The Unseen Hand - Ralph Epperson |
If the democratic form of government (rule by a majority) does not protect the rights of the minority, is there a form of government that does? If Democracies protect only the strong, is there a form of government that protects both the strong and the weak?
Various forms of government exist, but basically there are only two:
Man has no control over whether or not God wishes to form a theocratic form of government. This is God's decision. God will create one, or not create one, depending on His plans. So this study of governmental forms will not consider this form of government as a viable alternative. There are various forms of government by man. Some of the more common types are briefly defined as:
Anarchy is a form of government in transition between two other forms of government. Anarchy is created by those who wish to destroy one form of government so that it can be replaced with the form of government the anarchists wish. It too will be discarded as a viable alternative.
It is generally conceded that even a monarchy or a dictatorship is an oligarchy, or a government run by a small, ruling minority. Every monarchy has its small circle of advisors, who allow the king or dictator to rule as long as he does so in a manner pleasing to the oligarchy. It is doubtful that there has ever been a true dictatorship (rule by one person) anywhere in the world, except in some isolated instances, such as in a tribe or in a clan.
Such is also the case with a democracy, for this form of government is traditionally controlled at the top by a small ruling oligarchy. The people in a democracy are conditioned to believe that they are indeed the decision-making power in the government, but in truth there is almost always a small circle at the top making the decisions for the entirety. So the only true form of government throughout history has been the oligarchy, a rule by a minority.
As proof of these contentions, one has only to read the 1928 United States Army Training Manual, which defined a democracy as:
"A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy, attitude toward property is communistic—negating property rights.
"Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequence.
"Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy."
A democracy, according to this definition, is actually controlled by a demagogue, defined as:
"A speaker who seeks to make capital of social discontent and gain political influence."
So demagogues are usually hired by those supporting an oligarchy as a form of government to create the anarchy or social discontent that the oligarchs convert into a true oligarchy. Democracies are converted to anarchy, where no one rules, as the oligarchs seek to control the government themselves. And anarchy ends with a dictatorship or a tyrannical form of government when the oligarchy imposes total control over all of the people.
The 1928 definition of a democracy was later changed by those who write Army manuals, however.
In 1952, this became the definition of a democracy in the Soldier's Guide:
"Because the United States is a democracy, the majority of the people decide how our government will be organized and run— and that includes the Army, Navy and Air Force. The people do this by electing representatives, and these men and women then carry out the wishes of the people.
(This is a strange definition to offer the American fighting man: that democratic policies manage the Armed Services. It is doubtful that enlisted men elect their officers or make decisions as to how to conduct the war.)
So if democracies are in truth oligarchies, where the minority rules, is there a form of government that protects both minority and majority rights? There is, and it is called a republic, which is defined as:
In the republican form of government, the power rests in a written constitution, wherein the powers of the government are limited so that the people retain the maximum amount of power themselves. In addition to limiting the power of the government, care is also taken to limit the power of the people to restrict the rights of both the majority and the minority.
Perhaps the simplest method of illustrating the difference between an oligarchy, a democracy and a republic would be to discuss the basic plot of the classic grade B western movie.
In this plot, one that the moviegoer has probably seen a hundred times, the brutal villain rides into town and guns down the unobtrusive town merchant by provoking him into a gunfight. The sheriff hears the gunshot and enters the scene. He asks the assembled crowd what had happened, and they relate the story. The sheriff then takes the villain into custody and removes him to the city jail.
Back at the scene of the shooting, usually in a tavern, an individual stands up on a table (this individual by definition is a Demagogue) and exhorts the crowd to take the law into its own hands and lynch the villain. The group decides that this is the course of action that they should take (notice that the group now becomes a democracy where the majority rules) and down the street they (now called a mob) go. They reach the jail and demand that the villain be released to their custody. The mob has spoken by majority vote: the villain must hang.
The sheriff appears before the democracy and explains that the villain has the right to a trial by jury. The demagogue counters by explaining that the majority has spoken: the villain must hang. The sheriff explains that his function is to protect the rights of the individual, be he innocent or guilty, until that individual has the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law. The sheriff continues by explaining that the will of the majority cannot deny this individual that right. The demagogue continues to exhort the democracy to lynch the villain, but if the sheriff is persuasive and convinces the democracy that he exists to protect their rights as well, the scene should end as the people leave, convinced of the merits of the arguments of the sheriff.
The republican form of government has triumphed over the democratic form of mob action.
In summary, the sheriff represents the republic, the demagogue the control of the democracy, and the mob the democracy. The republic recognizes that man has certain inalienable rights and that government is created to protect those rights, even from the acts of a majority. Notice that the republic must be persuasive in front of the democracy and that the republic will only continue to exist as long as the people recognize the importance and validity of the concept Should the people wish to overthrow the republic and the sheriff, they certainly have the power (but not the right) to do so.
But the persuasive nature of the republic's arguments should convince the mob that it is the preferable form of government
There is another example of the truths of this assertion. It is reported in the Bible.
The republic, in the form of the Roman government, "washed its hands of the matter" after finding the accused Jesus innocent of all charges, and turned Him over to the democracy, which later crucified Him.
It is easy to see how a democracy can turn into anarchy when unscrupulous individuals wish to manipulate it. The popular beliefs of the majority can be turned into a position of committing some injustice against an individual or a group of individuals. This then becomes the excuse for the unscrupulous to grab total power, all in an effort to "remedy the situation."
Alexander Hamilton was aware of this tendency of a democratic form of government to be torn apart by itself, and he has been quoted as writing: "We are now forming a republican government Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy (or some other form of dictatorship.)"
Others were led to comment on the perils of a democratic form of government. One was James Madison who wrote:
"In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger!"
Another was John Adams who wrote:
"Unbridled passions produce the same effects, whether in a king, nobility, or a mob. The experience of all mankind has proved the prevalence of a disposition to use power wantonly. It is therefore as necessary to defend an individual against the majority (in a democracy) as against the king in a monarchy."
When Moses of the Bible carried the Ten Commandments down to the people, they were written on stone. The majority of the people did not vote to accept them. They were offered as the truth, and were in stone to teach the people that they couldn't change them by majority vote. But the people rejected the Commandments anyway, just as they can reject the principles of the republican form of government should they choose to do so.
America's founding fathers, while not writing the laws in stone, did attempt to restrict man's ability to tamper with them. The rules for revising or amending the Constitution are rigidly set out in the provisions of the Constitution itself.
George Washington, in his farewell address to the American people as he was leaving the presidency, spoke about the amending of the Constitution:
"If in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional power be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way in which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation, for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."
It was about the same time that a British professor named Alexander Fraser Tyler wrote:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess (defined as a liberal gift) out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship."
Here is outlined the procedure by which democratic, or even republican, forms of government can be turned into a dictatorship.
This technique of subverting a democracy into a dictatorship was spelled out in a book in 1957 by Jan Kozak, a member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Mr. Kozak titled his book How Parliament Took a Revolutionary Part in the Transition to Socialism and the Role of the Popular Masses. The American version of his book is titled And Not a Shot is Fired, the Communist Strategy for Subverting a Representative Government. Mr. Kozak describes what has been called the "Pincers Movement," the method by which the conspirators can use the parliament, the "Pressure from Above," and the mob, the "Pressure from Below," to convert a democracy into a dictatorship. Mr. Kozak explained his strategy:
"A preliminary condition for carrying out fundamental social changes and for making it possible that parliament be made use of for the purpose of transforming a capitalistic society into a socialistic one, is:
What Mr. Kozak proposed was a five part program to seize control of a government
And total power was the goal of those causing the grievance. The plan is, as Nesta Webster wrote in her book World Revolution: "the systematic attempt to create grievances in order to exploit them."
This technique was used, with a slight variation, by Adolf Hitler, who sent his own party loyalists into the streets (the "Pressure from Below") to create the terror that he blamed on the government (the "Pressure from Above.") The German people, told by Hitler that the government in power couldn't end the terror even though they passed oppressive legislation in an effort to stop it, listened to the one man who was offering relief: Adolf Hitler. He was in a position to stop the terror. He was the one causing itl And therefore he could end it! And he promised that he would end it when he was given the power of government!
The people believed Hitler and voted him into office. And once in office, he called in his party loyalists and the terror ended, just like he promised. Hitler appeared to be a hero: he did what he said he would.
There are some who saw this strategy at work in the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment ("Prohibition") to the Constitution. If the creation of an organized crime syndicate was the reason for the passage of this Amendment, then what happened makes sense.
Anyone who knew human nature realized that the Amendment would not cause the drinking of liquor to stop: it would only make drinking illegal. And the American people responded by purchasing their liquor from those willing to risk penalties and fines for selling illegal liquor. The more that the government clamped down on the illegal sale of liquor, the more they played into the hands of those who wished to create a crime syndicate. The more the pressure on those selling the liquor, the more the price went up. The more the price went up, the more unscrupulous became the seller of the liquor. The more unscrupulous the seller, the more crime in the streets. The more crime in the streets, the more pressure on the sellers of the liquor. Finally, only the most ruthless survived. And the price of liquor was raised even higher because of the risk involved in selling it.
The American people thought that the crime syndicate that survived the government's pressure would cease after Prohibition was repealed. But they stayed, much to the continued distress of the American people.
Some very well-known Americans benefited from Prohibition. In fact:
"Frank Costello, the so-called 'Prime Minister of the Underworld' . . . informed Peter Maas, author of The Valachi Papers that he and Joseph Kennedy (the father of the late President, John Kennedy) were partners in the liquor business."
This startling connection between organized crime and the father of the late President was confirmed in an article in Parade Magazine on November 16, 1980.
A more current example of this technique was used by those who wanted to prolong the Vietnamese War. This strategy was used throughout the war with extreme effectiveness.
One of the truths of the economic system under which America operates is that the name on the bottom line of the payroll check is the employer, and the name on the top line is the employee. As long as the employee continues to perform as requested by the employer, the employee continues getting payroll checks. When the employee ceases to perform as requested, the checks are no longer issued.
The same principle applies in the funding of the public universities during the Vietnamese War.
A good percentage of the anti-government, anti-Vietnamese War protestors came from the college campuses in the United States. These schools were heavily financed by the very government that the college students were protesting against.
Yet the funding from the federal government continued. In other words, the employee (the schools) were producing a product (the anti-war protestors) that was pleasing to the employer (the federal government.) And as long as the schools kept producing a product pleasing to the employer, the checks continued.
Is it possible that the government, acting as the "pressure from above," intentionally funded schools because it wanted these schools to produce anti-government dissidents, the "pressure from below?"
Is it possible that the government's purpose was to prolong the war? Is it possible that this was the method by which the American people were conditioned to support the "no-win" strategy of America's involvement in the war?
The American people, until at least the Korean War, believed that our government should first avoid wars, but once in one, they believed the government should win and then leave. But the government's strategy during the Vietnamese War was never to win but to find ways to prolong the war, and the anti-war protestors were created for that purpose.
The strategy was simple. The public was told by the major media that covered every meeting of three or more anti-war protestors, that to oppose the war was un-American. The protestors were to do everything to discredit the American flag, the nation, and the military. To do this they burned the flag, used obscenities, and carried the flag of the enemy, the Viet Cong. All of these activities were calculated to tell the American people that there were only two choices in the war:
Another slogan made popular during the war was: "Your country: love it or leave it."
There were only two options being offered: either support your government in its "no-win" strategy, or leave the country. The traditional goal of America's strategy in a war, victory, was not being offered as an alternative.
The most glaring, although not commonly understood, example of the "no-win" war strategy, was the use of the "peace" sign, made by extending the first two fingers into a "V." This gesture was first made popular during World War II by Winston Churchill who meant the symbol to mean "victory." (No one ever explained what the letter "V" had to do with the word "peace," but it didn't matter, as it was intended to cause the American people to think of "peace" and not "victory" in the Vietnamese war.)
The strategy worked. The American people allowed the various administrations involved to wage the war without the goal of a victory, and the war continued for about ten years.
It is a well known fact that the quickest and surest path to victory in any war is to deny the enemy the materials he needs to wage the war. In 1970, the world's largest petition drive focused on the fact that America was supplying Russia with strategic military items while Russia was supplying eighty percent of North Vietnam's war materials. This petition drive was supported by the signatures of around four million Americans, yet it hardly received any press coverage. As the petitions were assembled, they were sent to U.S. congressmen and senators, but nothing was done, and the aid and trade to Russia continued. There was no question in the minds of those who circulated the petitions that the war would have been over in a very short time if this aid and trade stopped.
The strategy worked. The American people, no longer offered a victory as an alternative, and turned off by the protestors who urged them to end the war, supported their government's "no-win" strategy, and the war kept grinding on, killing and injuring scores of American fighting men and women, as well as countless Vietnamese on both sides of the war.
Others have become aware of Kozak's strategy and have used it in a beneficial manner. One such individual explained the method in 1965:
The author of those words was Martin Luther King, Jr., who wrote them in an article in Saturday Review. It appears that Mr. King somehow had heard of Jan Kozak's book, as the methods are nearly identical. Those who have studied Mr. King's background before he became America's Civil Rights leader are certain that Mr. King was in a position to have read and studied Kozak's book itself.
The Augusta, Georgia, Courier of July 8, 1963, printed a picture of Mr. King at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee during the Labor Day weekend of 1957. This school had an interesting history. After King visited there, the school was closed by the Tennessee Legislature in 1960 after having conducted hearings into its true nature. The school was cited as being a "meeting place for known Communists and fellow travelers," and as a "Communist Training School."
Mr. King's association with the Communists and the Communist Party was not restricted to just those he met during the weekend at the Folk School, as Communists virtually surrounded him as he planned his civil rights activities. The Reverend Uriah J. Fields, the Negro clergyman who was King's secretary during the early stages of the bus boycott that made King famous, wrote this about those associated with him:
"King helps to advance communism. He is surrounded with Communists. This is the major reason I severed my relationship with him during the fifties. He is soft on communism."
Another who supported the assertion that the Communists were involved in the activities of Mr. King was Karl Prussion, a former counterspy for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Prussion testified in 1963 after attending Communist Party meetings in California for five years:
"I further swear and attest that at each and every one of the aforementioned meetings, one Reverend Martin Luther King was always set forth as the individual to whom Communists should look and rally around in the Communist struggle on the many racial issues."
So Mr. King certainly had the opportunity to read the book by Jan Kozak, and he was surrounded by those who certainly should have been familiar with the method of this Communist strategist And King even put the strategy on paper for all to see.
The purpose of the Civil Rights movement was best summarized by a comment made by two of the past presidents of the American Bar Association, Loyd Wright and John C. Satterfield. They once wrote the following about the Civil Rights Bill, one of the major "accomplishments" of the Civil Rights movement:
"It is ten percent civil rights and ninety percent extension of Federal executive power. The 'civil rights' aspect of this legislation is but a cloak; uncontrolled Federal Executive power is the body."
So King's major purpose was to increase the role of the government in the everyday lives of the American people.