Why America is Different

America and its unique Constitution was an experiment in self rule.  The way the country was put together was something never tried before on this scale and with the freedoms established.  Yes we did have some of the Greek city states and the original Roman republic but they did not give anywhere near the freedom that was established here under our Constitution.  The rest of the world watched in awe as the Republic was formed and then actually worked.

Alexis de Tocqueville a young Frenchman visited the United States in 1831 with his friend Gustave de Beaumont for a nine month visit which would have been longer had he not been called back to France. After going back to France he wrote and published a treaties called Democracy in America the first Volume I Part 1 and Part 2 in 1835 and the second Volume II Part 1 through Part 4 published in 1840.

An English translation of the First part was published in America in 1838 by Henry Reeve but Tocqueville did not think it was completely accurate.  A much later version by Francis Bowen In 1945 corrected some of this. The writing here used for reference the Penguin Classics version published by Penguin Books London in 2003 translated from French by Gerald E. Bevan with an introduction and notes by Isaac Kramnick.

Tocqueville’s writing skills and his passion for the subject make his writing a must read for any serious student in the theory of self rule.  Democracy in America was an instant hit in France and set de Tocqueville up for election to the French Chamber of Deputies and a distinguish career thereafter.

What Tocqueville found in America, was that the freedoms that existing in America after the first settlers arrived had created an awakening of a spirit in the Citizens and that it was his opinion that this was because the colonists were initially left to fend for themselves.  They were no longer restrained by artificial rules and regulations imposed on them by the Aristocracy which then ruled all of Europe in one form or another.

So they set up their own system of government based on Townships which Tocqueville credited for the eventual establishment of our present form of government. Once they had become free of those ‘old’ shackles they went on to better their lives by working hard and improving their conditions.  They did this because they could keep the fruits of their labor — they had the right of property and “local” control of the property.

These liberated American Citizens were also very aware of their government, much more so then we are today.  They understood the principles and what it meant to be free to succeed and also free to fail, but the opportunity to succeed outweighed the risks of failure. It could be said that the Citizens of America back then and without any expensive public education understood their form of government better then do even those with advanced college educations today.  I know that I did not really understand out form of government until the ‘90s. That basic understanding was one of the surprises that Tocqueville experienced while here in America. It was a surprise because in his France the subjects and even some of the Aristocrats knew very little about their form of government.

During the period he was here he did note that women did not have the right to vote but then in Europe almost no one had the right to vote so what was here was a lot better then in his native France or anywhere else for that matter.  Also free black men in the North had the right to vote but were subtly discouraged from doing so. Interestingly Tocqueville wondered if this freedom was good and whether self rule would work in the long run.  He believed that an Aristocracy might be required to get the benefits of Art Literature and Science since there was a difference that came with being high born.  More on this thought later.

Obviously that was not true as later works in America both in the arts and science would prove.  So If nothing else we now know that freedom and self rule produce more benefits to the Citizens then does any other kind of system that attempts to manipulate the results no mater the reasons good or bad, meddling is meddling.  Every obstacle that Tocqueville thought of as to why America would not work was overcome.  The problems we have today started when the things that make us great were gradually taken away.

The importance of knowing what is going on today in Washington is the result of a push by the progressives (some in each political party but mostly they are Democrats) to establish a new ruling class in America.  A ‘ruling’ class is made up of select group of people that have (mostly) inherited wealth and thereby have attended the best schools and know all the right people.  Foremost they believe, because of their station, that they know what is good for society.

Most countries even today have either a ruling class or an aristocracy (class) which is not much different except for the titles that the nobility give to their supporters with an aristocracy.  These people believe that by the very nature of their birth and privileged education they know better then anyone else what is good for the “common” man.  This is what Tocqueville down deep believed — probably because he was one of the privileged few, and he was having a hard time accepting that this views were wrong even when he saw what was going on here.

When there is a ruling class, whatever they are called, you will find that most of the important politicians are of that class. Certainly not all politicians but the ones that are in the real positions of power in the government most definitely are. They also fill the management ranks of the government bureaucracy and make sure their supporters fill the lower ranks.  These people are all well paid for the positions they hold and most retire with large pensions and connections that allow them to live well for the remainder of their lives.  In the United States today they mostly come from the north east States.

Once a ruling class is established it is almost impossible to remove especially with the number of bureaucrats in Washington and the movement of politicians in and out of the public and private sectors for lobbying.  With over $3.5 trillion dollars flowing through Washington on a yearly basis today that amounts to $10.0 Billion per day or almost $7.0 million per second of potential money up for grabs. That is a lot of temptation and incentive to grab as much as one can as Milton Friedman wrote about in his book Free To Chose.  And then more recently we have the book Extortion written by Peter Schweizer where he shows us how in great detail the politicians are able to skim off large amounts of money and retiree very wealth.

Once a ruling class is established the country becomes theirs and legislation is always designed to benefit them first and the Citizens or subjects second.  Not all those in the upper class are a part of this ruling class but as time goes on the ruling class will get larger and larger by nature and require greater and greater amounts of skim off the top of the federal budget.  At some point these kinds of system either collapse or turn into a monarchy/dictator style system. There is a good book written by Angelio M. Codeville on this subject The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America And What We Can Do About It. A portion of this book also appeared as an article in the American Spectator in the July 2010 – August 2010 issue.

There is little doubt that what is going on today in Washington is the push to establish a ruling class in this country.  All the legislation and regulation that has been pushed through starting with the New Deal, then later whenever they could, was designed to slowly take away the rights of the Citizens as listed in the Declaration of independence the U.S. Constitution and all its amendments. We are now at the final stage of that process — we will either overcome the progressives and reestablish the republic or we will become subjects to them and the republic will be no more.

Benjamin Franklin, “Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

Thomas Pain, “What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; ‘tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”