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The
Silent Tyrants
By CE
Marshall
Introduction.
“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following
pages are not sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long
habit of not thinking a thing wrong,
gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a
formidable outcry in deference of custom.
But tumult soon subsides. Time
makes more converts than reason”.
Thomas
Paine from “Common Sense” 1776
These
are the words at the very beginning of Thomas Paine’s masterpiece, “Common
Sense”, the most significant piece of literature in regard to the catalysts
behind the American Revolution. Paine
argued very effectively for a clear and definite separation from the United
Kingdom and a Declaration of Independence. Our forefathers fought a Revolution and won. Later they met and established a constitution enabling the people with the power to rule through the world's first true Democratic Republic. Is it time for another constitutional convention to reign in a government and society that has forgotten the people? A convention to reign in the “powers that be” in
our government and society; our largest corporations, powerful lobbyists,
courts that legislate, special interests, and a bloated and ineffective
government that squanders our money for the sake of reelecting themselves and
maintaining the power of the federal agencies- America’s untouchables. We are all being robbed— rich, poor,
religious, atheist, black, white, Latino, left and right by treasonous leaders
with suspicious allegiance to whoever helped them get where they are and a
media with a vested interest in a never- ending battle between the
parties. Everyone is being mugged. All these powers will continue to steal our
liberty because the American people are not exercising their muscles of
citizenship. Remember it is “We the
people” here in America according to the very first words of our
constitution. It isn’t “we the
corporations”, or “we the lobbyists”, or “we the government that knows better”
or “we the media”. These groups are
slowly but surely replacing people as the sovereign of our nation. In fact, it would be easy to argue that this
has already happened.
It isn’t just
new ideas that scare your ordinary person.
The problem with any new idea and way of looking at things is that the
“powers that be” would be adamantly opposed to most solutions because most
solutions would take away some of their power and they run the risk of no
longer being a “power that is” to being a “power that once was”. We as a people must be ready to stand up to the
normal way of thinking and be prepared to understand and assume we will be
opposed., no matter how wonderful the idea might be to us. Imagine the British parliament and King
George being excited that the American colonies were looking at
independence. Imagine the Pope being
inspired that Martin Luther posted a list of protests on that church door in
Germany back in 1517 and declared the Roman Catholic Church and its hold on
power throughout Europe to be a fraud.
Imagine wealthiest slave owners of the American south feeling open and
agreeable to freeing their slaves so that the African people could be free
humans – never mind that their wealth would quickly vanish along with said
slaves. These proposals will be
adamantly opposed by most of the “powers that be”; the federal agencies, the
media, the political parties, the federal government industrial complex, the
defense industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical industry and the
energy industry to name just a few.
They will be opposed to these ideas the moment these concepts congeal in
their heads. What I’m proposing is to
take their power away and give it back to the people where it belongs.
I am a regular middle class
American. I have no formal education
regarding government, other than the usual requirements of the modern
Bachelor’s Degree. I have a degree in
Business Administration from the University of Florida and I work in the
horticulture industry as a sales manager.
I work very hard and I want the best for my family, my community, and my
country. The differences between the
reader and myself might be that I love to write, I have a passion for
history, and any kind of waste tends to
send me over the edge. These three
things have mixed together in me creating a stew of frustration and anger as
well as hope and optimism that has bubbled up to induce the book you hold in
your hands (or read on your phone/tablet).
The
idea behind this book is two-fold.
First, we must expose the most pressing issues of the American
government and define what the problems are.
Second, we need to imagine what could be accomplished with a government
freed of its bloated tendencies and poised in the direction of enhancing the
lives of all citizens not just for the rich, the poor, the most fashionable
victim, or the moneyed special interests.
The federal government supports the poor through programs such as
Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, government housing and a various agencies
designed to assist them in their poverty.
While I applaud the intentions to help those in need their “track
record” is hardly impressive. After
decades of redistributing wealth to those in need, there is still poverty, drug
addiction, violence and an absolute loss of hope by the citizens of American
ghettos. To say the spending of hundreds
of billions of dollars over the last century has been at all helpful would be a
farce, but I have no doubt those politicians that instigated the whole idea
made off with a hefty share of the redistributed wealth. Indeed, both parties have been especially
adept at spending our money. Much of it
ends up on their estates back home or in their townhouses and the taverns of
Georgetown, Washington DC. The federal
government also swings open the door of influence to the large corporations and
their lobbyists who slither throughout Washington coiling around any and all
legislation such that it benefits them the most. We let them get away with it. The media lets them get away with it (and
probably benefits from it as well). What
of the backbone of the nation, the middle class- the tradesman, the artisan, or small
business? How is the government
breathing health and stability in the vertebrae of America? The answer is that they don’t, and all
their efforts are a never-ending battle between the two parties jockeying for
power within the government –each with its opposite view of the role of
government. The middle is usually
forgotten the minute elections are over.
Yes, they pay lip service to us but usually they simply tell us what
they think we want to hear. It’s all
about “what the American people want”, but in reality it’s all about what they
want and what their party wants. The
real needs of the everyday citizen are an afterthought.
The
noblest of people are those that work to feed their family while working in
their chosen field of interest; the passions of the common man are the fountain
of all human progress. This can be seen
in all significant human accomplishments.
It is not the efforts and accomplishments of large organizations but
those of the person. It is not the
directives from large government or bureaucracies but the inventiveness and
creativity of the people in the trenches with the true understanding of the
obstacles to be overcome.
As an
Independent minded citizen who has contempt for both major parties I see myself
as a “Free Thinker”. Admittedly I am a
registered Republican because the state of Florida requires I choose a party
for my voice to be heard. That is one
big reason I am in favor of “open primaries” so Independent voters can vote in
the primary elections. My heart is
with moderate, intelligent, passionate Americans who want to see a government
for all the people, not just one side or the other. It is outrageous how much has been lost to
the parties. George Washington himself
warned of the dangers of political parties, yet here we sit. Both left and right leaning thought have
ideas worth discussing but neither has the corner on common sense. The idea of compromise is so important to
get anything done because you’ll always have opposing views. The intelligence and wisdom of middle
thinkers is what’s missing today. They
have no voice. I hope this book can
begin to give it to them. We can no longer trust the parties to run our
government effectively. They cannot
serve the people when they consistently fail to get past disagreements and
refuse to compromise or think logically.
So, through this book I endeavor to offer solutions and ideas to move
things forward. We owe it to our
ancestors that have fought and struggled to bring the power to the people. We cannot let their memory be dirtied by
enabling this rich, powerful and an incompetent government of buffoons. Too much has been sacrificed, too much blood
has been spilled to let this great experiment in a Republican Democracy go to
extinction. We owe it also to our
children and our posterity. We owe them
a wise, sage, efficient, effective government that enables all people and
boosts the morale and inventive nature of all mankind to rise to the level that
the Almighty had intended in the first place.
Abraham Lincoln
In a sense we are engaged in a civil war
today, in 21st century America with the left vs right, liberal vs
conservative, Democrat VS Republican.
Lincoln’s famous speech beseeches us to gird ourselves for a fight to
maintain the American voice as the one sovereign voice of America. To fight like the men did on the battlefields
of history. To fight to the death if
need be.
In his famous speech after
the battle of Gettysburg Lincoln outlined the point here in his comments
dedicating the cemetery that would hold the 7000 men killed in the bloodiest
battle of American history. It is for us the living.
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot
dedicate-we cannot consecrate- we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth.”
Abraham
Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address November, 1863
Lincoln is
referring to each individual human who is capable of beauty and eloquence and
creativity such that the world should applaud all 7 billion of us. We cannot let the deaths of nearly a million
American war dead in our history and as many maimed and crippled- to have been
in vain. They were not fighting for
Kings or Queens or an autocratic government, they were fighting for you and
me. Right here, right now. They were fighting for an idea that every
human being has merit and Hs something to offer the world.
I am going to do
my best to keep this book simple and straight to the point while hopefully also
being eloquent and powerful. I have read
historic accounts of government and find them to be a crushing bore. There is one big exception; “Common Sense”,
by Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine was
arguing against the King and the monarchy while I’ll be arguing the case
against the way things are done today and those that have the real power in
modern society who are vested in keeping things incompetent because that
incompetence is very much to their benefit.
I have labeled them the “Silent Tyrants” because they feign ignorance
when you point out their unfair advantages and they are totally quiet as they
rob, cheat and swindle the decent citizens of our country through their
avarice, greed and appalling selfishness.
I won’t present
these problems without solutions. The
last thing we all need is another book that understands we’re all drowning but
gets stuck describing the water. The
problems are many; national debt, crushing poverty, infrastructure concerns,
unorganized immigration, corporate greed, pollution, biased media, bloated
government, fraud and even treason against our country. The list could easily go on. I’d like this book to focus on what would be
the most help to all Americans and even all the world; An American government of competent citizens
that are concerned for their constituents above all else. That is the individual citizen. Not the Democrats, the Republicans, the
Independents, or the Libertarians.
Through a commonality of concern for all of us, our concerns as humans,
I hope we can look at problems objectively and with urgency. We can come together and establish reasonable
strategies for fixing the problems at hand through an intelligent government
matched with private enterprise. I
believe there’s nothing that we can’t solve.
In addition, although I’m very suspicious of powerful government, I do
feel a wise government need not be such an impossible concept. On the contrary I think the government can do
a great deal of good if it’s set up with certain constraints and is run by
leaders not politicians and bureaucrats
