Posted on 07/25/2002 7:48:19 AM PDT by BillyJack
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charley Reese can be contacted at briarl@earthlink.net. © 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clintons. I hope they crawl back to their swamp soon.
Something big is about to break, and it will be sickening and dirty. A story is circulating that clinton is seeing a shrink. This is a purposeful leak, to soften the blow that is yet to come.
Will it be a sexual story (ho-hum) or financial, attached to Rubin?
Freepers have a throughly justified dislike and contempt for unelected salaried civil service types who regularly abuse the power of government. While these characters enjoy a middle class life style they can frequently wield a great deal of indirect and sometimes direct life and death power over individual American citizens. The most clearcut examples of this phenomenon are in the police and regulatory bureaucracies. As an example the EPA uses broad congressional mandates as a basis for drafting administrative regulations on virtually every commodity used by people or animals. The EPA treats its administrative dictats as having statutory authority. Hosts of Americans have been deprived of property (fines) or liberty (jail sentences) for violating some aspect of EPA regulation. The people who write and enforce this rules have enormous power over the lives of those they persecute, Their power is derivative based on public law and the authority of the Director of the EPA but is no less real. The life and death power wielded by mid level bureaucrats is no where more dramatic than in the federal polie agencies. The odious Larry Potts who was the tactical architect of the Waco massacre was, if I am not mistaken, a mere GS-15, not even a member of the federal Senior Executive Service. The same is true of the police powers of the IRS, BATF, and even such agencies as the Forestry Service.
This list could be multiplied interminably with the state, local and federal bureaucrats from everything from Child Welfare (sic) to Fish and Game Services. This does not even start to enumerate the power of totally private actors such as the gay and feminist lobbies to effect baleful consequences for the increasingly embattled hetero, non disabled, middle class American.
There are many power elites in our country and their actions are frequently at odds with what the naormal American beklievs and holds dear. This anaconda like crushing of traditional culture is what the true negative effect these groups have on our country.As our traditional culture is pulverized by the elites we are being transformed into a fragmented theird world style society compliments of the bureaucratic imperative to continually expand its mission and the hatred of traditional American society permeating the cultral marxism of the academic and cultural elites.
Oooh boy, I wonder who he raped now!
But by the same token, those things are there because someone thinks they will make a profit on them. If enough of us lowly peons reject those things, and make it clear to those who advertise on them that we reject their products because of where they choose to advertise, things will change.
You're dead on, but this wasn't always the case. The greedy liberal segment of America didn't really consolidate full control of America's institutions until some time in the 60s. They accomplished this primarily through stealth infiltration, with Hollywood being one of the first institutions to be infiltrated (which actually took place even before the 60s).
Liberal control of America is so dominant today that, sadly, I fear it can only be turned around in much the same way, through deception and stealth on our part. It's extremely difficult though because the institutional screening systems are far more sophisticated today than they were forty or fifty years ago. It may even be unachievable.
The analysis of how the conservative establishment was dethrowned by young liberal turks is a fascinating story. The stealth infiltration you mention certainly is a factor, but even more important was a shift from an industrial economic base to a knowledge/information service base. The old industrial base was the province of the fundamentally moral WASP establishment. The newer base drew on a less-rooted, urban, more educated class. Once that happened the cultural and political shift was inevitable.
One the best case studies is to look at what happened in journalism. Reporters used to be working class joes with a talent for getting a story. Now, they are all Columbia Journalism School graduates who toe the leftist/liberal line.
I don't necessarily share Charlie's pessimism over the future of the country, and I think the article could use a little more meat, but I pretty much agree with what Reese is laying out here.
In the past, the Baby Boom generation always used to blame the ills of society on the WWII generation, or those generations that came before the spoiled Boomers.
Now, these same Boomers are the ones in positions of power (many of whom were the most vocal in bashing previous generations), so it will be interesting to see how they are able to handle the much-deserved criticism that should ensue over the decline of institutions in this country. They didn't necessarily initiate this decline, but they most certainly are the generation most responisble for accelerating the decline.
They were under no illusion that those without power were virtuous. The founders took a dim view of human nature in general. It was just that the temptation and stakes were greater for those with power.
"Rotation in office" was a good way of limiting corruption. Today, we don't take enough advantage of our opportunities to "throw the rascals out." But corruption in politics, like death, taxes, and the poor, is something there will always be.
The elite hold positions of power but they are self proclaimed authorities. For real, valid power resides with those that create the goods and services that individuals and businesses must have to prosper and ensure the well-being of people.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.
That honest-empowered individual could be a creative entrepreneur or a working-class citizen or anywhere between. Though the working class citizen may picture him or herself as being out of power, especially when comparing themselves to elites in government, in reality the working-class citizen has greater real, valid power than all the politicians and bureaucrats combined.
On net, the working-class citizen creates more life-enhancing value for himself and others than congress does on net. The reason for that is that on net, congress creates more harm than good whereas the working-class citizen on net creates several magnitude more good than harm.
How much stronger and vital is the working class citizens compared to government?
Remove government from the backs of working class citizens and the businesses that employ them and you'd see a rapid increase in people's prosperity and well-being. Conversely, deny government all access to working-class citizens and their employers and politicians and bureaucrats would perish.
For, what would the eat? Where would they sleep? How would they travel? Each of those acts require the efforts of working class citizens to create the food, to create the shelter/houses, to create the cars, planes, trains, boats and bicycles. Of course the politicians and bureaucrats could walk, but even walking is severely hindered when not allowed to were shoes that are created by working-class citizens.
And growing ones own food is extremely difficult without modern agricultural technology -- not to mention not having a simple pitchfork to overturn the soil. And hunting animals with a homemade bow and arrow is almost useless. But at least by creating a bow and arrow politicians and bureaucrats would be learning a trade that has marketable value.
To all working-class Freepers: Just because the author of the article can't see the forest for it's tress, doesn't mean that you can't. It is his ignorance, not yours. You go about your activist activities; be they discussions on this forum or emailing senators or phone calls or whatever; what you should really be aiming for is that your elected and appointed government officials recognize and state verbally and in writing for the public record who holds real and valid power -- that without you, the working-class citizen, they would perish.
MOST IMPORTANT! is that you realize that you -- the working-class citizen -- holds real, valid power.
Think about it, if you and your employer harm your customers your employer would go bankrupt and you'd be out of a job. You and your employer do not need government to ensure that you don't harm your customers. Besides, you and your employer's intentions are honorable and while mistakes do inevitably happen, any harm to a customer can be resolved by the business. For it is in your and your employers best interest to ensure that the customer is reimbursed when a mistake occurs. Because if you let a disgruntled customer go off on his own he or she will cost you ten potential new customers and perhaps a few current customers that are sitting on the fence ready to find a new business to buy from.
Are you sick and tired of being a disgruntled "subject" of the State? Are you sick and tired of being a working-class citizen only to have parasitical politicians and self-serving bureaucrats feed off your hard work and earned prosperity -- extorting half your income and turning around and using it against you?
Wake Up! If you're a working-class citizen all real valid power is in your hands.
Stop playing by their rules. Stop playing their Hobson's choice "game". Stop voting against yourself. Politics is not the answer, it's the problem.
Expose the parasitical elite at every chance you get by promoting your fellow working-class citizens and employers as holding real, valid power that does increrase people's well-being and prosperity.
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