ greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage."
Well, we were succeeding until someone convinced the idiots that we were a democracy.
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