Latest / Gil I Am / A Republic, Not A Democracy by Dan Smoot 1966 Apr 18
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: A constitutional republic, not a democracy. The ideal of a
- 0:06Speaker 1: democracy is universal equality. The ideal of a constitutional republic
- 0:11Speaker 1: is individual liberty. A democracy always degenerates in the dictatorship,
- 0:15Speaker 1: which promises government guaranteed equality and security, but it delivers
- 0:20Speaker 1: nothing but poverty and serfdom for the people it robs
- 0:22Speaker 1: and rules. America was founded as a constitutional republic to
- 0:27Speaker 1: safeguard the liberties of the people against the tyranny of
- 0:30Speaker 1: democracy are of one man dictatorship. In this century, great
- 0:34Speaker 1: strides have been made towards the goal of subverting our
- 0:37Speaker 1: republic into a democracy. The foremost tactic of the subverters
- 0:41Speaker 1: is subversion of language. By calling America a democracy until
- 0:45Speaker 1: people thoughtlessly accept and use the term, the totalitarians have
- 0:49Speaker 1: obscured the real meaning of our principles of government. That
- 0:53Speaker 1: is a summary of my report on a constitutional republic
- 0:57Speaker 1: not a democracy. The full report after a message from
- 1:00Speaker 1: my sponsor. A democracy is a political system in which
- 1:10Speaker 1: the people, periodically, by majority vote at the polls, select
- 1:13Speaker 1: their rulers. The rulers then have absolute power to make
- 1:17Speaker 1: whatever laws they please by a majority vote among themselves.
- 1:20Speaker 1: In a constitutional republic, the people also by majority vote
- 1:23Speaker 1: at the polls select rulers who make laws by a
- 1:26Speaker 1: majority vote among themselves. But the rulers cannot make any
- 1:29Speaker 1: laws they please because the constitution severely restricts their law
- 1:33Speaker 1: making power. The ideal of a democracy is universal equality.
- 1:38Speaker 1: The ideal of a constitutional republic is individual liberty. In
- 1:42Speaker 1: this century, great strides have been made towards the goal
- 1:45Speaker 1: of subverting our republic and transforming it into a democracy.
- 1:49Speaker 1: The foremost tactic of the subverters is subversion of language.
- 1:53Speaker 1: By calling America a democracy until people thoughtlessly accept and
- 1:57Speaker 1: use the term, totalitarians have obscured the real meaning of
- 2:02Speaker 1: American principles of government. Note the following passages from a
- 2:07Speaker 1: recent article distributed by the New York Times News Service. Quote.
- 2:10Speaker 1: In the United States and in other leading democracies, recent
- 2:14Speaker 1: years have seen perceptible growth in executive authority. As society
- 2:19Speaker 1: becomes more equalitarian, it tends increasingly to concentrate absolute power
- 2:24Speaker 1: in the hands of one single man. This is a
- 2:27Speaker 1: voluntary surrender of a free people, escaping from freedom to
- 2:32Speaker 1: one autocratic master. Note the following from Gunnar Myrdahal's An
- 2:37Speaker 1: American Dilemma. Quote in America, Liberty often provided an opportunity
- 2:42Speaker 1: for the stronger to rob the weaker. Against this, the
- 2:46Speaker 1: equalitarianism in the American creed has been persistently revolting, and
- 2:51Speaker 1: in the conflict between equality and liberty, equality is slowly winning.
- 2:57Speaker 1: In America, conservatism has to great extent then perverted into
- 3:01Speaker 1: a cult of the Constitution. This is unfortunate since the
- 3:05Speaker 1: Constitution is in many respects impractical and ill suited for
- 3:09Speaker 1: modern conditions. The worship of the Constitution is also a
- 3:14Speaker 1: most flagrant violation of the American creed. The Constitutional Convention
- 3:19Speaker 1: was nearly a plot against the common people. Now. Gunar Mirdahl,
- 3:24Speaker 1: a Swedish socialist, was hired by the Carnegie Corporation of
- 3:28Speaker 1: New York in nineteen thirty seven to direct a study
- 3:30Speaker 1: of the Negro in the United States. He engaged a
- 3:33Speaker 1: large staff, some of them communists and pro communists. An
- 3:36Speaker 1: American dilemma resulted, first copyrighted in the United States in
- 3:40Speaker 1: nineteen forty four. In nineteen fifty four, the Supreme Court
- 3:44Speaker 1: handed down his school segregation decision, which deliberately violated the Constitution,
- 3:50Speaker 1: reversed a previous Supreme Court decision and lit a fuse
- 3:53Speaker 1: touching off explosive violence, which has been shattering our society
- 3:58Speaker 1: ever since. Cited an American dilemma as one of the
- 4:02Speaker 1: modern authorities on which it relied in preference to the
- 4:05Speaker 1: Constitution for justification of its decision. An American Dilemma, written
- 4:11Speaker 1: by a Swedish socialist, provided a basic rationale for the
- 4:15Speaker 1: conversion of our free republic into an equalitarian democracy. Merdahl
- 4:20Speaker 1: contends that the American Declaration of Independence seventeen seventy six
- 4:24Speaker 1: proclaimed the ideal of an equalitarian democracy because it contains
- 4:29Speaker 1: the phrase all men are created equal. Eleven years later,
- 4:32Speaker 1: the Constitution created not a democracy founded on the ideal
- 4:35Speaker 1: of equality, but a republic founded on the ideal of liberty.
- 4:39Speaker 1: This is why Merdahl says the Constitutional Convention was nearly
- 4:43Speaker 1: a plot against the common people, but he and those
- 4:47Speaker 1: who parrot his ideas are either ignorant or dishonest. The
- 4:51Speaker 1: Constitution was ordained specifically to safeguard the principles of liberty
- 4:56Speaker 1: proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence. The declarations raise all
- 5:00Speaker 1: men are created Equal means that men are equal before
- 5:04Speaker 1: the law and before the creator, regardless of their inequality
- 5:08Speaker 1: in human society. The Declaration says that men are endowed
- 5:12Speaker 1: with unalienable rights, and that the purpose of government is
- 5:16Speaker 1: to secure these rights. The unalienable rights of man enumerated
- 5:20Speaker 1: in the Declaration of Independence do not include equality, but
- 5:24Speaker 1: they do include liberty along with life and pursuit of happiness.
- 5:29Speaker 1: Equality of all men in the eyes of God in
- 5:31Speaker 1: before the law is a condition essential to freedom, but
- 5:35Speaker 1: no other kind of equality is possible. Government efforts to
- 5:39Speaker 1: achieve material equality will produce crushing tyranny, but will not
- 5:43Speaker 1: make people equal. The writers of the Constitution were anxious
- 5:48Speaker 1: to safeguard liberty against dictatorship monarchy they called it, but
- 5:52Speaker 1: their chief anxiety was to protect the country against democracy.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Edmund Randall, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Virginia, said
- 6:01Speaker 1: the general object of the Convention was to provide a
- 6:04Speaker 1: cure for the follies and fury of democracy. Elbridge Gary
- 6:08Speaker 1: and Roger Sherman, delegates from Massachusetts and Connecticut, urged the
- 6:12Speaker 1: Constitutional Convention to create a system to eliminate the evils
- 6:15Speaker 1: that flow from the excess of democracy. Alexander Hamilton, delegate
- 6:20Speaker 1: from New York, said, we are now forming a republican government.
- 6:23Speaker 1: Real liberty is not found in democracy. If we incline
- 6:26Speaker 1: too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.
- 6:31Speaker 1: John Adams, one of the giants of the American Revolutionary period,
- 6:34Speaker 1: said democracy will envy all, contend with all, endeavor to
- 6:39Speaker 1: pull down all, and when, by chance it happens to
- 6:43Speaker 1: get the upper hand for a short time, democracy will
- 6:46Speaker 1: be revengeful, bloody, and cruel. Speaking of pure democracy, in
- 6:51Speaker 1: which the people, by majority vote, act as their own
- 6:54Speaker 1: lawmakers instead of electing representatives to make laws, James Madison
- 6:58Speaker 1: said such democracies have ever been incompatible with personal security
- 7:04Speaker 1: by the rights of property. A republic promises the cure
- 7:08Speaker 1: for which we are seeking. Madison, known as the father
- 7:12Speaker 1: of the Constitution, new and sad that enlightened men will
- 7:15Speaker 1: not always be at the helm of government to serve
- 7:18Speaker 1: as proper guardians of the public wield. He knew that
- 7:21Speaker 1: unlimited political power cannot safely be entrusted to the nation's
- 7:25Speaker 1: elected representatives to use as a majority of them see fit, because,
- 7:29Speaker 1: he said, a majority of a group of men is
- 7:33Speaker 1: far more likely to be tyrannical than one man is
- 7:37Speaker 1: in a democracy. If a majority should develop hatred for
- 7:41Speaker 1: all blue eyed babies and order them eliminated. The babies
- 7:45Speaker 1: could be legally executed because whatever a majority wants at
- 7:49Speaker 1: any given moment is supreme law of the land. In
- 7:52Speaker 1: a democracy, how can liberty be safeguarded against the mindless,
- 7:57Speaker 1: souliss tyranny of majority rule when government is founded on
- 8:01Speaker 1: the principle of majority rule. Jefferson answered that one, in
- 8:05Speaker 1: questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence
- 8:09Speaker 1: in man, but bind him down from mischief by the
- 8:12Speaker 1: chains of the Constitution. In short, America was founded not
- 8:16Speaker 1: as a democracy, but as a constitutional republic. We pledge
- 8:20Speaker 1: allegiance to the republic for which our flag stands, not
- 8:23Speaker 1: to a democracy. The Constitution requires a republican form of
- 8:27Speaker 1: government for all states, but does not mention democracy, and
- 8:30Speaker 1: neither does the Decoration of Independence or the Bill of Rights.
- 8:33Speaker 1: The Constitution is a binding contract enumerting limited powers which
- 8:38Speaker 1: the federal government can legally exercise, prohibiting it from exercising
- 8:42Speaker 1: any powers not granted in the contract. It denies federal
- 8:46Speaker 1: officials the power to do whatever they claim to be
- 8:49Speaker 1: necessary for the general welfare. Federal action not clearly authorized
- 8:53Speaker 1: by the Constitution is illegal, even if approved by an
- 8:57Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of the people. Because all the elastic powers
- 9:01Speaker 1: of government are left with the states, ultimate power to
- 9:05Speaker 1: change the organic structure of government was left with the people,
- 9:09Speaker 1: but the means of making changes amending the Constitution were
- 9:13Speaker 1: carefully prescribed to militate against hasty, unwise decisions by the people.
- 9:19Speaker 1: As Benjamin Franklin left the State House in Philadelphia on
- 9:22Speaker 1: the closing day of the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked
- 9:26Speaker 1: him what kind of government the convention had given America,
- 9:30Speaker 1: and Franklin replied, a republic if you can keep it.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Very old and very wise. Franklin saw through the mists
- 9:37Speaker 1: of time to the day when Americans might trade their
- 9:41Speaker 1: freedom in a constitutional republic for the promise of government
- 9:44Speaker 1: guaranteed equality and security in a democracy, and beyond that,
- 9:50Speaker 1: to the day when democracy inevitably degenerates into dictatorship, guaranteeing
- 9:55Speaker 1: nothing but poverty and serfdom for the people that robs
- 9:58Speaker 1: and rules. The American constitutional system, unique in history, enabled
- 10:05Speaker 1: Americans to develop a backward continent into the most magnificent
- 10:09Speaker 1: nation of all time. The system was designed to prevent
- 10:12Speaker 1: both tyranny by government and reckless rebellion by the people.
- 10:17Speaker 1: We must restore it and keep it and what can
- 10:21Speaker 1: you do toward that end. Your job, you who care
- 10:25Speaker 1: and understand, is to help educate others. I suggest that
- 10:30Speaker 1: you might find a subscription to my report helpful. The
- 10:32Speaker 1: Dancemoote Report on which these broadcasts are based is sent
- 10:37Speaker 1: every week through the mails and will reach you long
- 10:39Speaker 1: before the broadcast does. It contains documentation and detailed I
- 10:42Speaker 1: cannot put on the broadcast. You can read it, make
- 10:45Speaker 1: up your own mind, pass it on to others. I
- 10:48Speaker 1: think it may be an effective tool for you to
- 10:51Speaker 1: use to help educate and activate others, and only by
- 10:55Speaker 1: this means can we restore our republic.