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The “Educated Class”

1 April, 2010   
Published by David Richins in Blog, Featured Articles

There is an aspect of republican government that makes some people uncomfortable. It’s the idea that ordinary people are not fit to govern. In a republic, the people delegate some of their natural rights to a group of educated representatives who have abilities beyond the common level. The people are not expected to know everything there is to know about managing a country, but they are expected to recognize qualified leaders. Thomas Jefferson describes it thus:

Thomas Jefferson

“We think experience has proved it safer, for the mass of individuals composing the society, to reserve to themselves personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent, and to delegate those to which they are not competent to deputies named, and removable for unfaithful conduct, by themselves immediately. Hence with us, the people (by which is meant the mass of individuals composing the society) being competent to judge of the facts occurring in ordinary life, they have retained the functions of judges of facts, under the name of jurors; but being unqualified for the management of affairs requiring intelligence above the common level, yet competent judges of human character, they choose for their management, representatives, some by themselves immediately, others by electors chosen by themselves.” (from a letter to Pierre S. du Pont de Nemours, 1816)

A republic is not aristocratic, but it’s not populist either. The idea of some people being more qualified than others doesn’t sit well with those who believe in standing for the common man. This kind of angst is the kindling that fuels the push towards democratic socialism. Today there are people like William P Meyers who openly argue that the Founders were elitists who used the guise of republican government to secure wealth and power for themselves. From Mr. Meyers’ website we read:

William P. Meyers

“…to win the American Revolution this predatory elite [i.e. the Founding Fathers] needed help. Their own rhetoric about freedom and equality led to widespread demands for the right to vote: universal suffrage. In other words, the people began demanding democracy. Even the slaves (white and black alike) demanded to be freed and allowed to vote.

After the British were defeated a centralized, national government was seen by George Washington and company not as a method of extending freedom and the right to vote, but as a way of keeping control in the hands of rich. They wrote several anti-democratic provisions into the U.S. Constitution. Slavery was institutionalized. The Senate was not to be elected directly by the people; rather Senators were to be appointed by state legislatures. The President was not to be directly elected by the voters, but elected through an electoral college. The Supreme Court was to be appointed. Only the House of Representatives was elected directly.

More important to our democracy-versus-republic debate, the U.S. Constitution left the question of who could vote in elections to each individual state. In most states only white men who owned a certain amount of property could vote. So, on the whole, the first federal government that met in 1789 was a republic with only a fig-leaf of democratic representation. This is what today’s commentators mean when they say America is a republic, not a democracy.”

It’s not hard to fall into this trap. After all, our Founders did form the Constitution in secret, and they presented the document to the public only after it was finished. One could argue that this is no different from the elitist attitude we see from our current representatives, who pass bills without giving the public a chance to understand their content. If we believe in representative government, shouldn’t we be okay with this behavior?

It is critical for Americans to understand the difference.

Let’s consider the Founders. Were they predatory elitists? No, in fact they were best qualified to represent the people because they were best able to effectively articulate the will and wishes of the people. The values of liberty, virtue and self-government were already ingrained in the culture. The people valued the leadership of the Founders because they were able to take core American values and implant those ideals into the government. And we must remember that those early leaders recognized and respected natural rights. Their knowledge and abilities, gained through education and experience, did not give them a sense of superiority over the rest of the population.

Contrast that with elitists today. They seek to use their position of power to go against the will of the people. But they even take it a step further. They seek to manipulate the people and shift them away from their core values.

Democracy propaganda usually has a populist slant, appealing to the common man’s desire for power over the elites. Of course the true effect of democracy is the opposite of what the working class desires – it allows elites to concentrate even greater power. The tea party movement has brought increased awareness of how democracy leads to oligarchy. This new right-wing populism has caused the elitists to take a different tack.

For example, David Brooks of the New York Times characterizes tea partiers as ignorant commoners, and he pits these populists against the “educated class”:

David Brooks

“The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

A year ago, the Obama supporters were the passionate ones. Now the tea party brigades have all the intensity.

The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class.”

We cannot allow the democratic/oligarchic elitists to characterize themselves as the educated class. The only way to fight against this deceitful propaganda is to help create our own “educated class” – not a caste of superiors, but simply a group of citizens who seek out and uphold true principles. We need to use the principles of republican government to cultivate a new batch of leaders who can match the Founding Fathers in wisdom, vision and virtue.

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How To Talk About Politics Without Annoying People

29 March, 2010   
Published by Sara Richins in Blog, Featured Articles

There are few people these days that are not on Facebook.  It’s a great way to share photos, interests, and everyday events with friends and family.  Ever since the 2008 presidential election, I have also used Facebook as my main tool for sharing my political motivations by changing my status to reflect where I stand on an issue and by sharing links to blogs and articles that I think are particularly eye-opening.  Lately, however, I am doubting this is an effective means of persuasion.  Sometimes my postings illicit general agreement, other times bitter resentment towards my obvious stupidity on a subject, but most often nothing.  I’m more likely to get a rousing response if I share my failed attempts at making no-bake cookies. . .   On a site where sharing trivial and mundane information is the norm, it is fruitless to try to influence others on topics that have more serious implications.  I realized that my convictions were being misunderstood and perhaps even mocked when I was talking to a friend who, not interested in hearing my observation on a political matter, interrupted to tell me to “just go write about it on Facebook.”

While cyberspace has made it easier to share information with everyone near and far, the culture that has erupted from this continues to take its toll on the quality of the information being shared.  Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become the battlefield for who can win the most attention, and the winners almost always have little educational or uplifting values to their merit.

When political or philosophical content does get shared online, the conversation that follows also reflects the same trends.  Those who like it root for their beloved politician with a “Go So-and-so!” while those who disagree call you a hatemonger.  The conversations on political forums are full of heated emotion but lacking in open-minded and persuasive dialogue.

It is clear to me that sharing our beliefs and values through solely the internet will never be able to have the influence that our voices were meant to have in a republic.  The Founding Fathers never could have imagined the technology that is available to us today, but it doesn’t mean that their ideas are outdated or old-fashioned.  If anything, their concept of representation through a republic is exactly the medicine that can counteract this virus that has diseased our culture.

I’m old enough now to see how our technological culture is affecting our youth today.  When I graduated from high school almost ten years ago, cell phones were only affordable to wealthy businessmen.  Today, few teenagers are without a cell phone or an ipod, and many have access to the web from both of those devices.  But these devices mean we’re spending less time reading, less time thinking, less time talking to one another, and less time serving and learning about our community.  Access to entertaining but anemic information has made much more meaningful endeavors seem boring or old-fashioned.  If you, like me, believe that there is a cultural attack on family, moral virtue, and the Constitution, do we want to  send our children out into battle without properly preparing them with the armor that will protect those virtues?

My conclusion is that the only way to combat the effects of technology on our culture is three-fold:

1) Spend more time reading and educating ourselves on the principles of the Constitution. The 5000 Year Leap by Cleon Skousen is an excellent place to begin.

2) Make conversations about politics more personal. The best place to start is in our own families.  Find ways to make the conversation interesting to our children.  For example, seniors in high school may find politics more interesting if they understand how laws passed by Congress are affecting the price of their future tuition.  You can use similar ways to share your ideas with your friends.  A goal of Liberty Discussions is to do just that: make the conversation more personal as we teach and learn from one another.

3) Find more persuasive methods to use the internet to share your educated opinions. My husband and I designed Liberty Discussions to not only promote person-to-person conversation and problem solving but also to be a place to report and gather the lessons we are learning and the actions we are taking.  I know that you have unique and creative ways to address the concerns that many Americans share.  That’s why you were invited to the site by either us or your friends!  By reporting back through your group blogs, we here in Cincinnati can learn what topics people in Idaho learned about, the solutions they devised, and how they took action through their representative republic.  By so doing, we can be models of the kind of persuasive and thorough communication that is possible and can inspire others by our efforts, even online!

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Social Justice, Socialism and Selective Morality

29 March, 2010   
Published by David Richins in Blog, Featured Articles

Glenn Beck ruffled some feathers when he told listeners to leave churches that preach social justice.  The New York Times picked up the story and suggested that Glenn Beck was going against the teachings of his own Mormon faith.   The articles cites two Mormon scholars, who claim that social justice is a fundamental part of the faith.

The problem is that the term social justice is often considered synonymous with caring for the poor.  Indeed, taking care of the needy is a fundamental part of Christianity.  But social justice isn’t the same thing.  Just as the word democracy conditions Americans to accept democratic socialism, social justice confuses people and connotes a sense of entitlement.

A Mormon leader whom I greatly admire, Ezra Taft Benson, describes the difference between redistribution schemes and true charity:

“…the socialist doctrine of equality…struck a sympathetic chord with most Americans because its initial goal was equality of rights. Today, however, the goal for the proponents of equality is to restructure our entire economic system, using the power of the federal government to enforce their grand design. They now advocate throughout our economy that we redistribute wealth and income, a good definition of socialism. Our present middle of the road policy is as Von Mises…suggested: socialism by the installment plan.

Americans have always been committed to taking care of the poor, aged, and unemployed. We’ve done this on the basis of Judaic Christian beliefs and humanitarian principles. It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity is to be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today’s egalitarians are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a matter of right.” (From Freedom and Free Enterprise, 1965)

This is all basic stuff for right-of-center Americans.  But I think there is a lesson to be learned here for conservatives.

We need to get beyond the simple right-left paradigm and realize that each side espouses essential values.   The left values compassion and charity.  Americans with a more liberal orientation feel bothered when conservatives make statements that seem to belittle those values.

During these difficult economic times, we all need to step up and take on a more active role in caring for the poor.  Conservatives can add a lot of value by promoting voluntary charity and free market solutions.

In my first attempt at documentary filmmaking, I explored how morality is perceived across the political spectrum.  I suggested that there are two major components of morality which correspond to the two great commandments in the Judeo-Christian tradition: love God and love your neighbor.  I argued that conservatives tend to focus on the first commandment (obeying God’s word), while liberals emphasize the second commandment.

Here is a clip from my documentary (Quicktime required).   In this clip, I interview two Americans on opposite sides of the political spectrum (an evangelical pastor and an LGBT activist).  Their comments seem consistent with my theories.

I think I have gotten a little better at filmmaking and narration since then, but I believe this piece conveys some valuable insights.  We can’t be selectively moral; we need to revise our view of the political spectrum so that we accept all truth.

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Why Grassroots Journalism Matters

28 March, 2010   
Published by David Richins in Blog, Featured Articles

Freedom of speech is one of America’s most cherished values.  But I am concerned that too many Americans are drifting into a state of complacency in which they rely on others to spoon feed them information.   And as I turn on the TV or read newspaper headlines, I become increasingly convinced that large media organizations are using their position of influence to sway public opinion.

For example, a few weeks ago I came across this headline from CNN:

Hopefully I’m not excessively paranoid, but nowadays I tend to suspect some ulterior motive in most of the news stories I read.  In this case, the article informs readers that Mr. Elbridge Gerry wasn’t the bad guy that everyone thinks he was.   But couldn’t it be that since the 2010 census is under way, maybe this article is meant to condition us so that we’re not surprised when the congressional districts get redrawn in unusual ways?

I think it’s obvious that there is bias in media.   I’m not talking about a vast conspiracy to brainwash Americans.   It’s just that media elites tend to create a groupthink culture in their organizations, and they feel that they know what’s best for America.   Most of the bias in mainstream media is liberal.   Bernard Goldberg, in his book Arrogance, wrote:

“You have caught them red-handed over and over again with their biases exposed, and all they do is Deny! Deny! Deny! Only now the media have become even more brazen.  Simply denying isn’t good enough anymore.  Now they’re not content looking you in the eye and calmly saying, “What bias?” Now they’re just as calmly turning truth on its head, saying the real problem is conservative bias.”

But we do encounter conservative bias sometimes as well.   Right-wingers find an outlet through Fox News and other places.

The real problem is the underlying assumption in any kind of media bias – that ordinary Americans are too ignorant to form their own opinions and so they have to be told what to think.

It’s Time to Decentralize Media

Media today seems to be getting more centralized.  And the information that gets put out by media organizations seems more and more like propaganda used for political purposes.

But it wasn’t always this way.  Earlier in our country’s history, decentralized media was a defining characteristic.  Alexis de Tocqueville describes it thus:

“The United States have no metropolis; the intelligence as well as the power of the country are dispersed abroad, and instead of radiating from a point, they cross each other in every direction; the Americans have established no central control over the expression of opinion, any more than over the conduct of business.  These are circumstances which do not depend on human foresight; but it is owing to the laws of the Union that there are no licenses to be granted to printers, no securities demanded from editors as in France, and no stamp duty as in France and formerly in England.  The consequence of this is that nothing is easier than to set up a newspaper, and a small number of readers suffices to defray the expenses of the editor…In America there is scarcely a hamlet which has not its own newspaper.”

Tocqueville goes on to explain the effect of the decentralized press:

“…it’s influence in America is immense.  It is the power which impels the circulation of political life through all the districts of that vast territory.  Its eye is constantly open to detect the secret springs of political designs, and to summon the leaders of all parties to the bar of public opinion.”

In order to stop the barrage of propaganda, we need to shift America’s culture closer to what it used to be.  That’s going to require ordinary citizens like you and me to take on a more active role in documenting and reporting the news.

Documenting Modern History

Most of us know why history is important.  We study history so we can learn lessons from the past and apply them to the present.  We are indebted to our predecessors who kept a record of what happened.

Scholars spend immense amounts of time and write volumes of literature analyzing historical events.  But there are events taking place right now which dwarf the past – unprecedented changes that will affect our society for decades to come.  Isn’t it worth our time to try to study and understand what is happening?

During these times of considerable change, we can’t sit on the sidelines.  We can’t accept packaged, watered-down summaries from mainstream media.  We have to become the producers and analysts of information.

Developing the Right Skills

In order to become effective citizen journalists, we need to take the time to develop new skills and attributes.  These include:

1. Independence.  We must first decide that we will not rely on the opinions of others.

2. Self-initiative.  This means finding the motivation within ourselves to ask questions, seek answers and report on the results.

3. Research and Analysis.  It’s not enough to simply find and present data; we have to become interpreters of information.  That means we need to read books and understand where things fit in context.  We need to develop a big picture view.

4. Record Keeping.  It’s one thing to effectively observe the world around us, but we need to go a step further and get into the habit of documenting our observations.  A simple way to start is to keep a journal or blog.

5. Persuasive Writing and Speaking.   We can’t sit back and let the most vocal dominate the conversation.   We have to realize that each of us has valuable ideas and insights that need to be shared with society.   And so we need to step outside our comfort zone and find ways to influence others.   That takes work and practice.   But I’m convinced that by learning how to present arguments, we can awaken a sense of leadership.

Mobilizing the Voice of the People

One of the main purposes of Liberty Discussions is to help ordinary Americans become citizen journalists.  This community provides an opportunity for members to share their opinions and present effective arguments to their friends, neighbors, and the general public.

As more and more citizens develop and apply these skills, we will be able to mobilize and find our collective voice.   Through healthy discussion and debate, we will be able to find truth.  We will learn to effectively communicate our wishes to our representatives, and by so doing, enforce the paradigm of bottom up change.

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Political Power

27 March, 2010   
Published by David Richins in Blog

Across America, there is a growing movement of people who want to take back their country.

The goal of this movement is to take political power away from those politicians and elitists who are overstepping their authority.

But where does political power come from?

A republic, by definition, “derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people.” (Federalist #39)

The people hold all the power, but they surrender a portion of that power to representatives so they can manage the government.

America’s system of federalism divides political power into smaller, manageable groups so that it doesn’t get out of hand.

According to Federalist #51, “The power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments [federal and state], and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments [legislative, executive, and judicial].  Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people.”

Elitists today would flip this around have us believe another paradigm – one in which power trickles down to the people.  Instead of dividing political power, they seek to consolidate it – and divide the people into smaller manageable groups.

They also want to create a culture of dependency.  For example, advertisements for the 2010 Census tell people to fill out their census form not for purposes of representation, but so that their community can get its fair share of federal funds.

Many Americans have woken up and recognized the danger of losing their liberties.  But the way to uphold the Constitution is not to focus on political change, but rather cultural change.  We need to create a culture in which the people exercise their proper role in the republic, shaking off the perception that they are divided and dependent slaves, and becoming instead unified, independent, self-reliant masters.

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