Back in 1840, Alexis De Tocqueville in "Democracy in America" said ; An observation may be made respecting public officers, it is easy to perceive that the American democracy errs in the choice of the individuals to whom it entrusts the power of the administration, but it is more difficult to say why the state prospers under their rule, even if temporarily. In the consideration of laws a distinction must be carefully observed between the end at which they aim and the means by which they are directed to that end, between their absolute and their relative excellence.
If it be the intention of the leader to favor the interests of the minority at the expense of the majority. And if the measures he takes are so combined as to accomplish the object he has in view with the least possible expenses of time and exertion, the law may be well drawn up, although its purpose be bad, and the more efficacious it is, the greater is the mischief which it causes.
The American majority are finding it more difficult for them to preserve their independence, liberty and equality against the aggression of power in America. The age old question is ; whether the members of a modern society can be citizens as well as strictly subjects, practicing genuine self- government as well as enjoying the benefits of a rational administration and the securities of a reasonable level of welfare and social programs that an efficient bureaucracy can provide in normal times. In our times many leaders have only some set rules to serve their purposes and self interests, and perpetuating their rule, all the rest are and serve a purely decorative function.
This type of modern leadership is reducing the legislative and the intellectual political strata into political impotence, and we're having many of these leaders across the world nowadays, if this trend of governance continues, it will allow most of its backers as well as their oligarchies, to retain and increase their financial privileges and to exercise an increasingly oppressive power over the less advantaged classes of the population at large, extracting resources from the poor and transferring them to the rich.
The idea is that whether we as Americans are content, happy or unhappy depends on whom we compare ourselves with. What America is getting from success or failures in its too many adventures and wars of domination for the past 50 or 60 years is a pseudo national glory, a false increase in self-confidence and solidarity, but all at the high cost of overwhelming and destroying every other major advancement in our lives, it hinders, compromise, enervates, dazes and finally reduces this nation and every nation to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious domesticated animals of which the government and the big corporate entities are the shepherds.
White America is no longer Anglo-American, we embraced innumerable other European immigrants, including Catholics from Ireland, Italians, eastern and southern European, followed by Jews fleeing Russian pogroms and various oppressions elsewhere, the opening of our western territories brought in Asian laborers, and the country picked up a substantial Latino and Mexican population by conquest and more by immigration, and seekers of a better life from all over, all of which led to our country's astonishing scientific, technical and cultural inventiveness.
But we are not anymore the closed white Evangelical bunch, running our little affairs and literal beliefs, backing blindly "Godly inspired leaders", We should, all of us, aim to preserve and protect our freedoms and egalitarian free society .
My thanks to all my good readers, wishing you a speedy recovery from all sorts of viruses and pandemics .
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