A recent survey of America's institutions is very bad news for Congress and very good news for the military.
Only 8% of those polled trust Congress. Fifty-four percent trust the military. At first I thought that this was an excellent result. Congress doesn't really deserve our trust and the military does.
However, a second and third thought gave me pause. Is this healthy? I mean, is it healthy for a nation's citizens to trust its military more than its democratically elected representatives?
Don't get me wrong here: I agree with these results! America's military is a top-notch, professional organization stocked with well-trained, dedicated men and women who risk their lives daily for the maintenance of our nation's security. Can we say the same for Congress? Hardly.
So, what's the problem? The military is not (and should not be) a democratic institution. What does it say about the nation's direction that we trust an authoritarian organization more than a democratic one?
For a minute or two there I had visions of Americans welcoming military rule. Is such a thing possible? Of course it is. Probable? No. But the level of anger and frustration with Congress, the President, and the Courts increases the chances of seeing some sort of authoritarian rule in the future.
Natural disasters, economic collapse, terrorism, etc. push us toward longing for the kinds of decisive, non-political solutions to our nearly overwhelming problems that the military could provide. I am confident that our military men and women would resist taking on the power and responsibilities that martial law would require. . .
Sadly, religious institutions rank slightly below our public schools as trustworthy. Frankly, this is the spot we deserve.
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Technically, the United States were not founded as a National Democracy but as a Constitutional Republic where the final authority is the Constitution and where the individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are sacrosanct. But liberalism has turned the Constitution from a contract between the sovereign citizen and the government into a "living" document to be interpreted every which way to suit the wants of progressive left wing politicians. Instead of equality in dignity, we now have equality in function. And one might argue that Democracy is indeed just as authoritarian as a military dictatorship, for what is a Democracy other than two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner? In our current case, what's for dinner is the corpses of 60 million murdered unborn babies. We are getting exactly what we deserve, for all Democracies inevitably decend into Autocracy.
ReplyDeleteI oppose Democracy just as much as I oppose Autocracy. The solution is what the Founding Fathers of this nation established, however poorly and badly they behaved: a Constitutional Republic where the role of government is limited, where Faith has a voice in the public square, and where individual - NOT civil - rights are sacred and all men and women reagrdless of race or creed are created equal in dignity, but unequal in function. (Unequal doesn't mean superior or inferior - it means different, a concept the liberal left cannot grasp.)
Well put, Ioannes. Far too few of our country men know that the Founding Fathers thought of Democracy as a sure road to bankruptcy and mob-driven tyranny and that they founded the particular kind of government you describe.
ReplyDeleteAs Franklin said to the woman outside the Constitutional Convention when she asked what kind of government the assembly had given the new country, he replied, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
I cannot understand the lionization of the milirary in America. It's an institution that creates the wars that it needs to justify its existence, an existence that we cannot afford.
ReplyDeleteFor 60 years the military have been involved in immoral conflicts and many of which were nothing but electoral ploys to raise an unpopular president's popularity.
Thousands upon thousands of innocent civilian lives and property have been destroyed by the American military and not once was America realistically threatened by any of them.
If anything, the shame of such immoral armed forces is neurotically suppressed because so many Americans live off the military-industrial complex.
And when the those who'd been the target of such military might strike back, as they did 10 years ago, Americans display their shallowness and credulity by a mock show of righteousness.
It's truly a Satanic trace to be so fond of such a bastion of the Culture of Death.
You show well the natural tendency towards law and order, that persons should trust the orderliness of the military.
ReplyDeleteBut have the lessons of history been completely forgotten? Yes, authoritarian rule can lead to tyranny, but in the right context it can also lead to freedom. (e.g. Louis IX of France, Mary Queen of Scotts, among others). There is a time for everything, and why not a time for monarchy or something similar?