“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler
Israel's King Solomon was blessed with immense wisdom and discernment, and he wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV), "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Scottish 18th-century advocate, judge, writer, and professor of Universal History, Alexander Fraser Tytler, gave us the aforementioned quote and it is clearly prescient, for it has direct application to America today. History is important to study not for the rote memorization of dates, times, and places, but rather for the understanding of events, philosophies, and ideologies that cyclically appear throughout mankind's existence. As the quote attributed to Spanish political philosopher George Santayana asserts, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Last week, White House mouthpiece, Karine Jean-Pierre, stated that college students, who went into a contractual agreement for a loan to attend college, a decision they made, are owed $468 billion in college debt relief by the American taxpayer. Now, recognize that this initiative flies in the face of a US Supreme Court decision articulating that the President -- the Executive Branch -- does not possess the enumerated constitutional power to take this action. It appears that nothing will deter this Biden administration from overreaching its expressed constitutional powers when it comes to enacting its ideological agenda. In this case, the agenda is all about the political economics of dependency.
As Fraser Tytler wrote, this is all about having specific constituencies in our Republic realize that they can indeed vote their own largesse from the public treasury. The designed and desired outcome is for these constituencies to lend their electoral support to those who provide them the most direct economic benefit. If you want to talk about a threat to democracy -- in this case, our constitutional republic -- it is, as Tytler said, "the ensuing result being the collapse of the democracy over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." This is the aim of the progressive socialist left, to build more economically dependent constituencies to maintain a firm hold on power. Who cares about a $32 trillion national debt?
Famed conservative radio commentator, the late Rush Limbaugh, said, "It is hard to run against Santa Claus." The progressive socialists, Marxists, offer free everything to those willing to surrender their individual liberty and freedom. This is the philosophy of wealth redistribution and the expansion of a welfare nanny state, both socialist economic policy tenets. This deranged and delusional idea is taken directly from Karl Marx and his quote, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." That is unless you are Hunter Biden and can skip out on your taxes and pay your "fair share.”
The plethora of free stuff just continues to grow: free healthcare (ask veterans how that is working out), free cell phones, free education (actually, it is indoctrination, and the reason leftists hate school choice), free housing (the federal government is telling people not to pay their rent, another unconstitutional move), student loan debt relief, and now, reparations to people who were never slaves (Booker T. Washington was a slave and did not ask for reparations; he wanted an education and self-reliance). Folks, all this free stuff is not just relegated to American citizens; heck, you can illegally enter America and line up for your free stuff as well: healthcare, cell phone, transportation, housing, and even free money. Hmm, and yet we have homeless veterans in America.
The political economics of dependency cannot be denied and indeed not argued. The leftists in America must have economic enslavement. They are the party of the original enslavement. Their War on Poverty, the “Great Society” policies of economic dependence, has unequivocally destroyed the Black community, turning our inner cities into 21st-century economic plantations where the left harvests votes instead of cotton.
This place we call home, the United States of America, is now 247 years old, and according to Tytler, we are 47 years past the expiration date. When one reads his evolutionary cycle of democracy, in our case the Constitutional Republic, it is very telling as to what phase we are now in: “apathy to dependence." This great nation fought its way out of bondage to global power, Great Britain. Now, these 247 years later, we are falling into bondage to a dangerous, failed, and deranged philosophy of governance, progressive socialism.
Being economically dependent is the antithesis of what America represents, individual economic independence. The political economics of dependency promotes one of the most horrifying aspects of mankind, the willful destruction of individual will and determination. When you are dependent, you are in bondage. How interesting that the leftists want to hand out reparations payments which does nothing but perpetuate a slave mentality, an institution that the Democrat Party established in America and fought to sustain. Even after the end of slavery, the Party of the Jackass enacted policies to undermine liberty and freedom.
The political economics of dependency continues the same, it's just that the left has found a new way to deceive the populace. Rush Limbaugh was right in concept, but the leftists in America are not Santa Claus, they are the Grinch, and they are here to do as the Bible says about the devil: steal, kill, and destroy the indomitable American individual, and entrepreneurial, will and spirit.
Let's say “No!” to their philosophy of failure, their creed of ignorance, their desire to put us back in chains.
Steadfast and Loyal.
LTC Allen West (retired) is the Executive Director of the American Constitutional Rights Union and ACRU Action Fund and a former member of Congress (FL)