Dear Friends,
It seems to me, we are living the tyranny that Madison warned us would come about, in Federalist Paper Number 10. Namely, that the progressive faction controls the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches. Not only that, but they also have a political monopoly on big tech, the media, education, medicine, corporate boards and even many small businesses. You see, progressivism is the philosophy of the elite in the West today. That faction has exceeded what Madison warned us about, by orders of magnitude, and wields powers of surveillance, censorship and outright oppression, that our Founding Fathers could not have dreamt of. In the last decade the progressives have shred the US Constitution, the democratic process and morality, establishing totalitarianism… to save democracy.
The Founding Fathers cut their teeth in a period of tyranny by the British crown. They knew all too well, the means the king had used to oppress the people, and set themselves to stopping such abuses from ever occurring again. Soldiers would barge into homes at all hours demanding to search their homes and papers without warrant. Like the police do now when they browse through people’s cell phones without a warrant. Show trials to make examples of the politically disfavored was common in colonial times, to enforce, expand and prove the power of the king and his minions. Just as show trials are all the rage today, as in Rittenhouse, Maxwell and the Jan 6 commission. They either vilify the disfavored, protect the favored or forward a narrative… justice is irrelevant.
In a vibrant culture there are a multitude of points of view that are necessarily at odds with each other. In those rare times and places, where they are allowed to compete in the arena of ideas, the best ones always win out. In such societies there is an interplay between the liberal elements and the conservative. The liberal ever seeking and trying new ideas. The conservative continually sorting the wheat from the chaff. In a functional society this interplay leads to the betterment in the lot of Mankind. Often those best ideas are the ones most detested by the elite however. Those societies where only the elite’s point of view is allowed, stultify, no matter what that point of view is. The liberal role taken to the extreme becomes Communism and the conservative becomes the Victorian era.
Initially, the Founders tried a confederation, that proved to be too chaotic. Leading to the Constitutional Convention. In creating a republic, where the factions can argue their truths in the arena of ideas, the best idea winning, the Founders showed they understood the nature of Man. They had read the classics, Plutarch, Livy, etc… and set up a republic with the intent to limit the power of a faction to become a hegemony. They knew the story of Marius and Sulla, and how that filial fighting ripped Rome apart. They used the ideas of Montesquieu, to break the Judicial from the Executive, further protecting society from a runaway Executive. Knowing the malevolent nature of people, the Founders did everything in their philosophy, to limit the power of the elite. Obviously, they failed… or have they?
The Founders wouldn’t recognize the US today. Not because of the technology, hairstyles or speech, but the government. The armed bureaucracy would be an anathema to them. That it is based on rulings like Wickard v Filburn, make it the fault of Hamilton’s, “least dangerous branch.” The Founders fully expected rogue executives, like Wilson, FDR and Biden. They didn’t expect an ideology so pernicious that it oozed into every crevice of government, culture and the elite. That, like a reactor denied the coolant of debate, would melt the elite into a single radioactive ingot of tyranny. Creating the dystopian despotism we are currently watching being fused together before our very eyes. As we ignore the warnings of the Founding Fathers, the power they gave us to stop it, and do nothing but grumble.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
