by David Remer, June 20, 2003 – Political News & Analysis

Our Choice - Democracy or Aristocracy

This article (TomPaine) discusses repeal of the estate tax proposed by the US House of Representatives. The article is extremely well written by Chuck Collins and provides great detail about the myths and realities being bantered about to support such a repeal. At the heart of the issue however, is the Constitution of the United States and the Revolutionary War which won freedom and independence from the King of England and the aristocracy that ruled at the time. Our founding fathers despised aristocracy, which is defined by the New World Dictionary as "1) government by the best citizens 2) government by a privileged minority or upper class, usually of inherited wealth and social position".

Our founding fathers wanted government to be responsive to all free men of the nation regardless of class, social status, or even wealth. The estate tax prevents such an Aristocracy from becoming larger than it already is. Since we already know that money talks in D.C. louder than the individual voter's letters or emails to Congress or the President, repeal of the estate tax will create a larger aristocracy. The super wealthy already have inroads to elections, lobbying power, and influence upon our elected representatives that the middle class does not. It takes huge money to get elected, and an aristocracy can afford to insure a candidate that the money will be there, provided the candidate's views favor the aristocrat donor.

House Republicans and Democrats who support the bill to repeal the estate tax, are turning their backs on some of the most fundamental reasons the Revolutionary War was fought and the Constitution was written the way it was. The checks and balances between the branches of government were designed such, that no individual nor small group of individuals could wield tyranny upon the people by way of the government.

And while the preamble states the constitution is written in order to create a more perfect union and justice in the land, an Aristocracy of a minority of multi-millionaires and billionaires stands in direct opposition to the preamble and its intent. American aristocrats already have the ability to pull the strings of government both through the election process and through right of privilege to be heard by elected officials directly through visitation, dinners and lunches, fund raisers and expensive lobbying. A growing aristocracy through the repeal of the estate tax is antithetical to the patriots of this nation who fought and died in the Revolutionary War to establish this more perfect union and to free themselves from the aristocracy of England.

Some in Congress argue that they are trying to preserve small farmers from losing their farms. However, this is a ruse. Note the following from Chuck Collins’ article, “At a June 17 press conference, Tom Bius from the National Farmers Union, which represents over 300,000 small farmers, called on Congress to "stop using farmers to front for complete estate tax repeal." The Farmers Union supports reforming the estate tax, but not repeal. The pro-repeal American Farm Bureau has not produced a single example of a farm lost because of the estate tax.”

Also, congresspersons argued that estate taxes constitute double taxation. But, as Collins points out, “But the bulk of assets in taxable estates -- appreciated stocks and real estate -- is wealth that has never been taxed.“

The repeal of the estate tax will face stiffer opposition in the Senate, but, without the response from the public in large numbers, the US will indeed grow the American aristocracy to the detriment of present and future generations of tax paying, hard working, citizens of modest means whose votes will be discounted and whose voices will be unable to be heard over the din of powerful money influences in Washington D.C. The estate tax is our best defense against such an aristocratic strangle hold upon the future generations of the American middle class.

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by David Remer,   June 11, 2003  --Political News & Analysis--

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
--Benjamin Franklin

The founding fathers of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights would be very concerned by what passes for Patriotism today. The “Love It or Leave It” patriots who would declare that any who speak against the actions of the American government were at least unpatriotic, and some would say traitors. The founding fathers had no love for government, not even our own. They assumed that power corrupts and that government is inherently a powerful force. Their lack of faith in politicians and government in general is to be found everywhere in the Constitution and Bill of Rights as well as many of their well documented quotes as Ben Franklin’s above.

This is precisely why they protected individual rights against government in the Bill of Rights and constructed the checks and balances between the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The founding fathers knew there would be abuses of power by officials in power. This is why they lay such great oversight responsibility in the congress, since, congress was supposed to be the champion of the people’s causes. The founding fathers could not then foresee the congress placing political power protection ahead of the people’s causes as has occurred far too often today. Had they foreseen it, they certainly would have devised a protection against political parties influence in government as well.

For the founding fathers patriotism was not toward government, but, toward the union of people under the banner of liberty from oppressive government and justice for abuses of governmental power.

Note this from George Washington:

“Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” --

And these from Thomas Jefferson:

 “Never trust a government that doesn’t trust its own citizens with guns.”

“When government fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.”

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

And James Madison states:

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

Those today who claim to be patriots while deriding any who challenge the actions and motives of political leaders are foolish. They should take note of Ben Franklin’s warning, “No man's life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.”

Franklin also states:

“It is the fist responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”

The patriotism of the founding fathers was not toward our government. They didn’t trust our government or any government since government is the seat of power and power corrupts. It was to the peoples of the colonies who were willing to sacrifice their property and lives for freedom from tyranny and for self-determination that their patriotism was directed. Today, as then, our patriotism should be directed toward our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and to our brave soldiers who are willing to make the sacrifice to defend our rights to freedom and self-determination. BUT, we are foolish to direct our patriotism toward our leaders or the government that puts our young troops in harm’s way, or which promises with the mouth and reverses those promises with their actions.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Our allegiance is to what the flag stands for, one nation guided by just laws which preserve and protect the liberty for all and administers justice to those who abridge those liberties for personal gain or profit. And that includes our politicians, who place the protection of their power above the interests of the public at large.

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David Remer May 19, 2003 -- Political News & Analysis

One of the most basic assumptions of a democracy is an informed voting public is essential. A democracy by definition is a people who are governed by the majority consent of the people. If a democratic nation is insufficiently informed, government direction will often be ineffectual in solving a nation's problems. However, if the voting public is misinformed by its leaders or a minority, then the government ceases to be a democracy, since, majority consent is not based on informed consent, and government is being directed by those who misinformed the public. All dictators of the 20th century knew the importance of misinforming the public and formally set up propaganda ministries to deliberately misinform the public in such a way as to retain support from the people.

Couldn’t happen in America, you say? We currently have hard evidence of the undermining of democracy through misinformation going on today in America. Polls have shown that the American people, by a majority, believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible in part or whole for the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., [CSMonitor]. Where did the American people acquire this false connection?

First, is it false? The administration has defended against the accusation that the president made the connection. Note the following from the Christian Science Monitor:

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.

Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.

She writes further:

“The administration has succeeded in creating a sense that there is some connection [between Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein]," says Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

So, in the absence of any other possible source of information which linked Hussein to 9/11, and there appears to be none, it is reasonable to say that the President was solely responsible for this misinformation.

A strong correlation in the polls shows that those who believed in this connection made up the majority of the American people who supported the invasion of Iraq. Had the people not been misinformed, the U.S. may never have invaded Iraq, and the U.S. may have spent that time and those resources over the same period waging war on the real terrorists responsible for 9/11, Bin Laden and the Al-Queda, remember them. There still out there.

An informed public is essential to a functional working democracy. Without informed consent, the people become puppets to be dangled about by propaganda in support of a government which inevitably will act against the interests of the majority of the people.

This war in Iraq is raising the deficit significantly, as well as the national debt. This war, though now the President says it is over, is still costing American soldiers lives every week. Where is the media in this regard? Where is the administration’s report of weekly casualties still occurring in Iraq? Where is the information the public needs to direct its government, instead of being directed by it?

Government and the media is a whole other topic to be taken up later.

What do you think? Is democracy alive and well in America today? Or are we in trouble?

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