A Pleasant Exchange with Deepsand
deep wrote, "Far too many fail to grasp the concept of and the dangers inherent in tyrannies of the majority."
As a long term project I have taken on the enjoyable task of working through world history. I spent a year studying pre-history. Then a second year studying Greek history. In the first four months of my third year I studied Greek military history. Then I moved on to Roman history. I intend to spend two and one-half years there before I move on to Chinese history.
There is a common thread so far. People want governments that can protect them, first from external threats and then from their neighbors. Democracies have always ended in tyrannies. Republics tend to end the same way only the process takes longer.
The United States, through a combination of well educated men and happy circumstance, ended up with a form of government that slowed the accumulations of mediocrity and centralization. Unfortunately our success in WWII eliminated our natural fear of a strong central government. This, in my opinion, was the turning point in our history. Since then we have experienced a steady accumulation of all powers at the federal level until today there are no activities that I can think of that are not regulated or taxed by the federal government. We are doomed. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But we are doomed.
"As for 'I believe our grand experiment in self government has largely ended.' need it be so?"
No. We could turn this around in a day if we wanted to. But we do not want to. More than one half of the American people receive direct cash payments from the Federal government. And about one-half of the people pay nearly all of the taxes. Many people receive benefits well in excess to what it costs them in taxes to receive. They are the people who will vote themselves ever greater sums from the public treasuries. They are now in the majority. And we few taxpayers who pay for most of the government services are in the minority.
We will flee with our money and our businesses. It is already happening. Sarbanes-Oxley has single-handedly eliminated the creation of new public companies in the US. We have created a monster that gets no news coverage.
"Does this mean that the ideal that they strived for is now so much further from reach than then that it is no longer striving for? I, for one, think not."
The pretty words are still in place. And there are no more free places remaining on the Earth where one might go to begin anew. I am a slave for five months out of the year. I work very hard for the benefit of others whom I do not know. And yet from the perspective of the government it is never enough. Politicians, who pay attention to the voters who have their hands out, always want more from me. And are willing to forgive all taxes from those who already pay almost nothing.
"Might not this fundamental problem be addressed by way of a Constitutional Amendment setting Term Limits on, at the least, members of the House of Representatives?"
Would term limits help? I think not. We might be better off selecting all of those in every community who have answered the call to jury duty, then randomly selecting 535 of them to serve as our representatives at the federal level, never to be selectable again. And we would have to eliminate the professional bureaucracies that have accrued so much power.
We would have to eliminate the source of much of the evil, the income tax. If we could replace the income tax with a consumption tax and eliminate the property tax we would have the chance of saving our Republican form of government. I do not believe it will happen.
It is a nice change to have the opportunity to discourse with you. If we can remain civil perhaps the nation can be saved.