From American Thinker:
November 05, 2009 The Great MysteryBy Steve McCann
One of the great mysteries in today's United States is how a country founded on the principle of individual freedom, having achieved great wealth and world influence, could have developed a political class bent on transforming the nation into a collective dominated by a powerful central government.
The history of man is replete with the rise and fall of major civilizations. The downfall of these societies inevitably stemmed from a prolonged period without adversity, which in turn generated internal strife and political and monetary greed. In due course, these empires were easily conquered or dominated by others.
John Adams wrote in a letter to his wife of his need to study politics and war so his sons could study mathematics and philosophy and his grandchildren could study poetry and music. Surely this grand new experiment known as the United States, based on the rights of the individual and not the state, could avoid the pitfalls that plagued other nations.
The peace, prosperity, and lack of national adversity Adams envisioned came to pass, and future generations were able to study subjects other than war. Unfortunately, destructive modern political philosophies, such as Marxism and socialism, manipulated by the self-absorbed to achieve political power, were matters John Adams and his fellow founding fathers could not have anticipated.
The inherent basis of Marxism and socialism is no different from that of earlier monarchies -- the domination of a state by a select class or individual. Today's believers in these "-isms" are no different from those in the past who believed they were preordained to rule the masses. Modern society will not accept the concept of an authoritarian dictator or monarch; thus, a powerful central government, with its trappings of public legitimacy, serves as a substitute.
In order for this strategy to succeed, the public must be manipulated into accepting the premise that only government and not they can provide economic and personal security. This can best be done in a country such as the United States not in an era of adversity, but one of prosperity and good fortune.
The last period of what could be called true national adversity was the 1930s and the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt and his fellow travelers were unable to fully realize an all-powerful central government despite their best efforts. While he certainly made inroads, the people and circumstances were such that FDR could not achieve his ultimate goal.
However, in the nearly seventy years since, during which the United States became the most powerful economic and military force the world has ever seen, there has been an inexorable march to government domination of the citizenry at all levels. Parallel to this track has been the rise of the socialist Left, the most influential group of all political entities.
The lack of national adversity over these years allowed the adherents of Marxism and socialist philosophies to recruit among the college-aged and the middle class by citing the so-called inequities of American society and the need to remake the country. They fanned the egos of these gullible individuals by convincing them of their individual superiority and ability, not to mention the necessity that they govern and educate the huddled masses.
One need only watch many in the committed American Left make pilgrimages to those second- and third-world countries controlled by Marxist governments and fawn over their rulers. The diminished standard of living, the loss of liberty, and the bleak future for the people of these nations are ignored while the power achieved by the head of state is celebrated.
It is that acquisition of power which motivates the self-named "Progressives," not the welfare of the general public, as they so loudly proclaim.
A strategy was needed on how a faction that represented less than 20% of the citizenry could elicit this endgame with a people overwhelmingly against the concept of powerful central government and within the framework of a written constitution.
Using the backdrop of overwhelming prosperity, the Left seized upon the concept of "fairness" to promote their agenda and intimidate the populace. This "fairness" strategy was further reinforced by the incessant promotion that the United States as a civilization was responsible for all manner of evils throughout its history.
On the surface, it appeared that there was nothing this country did not have the money for, nothing it could not accomplish. To make up for past sins by guaranteeing equal outcomes was the least that could be done. The argument became that with so much wealth, the United States could afford to (fill in the blank).
As a result, much of the citizenry quietly accepted the argument and simply dropped out of active participation in government. They assumed the nation was in reasonably good hands with the two political parties, whose motives or agenda were never questioned. Most did not realize that by the mid 1980's, the Left had a stranglehold on the Democratic Party, and the Republicans, unable or unwilling to fully warn the population of the future consequences of an all-powerful central government, were only able to slow down the march to socialism -- and that only when they were in power.
This march was not at gunpoint, but rather by the destruction of the economy and self-determination through massive spending programs which were unsustainable but became woven into the fabric of society.
"one group gains the ascendancy. Once in office, the leaders restore 'order' in so savage a bloodletting that the millions are cowed. Swiftly, the power group begins to restrict activities. The licensing systems and other regulative measures necessary to any organized society become tools of suppression and monopoly. It becomes difficult, then impossible, for the individual to engage in new enterprise. And so we progress by swift stages to the familiar caste system of ancient India, and to other, less well-known but equally inflexible societies, such as that of Rome after about A.D. 300. The individual is born into his station in life and cannot rise above it."
>>But he falls short in a couple of areas.First, the Founders may not have foreseen this specific course of events, but they did foresee the threat of a large central government. That's why they specifically limited the federal government's powers in the Constitution.<<
True, but he touched on this very specifically in his piece, however, by alluding to how the left, as a minority within the country, employed a strategy to get where they are now finally by making inroads around the system as well as within its very framework. So I'm compelled to conclude that this particular criticism on your part is therefore unfounded.
>>Second, he's wrong that the liberal goal of an omnipotent central government "can best be done in a country such as the United States not in an era of adversity, but one of prosperity and good fortune." In fact, periods of prosperity and good fortune for all are the worst time to attempt a substantial revision of the political contract between citizen and government. Only in times of crisis can that contract be successfully rewritten, and that is exactly what has happened in the US over the last century. The Great War, the Great Depression, the Second World War, the civil-rights movement, the stagflation-recession of 1978-82, and now the near-collapse of the debt-ridden world financial system -- each provided a period of social and political crisis in which major change was possible. In-between these crises, no significant changes have occurred.<<
Here you're on firmer ground, and I noticed that too, but I believe his point is that we're not in the midst of a dire crisis like the Second World War, for instance. The United States, especially during the 80s and 90s, were in the midst of a golden age, which continued into the latter part of this decade in fact, and even in the midst of the financial crisis to which you refer, and which Rahm Emanuel has cited as a means to rework the country in the manner suggested ("You never want a serious crisis go to waste, and what I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."), by and large the country is still not feeling the true gravity and affects of the current crisis. Some people, such as me, have found themselves out of work and unable to find a new job, but for the most part, it's not a Great Depression where people have to worry about how they're going to bring the next loaf of bread into their home. They're still out buying 46" and 50" inch flat screen high definition televisions (which are expected to be the biggest seller this coming holiday season in fact), and are still living high on the hog, so to speak. So to a great extent, the author does also have a very valid point, because people have become fat and lazy --we're witnessing this country's "Bread and Circuses" period right before our very eyes at the moment, even with 10 percent unemployment.
>>Finally, there's no real mystery how this happened, at least not to me ... and, in keeping with the topic of this forum, it's a Depression-era science fiction writer who gives the first clue. In The Voyage of the Space Beagle, A.E. van Vogt invented the idea of "cyclic history:" a recognizable, predictable series of stages that every human civilization passes through. Van Vogt obviously thought that contemporary America was in what he called the 'winter' stage of its cycle, a stage marked by the common folk achieving an understanding of how things work, socially and politically, and also how things should work, after which they start trying to make things work the way they think things should work. "The result," his sociologist-character Korita explains, "is a veritable melee of undisciplined intelligence. In their resentment and lust, men follow leaders as confused as themselves." Van Vogt predicted that this would lead to social chaos as numerous factions all fought against each other, first in the courts and then in the streets. "Sooner or later," Korita explains,
"one group gains the ascendancy. Once in office, the leaders restore 'order' in so savage a bloodletting that the millions are cowed. Swiftly, the power group begins to restrict activities. The licensing systems and other regulative measures necessary to any organized society become tools of suppression and monopoly. It becomes difficult, then impossible, for the individual to engage in new enterprise. And so we progress by swift stages to the familiar caste system of ancient India, and to other, less well-known but equally inflexible societies, such as that of Rome after about A.D. 300. The individual is born into his station in life and cannot rise above it."<<
Very interesting, but that has yet to reach predicted fruition, and there are people on the right who are rising up in opposition to that very outcome being made manifest. It of course remains to be seen whether or not they'll actually have the numbers and the strength to pull it off (I personally have some certain serious doubts about that), but it's still a bit early to be calling it "Game Over" in the way you've just described.
>>I think van Vogt got a number of things wrong, but in general he was on to something. There is a cycle of political power and its use in human cultures, and the modern "progressive" is one of the darker stages of that cycle.<<
Agreed --we are seeing that play out before our very eyes, and it has been steadily building over the last seventy or eighty years especially, thereby reaching the high point that it is at now.
>>They seek equality for all -- not equality of opportunity, but equality of result, which can only be obtained by punishing success and rewarding failure. Progressives use the system against itself to pursue this impossible goal, and by and large they are successful because the system was never designed to deal with such a threat from within. Under these conditions, an increasing number of people nurse smoldering resentments that can only be satisfied with blood. For the best of reasons they elect the worst of leaders, leaders who believe in nothing save their own superiority and seek to become a new aristocracy, different from the classic hereditary aristocracy only in that entry and rank are determined by something other than one's bloodlines. Then, in the name of maintaining their own power, the aristocrats strangle growth and condemn the culture to stagnation, the "fellahin" stage of cyclic history.<<
