The Weekly Riot: An American Third Way?

George Washington, the father of our nation once opined that "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Founding Father Samuel Adams expounded in his writing "The utopian schemes of leveling (the redistribution of wealth) and a community of goods are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government, unconstitutional." And James Madison, founding father and fourth President of the United States solemnly warned that "There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations...This ought to be wisely guarded against."


It is reasonable to say that an uninterested observer of the contemporary American experiment would have a difficult time pinning these gentlemen of substance and character as pillars in the matrix of our flailing republic. The last weeks have been met with much fanfare over the first 100 days of our new president's tenure and the hallmark nature of such monumental times. Allow me to put that all in perspective for you. It is all rubbish and irrelevant. It is meaningless and arbitrary. Let's be honest. Presidents, bureaucrats, and statesmen (as if there are any of those left) come and go quickly and often. It is almost petty of us to focus purely on the political figure head when it is a fact that as America loves to see a rising star, we also live for the day that that star fades and falls.


Former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher once remarked that "The problem with socialism is that you'll eventually run out of someone else’s money." I fully realize that I am in a firm and ardent minority of citizens who do not support our present government and it's policies. Most recent polling indicates that over 60% of American's approve of the job that the current President is doing. However, the cult of personality is unsustainable as a viable national leadership strategy. Lady Thatcher is spot on in the contemporary sense because the fact is that our government is proposing over $9 trillion in new debt. We could literally tax 100% of every dollar earned by those who pay taxes in this nation and still not come up with enough to pay for all of this new spending. It goes back to the old adage "You just can't spend money that you do not have." We have to understand as a country that though we may want free medicine, free college for all, and a world where there is no starvation or poverty. The money has to come from somewhere!


All of these years of the Reagan deficits, the Bush spend-a-thon, and now the Obama going out of business blowout, the money has been coming from somewhere; from overseas. Foreign wealth funds have been gradually buying up the debt in our nation in the form of treasury bonds as we, the American People, have collectively buried our heads. We have fought wars, and been paying for our neighbors mortgage. The wino down the street's welfare, that’s on the foreign tab. And now this insane government administered healthcare plan, the Chinese are footing the bill. The downside is literally a recall on all our debts. That means you and I, everyone we know, losing all of the wealth that our families have worked for generations to accumulate. Just like your cousin Ray-Ray who didn't pay his payments and his car magically disappeared in the middle of the night. Ray-Ray is the Federal Government in this instance, and you and I, our financed possessions, we are the car. As James Madison said the abridgement of freedom most often comes in gradual and slow increments, not sudden usurpations. Slowly and subtly our elected officials have cashed in our freedom in order to purchase their own offices. They know that as long as they can draw the car repo out past their terms and pass the baton off to the next generation we will be none the wiser.


And we never are any wiser. Even wisdom from the likes of George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, and Margret Thatcher means nothing today. We dismiss time honored logic as hokey and tired. In the first 100 days of our new presidency we shred every fabric of wisdom from the aforementioned patriots in the context of their respective quotes. This isn't about Obama, this is about you and I. This is not about Democrat or Republican. It is certainly not about the skin color of the new President. This is not about left or right. This is about our future; about our children's future. As China cuts the spigot on U.S. debt and the rest of the world follows suit we are all going to begin to feel the squeeze. While we have watched American Idol, stopped saving money, and allowed our academic achievement levels to slip to third world nation proportions, our payment schedule has caught up to us; in fact surpassed us and we are now a few payments late. We can either stop the bickering and make the adult decisions that we need to make;  Such as across the board spending cuts, the implementation of a new tax code, a significant reduction in our international military footprint, Crushing the teacher's union's, and a complete  restructuring of our entire educational system. Or we can watch in our arrogance as the world's most enduring republic slowly begins to unwind.


I am just as guilty of inaction as are many of you, but the hour is late my friends. We have ignored the advice of our forefathers who were far more educated that most of us will ever be. The lessons learned from The Enlightenment and philosophers of the past have been forgotten and we are now on a collision course with history. The great philosopher and poet George Santayana once said that "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." There are those today who are still well versed in the past. However, it remains to be seen if those who do understand can inspire the majority who do not to follow. That is the problem with living in a republic. If the people are uneducated then the power holders of the nation are ignorant. Benjamin Franklin said during the Revolutionary War that the citizens of the colonies could either "Unite or die." With trillions projected in spending deficits, tax revenues falling, and the foreign credit card maxed out our nation is down to precisely those two options. The question that remains is can we collectively grasp that fact?

P.H. Rolen is the Chairman of Liberty for All USA.com and the Author of “Liberty for All: The Patriot’s Primer.” He has been featured in the World Net Daily Commentary Page and The Heartland Institute’s Infotech and Telecom Newsletter. He contributes to Major General Paul E. Vallely’s  (U.S. Army Ret.) Stand Up America USA, The American Daily Review, and is involved with the campaign of Congressman Denny Rehberg.