Or- The Self-Destructive Path of Liberalism. The ancients noticed the self destructive pattern of liberalism, a largely feminized worldview of sensitivity and self-delusion. Liberalism is the basis of our constitution so both Conservatives and Liberals in America are actually liberal in the classical sense. In other words they believe in the triumph of reason and that each person is endowed with certain inalienable rights. Those are liberal beliefs that grew out of the Enlightenment. They are core beliefs in Western Civilization but ONLY those nations influenced by Western Civilization believe this. It is not universal.
[Due to a glitch in my computer these first few paragraphs were not initially part of this article. It was somewhat confused as it lacked the introduction – so I apologize to any readers who read this yesterday. Be patient, this topic really needs a book and I am trying to cover it in a few pages. Therefore, it will probably raise more questions than it answers. That is good. Because I do not have the answer. I offer AN answer but I am not convinced it is the best one as there are different ways of supporting the state. MY answer, however, does have the advantage of rooting out cowards and those who lack moral and physcial courage and, at least in my mind, that has been one of the greatest sources of evil in our society – along with ignorance, dogma, and greed. Without courage, the mass of people just stand by and let these various evils run amuck – it is hard to stand against the current. You Freedom Troopers, however, are up to the task. And you are not alone.]
The reason the Constitution and the Founder’s idea of America worked is because their very deeply held convictions of liberalism were countered by very deeply held convictions of belief. While not all were connected with an organized religion you can tell from their writings that they held the assumptions of religion. This knowledge that humanity is fallen and prone to evil counterbalanced the liberal beliefs that reason could bring us closer to perfection. Since the believed that only the Divine is perfect, they avoided the doom of liberalism as demonstrated by 100 million deaths in the liberal/left belief of Communism. Communism is simply pushing the beliefs of liberalism to their extreme. Those being that reason is God and humanity can be perfected. Communism calls this “the new communist man” and todays liberals call these “perfected” humans “liberals” or “democrats.” They are therefore “excused” (at least in their minds,) to not listen to the “fallen” and “evil” people who have different and “unenlightened” beliefs. In a way were were always going to get here because Liberalism is at the core of our Constitution and religious institutions alternate between competence and heresy through the ages. As our Christianity, the grounding factor of Western Civilization has failed due to heretical and incompetent performance of its leaders liberalism has run amuck and threatens to destroy our Republic and simultaneously all of the Republics of the West. We haveall reached this crisis together. But why?
We were not founded as a democracy but due to liberal sensibilities, as Socrates implied, we have become one. In that sense liberalism has killed our Republic. The United States had liberal ideas of the enlightenment embedded in its very constitution and the only hope of moderating those tendencies was found in the various religious tendencies of the American people to balance them out. As liberalism and emotion has taken hold of the Republic, as we moved to the anathema of universal suffrage, and as those who were primarily guided by emotions and a yearning for egalitarianism and equity/equality of outcome, one by one they tore apart the foundations of our Republic and began a war of extermination upon the hierarchy of the Divine, represented by religion. For all religions, by the very concept of God, are hierarchical and not egalitarian. They appeal to Divine authority rather than the human intellect. As such America at its founding and for the first four score and seven years was a perfect balance of liberalism and religion. In other words, it worked. From the Civil War on America began to change as the myths of scientism gained ascendency over the myths of religion and we shifted from one worldview to the worldview that empowered the murderous French Revolution that so revolted George Washington in its brutality.
‘It is important to remember that back when the ink was barely dry upon the constitution the founding fathers were deeply pessimistic about the country they had created.” – Reason TV 2022
Hamilton called the constitution “a frail and worthless fabric.” Washington and others lamented the growth of political factions above the interest in the common good and John Adams thought that a lack of civic virtue doomed the Republic. Jefferson viewed the sectional divisions between the North and South with horror.
The sacrifices of the generation of 1776 are useless because they will be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons. My only consolation is to be that I live not long enough to weep over it.” Jefferson
The greatest Republics and free societies are all founded upon those who have the greatest vested interest in preserving the state. It is these people who are given the right to vote. As Plato noted it is a tendency of liberal humanity to extend rights outward and extend inclusivity until the state itself dissolves. We are seeing this in America today as we follow the same path from democracy to anarchy to tyranny. Maybe it is time to right our course and separate citizenship and the right to vote (with its obligations,) from simply being a free person in society with the liberties and freedoms guaranteed in the constitution. Voting, as you know, is not one of the rights of all persons guaranteed by our Bill of Rights.
Welcome Freedom Troopers and the Reforgers of the Foundations of the West. Welcome back to SabersEdge.Online. We aren’t for everyone but for those who can see truth, have common sense, and who are not afraid of questions and history we invite you to join us. You have found your tribe. As you know, things are changing so rapidly I have trouble researching things to the extent that I prefer and often I have essay upon essay piled up in my files because media has moved beyond the topic. Sunday’s are my day for posting “evergreen” material that are not subject to the whims of the news cycle. In my series What Your Father Should Have Taught You and also Foundations we explore the principles that define civilization, society, family, and manhood. Welcome friends, please take a moment to send this to someone who you think would be interested and has the cajónes to face the music. This is, unlike most of my essays, more opinion than fact – albeit opinion based upon history.
America also was originally founded in an attempt to ensure that only those with a vested interest in society were allowed to vote. The founders knew that a large number of people made their decision upon the whims of emotion and were easily manipulated by clever speakers and liars who valued power over their own integrity. We see this far too much today. It is a problem because we embraced the democratic virtue of universal suffrage. Our Founding Fathers would have gasped in horror. Citizenship is not a free gift but a duty and obligation, one that many people today seem to be inclined to shirk.
America was originally founded and attempted to limit the rights of voting to those who could act in accordance with the principles of reason and public virtue. They did this by limiting the right to vote to those who owned property since having the money to buy property implied a certain industriousness and responsibility that hinted at a competence to make good decisions. By using this criterion, it did not rest upon the availability of university or education (since they knew that some people who were highly educated were still as vain and self-indulgent as any without an education,) and it did not rest upon great wealth since even owning a small farm, shop, or smithy was sufficient. Instead, they granted the right to vote on a degree of competence and industry and upon those who had a vested interest in preserving society and protecting what they had built.
At its very heart, the ability to vote is the ability to send the armed forces to war or to elect those who will do so.
In the Germanic, Nordic, and Anglo-Saxon socieities the decisions to go to war or what the tribe would do as a whole, as well as establishing laws, were made in the Thing, or the Witan. In the All-Thing, or the Witan, all those who led their families or who were proven warriors had the right to speak, voice their opinions, and vote on the tribe or community actions. In many tribes vows and testimony were not sworn upon a bible as we do today but upon their own sword.
In early Rome the warriors were divided into “vir” the word from which we get the word “virile.” It was the vir, and virile combat aged men, that formed both the voting blocs of those who could vote and were also the basic structure of defense. In other words, those who could vote had to be the same number as those who were ready and capable, or who had in the past proven ready and capable, to defend or had defended the country against the threat of annihilation.
In the words of Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers: Service Guarantees Citizenship.
It is worth noting here that Heinlein was a liberal. His society in Starship Troopers was not the fascist parody portrayed in the movie, (by a director who apparently was not smart enough to actually read the book,) but was instead his view of the perfect and most free society he could imagine, the perfect republic. Those who were willing to fight and die proved that they would take responsibility for the State/Government as a whole and would stake their very lives on its defense. These were the people who could vote. Everyone else enjoyed the protection and freedom of society but had no say in how the state operated or how they went to war. Only those who provided service to actually uphold the State were afforded the privilege of voting. Those who did not want to, or who lacked the courage, to fight for the common good and preservation of society, were free to go about their lives but they had no say in government. Thus, it was an all-volunteer fighting force and all who voted had demonstrated their devotion and seriousness at preserving the State and Society and upholding the common good.
Americans are regularly confused about “states.” A State is an independent sovereign government. Our “states” originally conceived of themselves in this way. The original 13 colonies each viewed themselves as a State with the same rights as England or France. However, they each recognized that none of them were powerful enough to defy England or France so their sovereign and independent states joined together to form a union of free and independent states which they first called a Confederacy and later revamped into the United States. The fact that Americans think there are two kinds of states is a failure of our education system for failing to teach our history, constitution and the ideals of America.
It was Lincoln who fundamentally killed this view of ‘free and independent states’ in what we wrongly call the Civil War (it was not a war for control of the country it was war of independence for the South because they felt the Federal Government was infringing upon their rights as free and independent states. In fact Stonewall Jackson and many many people in the South referred to the War Between the States as their 2nd war of Independence and the founding figure on the “Great Seal of the Confederacy” was George Washington.) Of course, history is written by the victors and even speaking these truths will generally start an argument. As Napoleon once said, “history is the lies we have agreed upon.”
In a video below Dr. Livingston outlines the massive shift in America between the Jeffersonian Democratic Republic and the Lincolnian or Hamiltonian government which concentrated power in WDC and dictated to the rest of the country. It was this shift away from the Jeffersonian Republic that precipitated the hostilities that exploded over the issue of slavery and property that became the American Civil War. The American Civil War, like every war in history, did not have ONE cause but many that built up pressure until a single issue “slavery” caused an explosion.
Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy said that the issues which spawned the war were not settled by it and would re-emerge in American politics to cause strife in the future. Truly this is an odd thing to say if they issue of the war was slavery. Because that WAS settled by the war. Instead, I ask you to consider that, if the issue was government control would it not be in the Federal Government’s best interest to purport that the “real” issue was slavery and suppress the discussions about State Rights and concentration of misuse of power by Washington DC? Indeed, that is exactly what the “winners” did after the “Civil War.”
We have kept some of the views of the founders of our Republic like the view that every able bodied person was part of the state’s militia and most of the states of the Union still have this in their state’s legal code. One change in most states is that every man and woman who is above the age of 18 is required, if summoned by the governor, to report to the designated assembly area with their own firearm and ammunition. A fact of law that would cause most Americans to bluster and be befuddled. Yet the laws are common throughout these United States. As have so many things in our Republic the truth of this has been obscured by lies and political posturing, as well as a poor education system, so that now most Americans have no clue what it means to be American…as predicted by Socrates and Plato when they spoke of the death of free peoples and democracies.
It is another fact, also obscured by history, that when they discussed suffrage for women it was understood that those who had the right to vote had the obligation to defend the government and so many women didn’t want to vote because they didn’t want to go to war. Yet is this not equality? I guess some want to be more equal than others.
If women want to vote they need to be subject to the draft. Citizenship has obligations as well as privileges.
Yes, I know that it is foolish for societies to send their baby-makers to the front line but then most women have opted out of that responsibility in the support of society as well. I really think they should do something other than self-indulgence and complaining about equal representation (but only equal representation in the “nice” jobs and NOT in the dirty jobs and ABSOLUTELY not on the front line of combat. I hate hypocrisy and for our society to institutionalize such hypocrisy is part of our downfall.
It was then that Western Society defied the ancient wisdom and warnings of the fall of Greece and Rome and made the same mistake they did before their own collapse. That is they extended the vote to those who had neither the inclination, nor the ability, to fight for the country.
I am not against women voting. I am against ANYONE voting who is unwilling to defend their society and community and I don’t care what gender they are. Citizenship has obligations and if you don’t understand the country and ideals of the nation that you are in then you have no business guiding that nation with your votes or opinions. In other words, when women were given the ability to send others to war when they bore no personal danger themselves from that decision. In the same way America rebelled against taxation without representation someone should have rebelled against giving the right to vote without incurring the responsibility for upholding the state in extremis. Unfortunately, the natural inclination that men have to protect women and children kept us from our own common sense in this regard.
I have always been a advocate of universal conscription and I believe everyone who wants to live under the rights and protections of our society should support it by their service. Now, is it practical for us to put every man and woman under arms directly out of high school? Probably not. But there is work to do in hospitals, taking care of highways, and other public venues. However, everyone who wishes to have the privilege of voting should provide service in support of the country.
But this isn’t free! Some may say. Freedom does not mean that everyone enjoys the same rights while only a few have to pay the price and the more people who are allowed to vote who know nothing of the price paid for our freedoms the sooner our Republic will fall to democratic chaos and ultimately tyranny. Radical individuality would be equally condemned by the founding fathers as would tyranny. All of the founders believed in community obligations and would be aghast at the idea that someone believed they could enjoy the rights and privileges of citizenship with no obligations whatsoever.
In some ways modern militia laws of the states overcome this (as noted above,) that require all able men and women (starting at 18 usually,) who are of sound mind and body are, in fact, members of the General Militia and can be called out by the governor are more representative of our founders than the rather dubius idea of “judicial review.”
It is a safe bet that almost no one that you know realizes that if they are 18 or older, but not too old, they are members of the General Militia and, if called upon, they are required to show up at the assembly area with their own firearm and ammunition if the governor calls upon them. Yet this is the law in most states in America. Perhaps it should be accompanied by laws requiring everyone of that age group to keep and maintain a working firearm and a “basic load” of 350 rounds of ammunition.
So, legally, America still has the root of sanity. However, in practice, our Republic has fallen to the folly of universal suffrage and become that most reviled of government forms (at least by our founders): a democracy.
America, in our constitution, originally defined the ability to vote restricting it to those who had a vested interest by owning property/land. Business owners, those who owned the labor of their own hands or otherwise owned property had the right to vote. Since they included ALL men in their concept of militia these propertied citizens ALSO were expected to fight to defend the state. In this way the founders hoped to limit suffrage (the right to vote) to those who had a vested interest in paying attention and knowing what was going on and also were willing to fight to preserve liberty. Rome and Germanic and Viking societies (including early Anglo-Saxon England,) gave the vote to those who would fight with spear or sword and obviously, if you had the ability to survive in the chaos of combat you probably had some ability to reason or use common sense.
Over and over again governments began spiraling into decay once they extended the vote to those who made their decisions primarily upon emotion and feeling or who were unwilling to support the state or accept responsibilities of citizenship. It is a folly that has been recognized for thousands of years but which we repeatedly forget because most people, no matter how high their IQ or level of education, are stupid and have no common sense. We need to find ways to limit suffrage to those with some modicum of common sense. The founders did it by using “success in business” although once property can be handed down from generation to generaton that ceases to be viable. Education is not sufficient because those who are highly educated have proven even more susceptable to stupid ideas like woke ideology (as studies have documented and I will cover when I can finally get to them.) Perhaps the best means is limiting to those who have the courage and are willing to take personal responsibility by putting their lives on the line to protect the government, the state, and their community. While EVERYONE in a free country should be in this group the reality is that it is not everyone. A recent study indicated that as many as 80% of today’s democrats would flee if America was invaded…so clearly…we are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave….but we should be.
This is one of those issues where many opinions are possible. How do you determine who should vote? Certainly, service is one way. WWII demonstrated that the Women’s Army Corp freed up many men for the front lines. Today we have many insane talking heads crying about women being ineffective in combat. Yet, at least last time I checked, only one out of ten soldiers in the US Army were actually combat soldiers. The other services are similarly top heavy. While women can be effective snipers and pilots because of their dexterity and keen vision they often lack the kill instinct that fighter pilots need. Men and women are different. And we need to look in more detail about the differences and talk about what the feminization of society means for us. Everything is inter-related but too many, especially liberals seem to think that you can change one thing and that is it. But any change in a complex system affects ALL the relationships in that system. It is like throwing a pebble in a pond. The ripples move outward and touch everything in the pond not just the one point where the pebble hit. As that sage of modern society Dr. Thomas Sowell has said, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.”
Below are two talks by Dr. Don Livingston about the Jeffersonian Republic and how the differences in understanding lead to the civil war – if you are interested in exploring that more. Either way, I would love to hear what you think in the comments. I had to restrict comments to those I review because too many bots were posting advertisements, but I approve all comments that are respectful and not histrionic.