January 8th, 2010
What do the words “the people” in “(w)e the people, in order to …” mean? Who has told us precisely? Who can tell us? Has anyone, including “The Federalist” done so? [Feel free to tell me if I missed something in my readings of a book that Jefferson called the greatest work in political theory in history]. So let my try my hand at it. “THE PEOPLE” are one and only one thing as described in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. To wit: The term “the people” speaks directly to the fact that truth is a “mainstream political value.”* But as so often happens, the explanation is not yet a certain statement itself so a secondary or second level of understanding is required. The term “mainstream political value” means a value located at the true center of the political spectrum that cannot be redefined by changing times or circumstances. That is, find the “true center” of the whole political universe, a political constant, a single point of reference, itself a problem of social science**, and you have truth.
Which leaves us with yet a third level of understanding, defining or describing “the center of” “the political spectrum.” This is more easily said than done; because, while fewer and fewer people hold the ground farther and farther away from the political mainstream, experience shows that they fight harder and harder for it. “The condition upon which … liberty (rests) is eternal vigilance.” John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. Rest your case on behalf of “the people,” where it matters most, in “the court of public opinion,” and your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor are much more imperiled than the greater number of people tend to show real concern about until it is too late.
Historically, there has never been a solution for the fall of an empire. The people lose their way or are lead astray and a failed state, if not desolation, follows. The form of government can make it seem that destruction takes a lot longer under one form of government than another. Dynasties are known to have lasted for thousands of years. Life in a dynasty can be very difficult for large numbers of people throughout the history of a dynasty. That is worth considering when the relatively short Lifespan of republics comes up. They are known to be 200 year projects, rarely more and often less. We have two facts to go on that should motivate us to do much more to help ourselves (and this help must take the form of social science); as the Founders would have wanted. First, the Framers believed they may have figured out what was wrong with other republics. Washington warned us to “avoid foreign entanglements” as these are also known to be a republican disease. Corruption is bad for government. Foreign corruption is worse. The former weighs upon a nation. The latter drains its life away, sapping its life blood, its self-interest. Surely an entire nation cannot stand far apart from the admonition “to thine own self be true.” People need to stop and think about this. The enemies of republican government undoubtedly use these “entanglements” to undermine republics, and sufficiently undermined, destroy them. Above all else, the Founders were political scientists. Why then have we abandoned the social science they so eloquently expressed. IT MAKES NO SENSE! What is wrong with us? We can do better. The end came to others. It happened to Greece. It happened in Rome. It happened to other great empires throughout the world that were not republics. It just took longer for the state to fail. Second, the sad truth is, it is happening to us in spite of the truly great efforts of the Framers. Equally great labors have risen against us that we have thus far failed to address (necessarily, social science is our best weapon). Long in the tooth, well over 200 years old, the United States is in a general, and rapid, state of decline that has been building for a generation. A period of time that is marked by “free trade” at a loss that has seen the loses grow steadily and much greater over time. What we have that no one else had, if we choose to use it, is modern science. That means big bucks. What natural scientists get. If we place the same importance on social science that the Founding documents do the funding will be found to get busy and do what should be done to (a) make sense of our situation and (b) rise above it.
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