Dear Friends,
It seems to me that faction is a bigger threat to our Constitutional republic today than at any time in our history. That is a pretty big statement, considering that we have fought a Civil War, as atonement for the evil of slavery, and all the other times faction has threatened our liberties. The threat of faction has been known and understood since Madison wrote Federalist Paper #10. That faction is a bigger threat today, speaks more about the characteristic of faction in modern society, than the nature of faction as a whole. If I am correct, and faction poses a greater threat to our freedoms and the liberties of our children than at any other time in American history, we must all wake up and address this threat, else we will leave our children a far worse state of affairs, than our parents did us.
In Federalist paper #10 Madison wrote that faction is the biggest threat to a republic. Faction, being like fire and liberty being like oxygen, the way to control faction is not to starve it of oxygen, (liberty) but to pit faction against faction. I am of course paraphrasing his words but the meaning is correct. By pitting faction against faction his theory, and the theory of the US Constitution, is that if faction is always fighting turf wars, no one faction can grow sufficiently large to take over the apparatus of the State. Madison warned that if some faction gained total control of two of the branches of government then our liberty would be threatened. He was adamant about this.
One of the bulwarks against this happening is the free press enjoyed in the US. The free press being able to point out when any single faction in society is becoming too large. A free press was considered one of the controls on the predilection of the Elite to usurp power. This control has worked sometimes better, sometimes worse, but all in all it has been a moderately sufficient safeguard in the past. Today however, we have a media that calls itself unbiased, yet they have a demonstrable bias toward a single faction, showing absolute contempt for our intelligence. This faction was briefly in charge of all three branches of government and still has hegemony over two. The Executive and the Judicial. Control of the Legislative branch is tenuously limited, by the inclusion of a few that are not in that faction, but they are incessantly vilified by the unbiased press for it.
The two party system was another protection against the vicissitudes of faction. If there are only two parties, then all factions must squeeze into one or the other party, thus limiting their overall power. Various factions would have to commingle within each party in order to have some seat at the table. The two party system worked well throughout most of our history but recently has become an impediment due to the pernicious nature of the one faction. This faction has penetrated both parties. The democrat party is under total control of this faction and the Elite in the republican party are loyal to this faction as well. There is only a small minority, growing to be sure, but nevertheless a small faction within the republican party that resists the advance of these people.
Joesph Schumpeter said that free markets and liberty cannot long last. His dire prediction was based on the fact that, once a person becomes wealthy their first order of business is to close the door behind them, so that no one else can pass through the portal to wealth, they did. This doesn’t make the rich bad… it makes them human. The means to this end being ever increasing regulation. As Milton Friedman said, when a business man is confronted with a superior competitor he has two options, the first is to ramp up his business to effectively compete and the other is to turn to government and regulate the competitor away. It is the responsibility of the electorate to control the avarice of the wealthy by the popular vote.
Now we have one faction that seeks to regulate the people while resisting the most basic controls on their actions. They use populist rhetoric to convince us that they work in our best interests, but even a cursory knowledge of human nature shows, this is mere folly. No one works against their own interests. Those very few that have, are given the attribution… Saints and the Christ. To believe that people who seek to control us with arbitrary power, only seek the interests of society, eschewing their own is blindness. The progressive faction is nearing their complete victory over our Constitutional republic, destroying their mortal enemy, the free market and imposing arbitrary rule on us and our children.
All is not lost however. We still have suffrage and the unconventional media. This blog being an example. We can use that power given to us by the Founding Fathers and turn the tide, for at best a few more years, or we can stand aside and allow the demise of our republic, and with it, our liberty, opportunity and safety. It is up to us to be rational maximizers, to stand in the way of the progressive agenda, for the sake of those we love most, or, we can accept the part of useful idiot. I for one, have no interest in being a useful idiot and ceding our republic to a single faction, no matter how flowery their rhetoric… Do you?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
