The World of Grandpa Don

Our Federal Republic

The United States of America.

 The Government

I hope, now that you have a better understanding of the various forms of government, that you also see what that means to us as citizens of the Federal Republic of  The United States of America and the dangers that we face in maintaining this form of government.

Politically, I claim to be an independent. This is because I rather vote for the candidate who best matches my views and who I feel can be trusted to best do the job at hand. However, I tend to shy away from the Democratic Party. Why? Because the Democratic Party leans to, ... what else ... Democracy. I tend to agree, in principal, with the following:

Norman MattonThomas (1884 - 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1911. As a candidate for President of the U. S., Norman Thomas said, in a 1944 epoch speech: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism", they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform."

So you see, we can slip and slide from being a Federal Republic into an Oligarchy by building Socialism with its necessary massive government agencies into a huge government in control of everything.

Then again I have a friend, ... probably several, ... who fear that someone will invade his home and says that he has a gun and the intruder will be carried out if he dares to invade his castle. He, in efect, intends to be judge, jury and executioner and that ...  is Anarchy. The problem is that in an Anarchy, no one is safe because each is a law unto himself. There must be some government and that should be a government of laws based in a strong constitution.

No government is perfect and no government is pure, but a mixture of features borrowed from other forms. A myriad of variations and sub-categories have been defined. The critical aspect is in the mix of these features carefully balancing the best of them all. In my view, the Federal Republic it the best we can achieve. But even that has its tendencies and it is the tendencies of which we must watch and guard against when one threatens to tip the balance and led us away from practicality.

And so we, as citizens of these United States, elect representatives to whom we entrust the duty to make just laws which are to be binding on everyone, even those who wrote them, and we elect or appoint men who will enforce those laws and manage the business of the nation. And they too are subject to the laws. We also elect or appoint judges to oversee the actions of the people under these laws and insure their just application. Even the judges are governed by the law. No one is above the law ... sometimes some forget that. Everyone is protected by the law ... and sometimes we forget that also. We are an nation of laws, not of rulers,  The government officials are there to serve the law and the people not to dictate or to take for themselves ... a fact too often forgotten. But they are only people, ... people with faults and egos ... which is why we must have strong laws and not powerful government. After all didn't someone say we have ...

... Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

May we never forget that and may it long endure.

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