By Gabriel Deen
There are dimensions to respect. Respect is deserved by those who are right, but also, to a degree, by those who are consistent (being the least one could do). The fact that, in the main, politicians are not is a testament to how rotten politics has become.
The highwayman does not proclaim that he is moral. The highwayman does not hide his gun. The highwayman is very clear when he threatens to pull the trigger if you do not acquiesce.
The politician? The politician tries to convince you that he’s helping you. The politician is not merely treasonous, but equally duplicitous. The thug who embraces his nature at least has honesty; the liar has nothing.
Masking tyranny in the cloth of democracy serves two dual purposes: firstly, those who seek power will be able to get it, and, secondly, anyone who might object is labeled as “anti-democratic”, “anarchistic”, or “fascist” (I do not need to point out the absurdity inherent in a belief being both totalitarian and anarchistic simultaneously).
It is the ability for this kind of slander to take place that is the system’s biggest advantage. In the place of an argument, one can substitute a label. When asked what, exactly, it is about being anti-Establishment that relates the position to any of the slurs used, one does not need a response beyond simple reiteration. Spouting bromides becomes the method all are expected to use in political discourse, valued instead of - and, in many cases, over - thinking.
Thomas Jefferson laid this charge against the King: “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” Now, in our age, the tyrant is not a king; rather, it is the system which raises kings to power. It is the process of choosing representation that must be protected to preserve the vox populi, and it is this process the Establishment’s existence poisons.
What has happened in Colorado is a prime example of this truth. A democratic system which operates with no votes from the populace is a contradiction in terms. It is nothing more than a cheap swindle.
Look, too, at “superdelegates” - unpledged delegates, free to vote however they choose, beholden to none, and especially not to voters. Is it a surprise that they rally against Bernie Sanders, a genuine outsider? Is it a surprise that, in both of these examples, those who would change the rules of the system are punished by the system? It shouldn’t be.
Ignore, for a moment, which candidate you support. Forget about your religion, forget about your allegiances, forget about your ideology, forget about your party. If you believe, not in “government” in some undefined sense, but in government strictly meant to represent the people and protect them from harm, then you must call the Establishment what it is: a gang of criminals.
The “Republican Establishment” is not the issue, nor is the “Democratic Establishment”. The issue is the Establishment without adjectives, without arbitrary delineations, and without obfuscation - the issue is the oligarchy, and the oligarchy is finally being challenged.
The system falls apart the moment citizens recognise it for what it is: anti-reason on every level. A vision of the future can be found in the past - when the Enlightenment came, America was liberated - not by divine writ or an impenetrable resistance to change, but by an embrace of the principles of freedom by the people.
A message to the Establishment: your existence lasts only as long as the citizens allow. The game is up, the curtain has been lifted, and the catastrophe of your being is no secret any longer. You are nothing without the consent of the governed. That consent is being revoked, and your attempts to fight the will of the people only serve to energize your enemies.
Because that is what this is. The people are your enemies. You have made that clear.
The people feel the same way about you.
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