American Thinker:

Our Elective Despotism
By Lawrence Sellin

There are many things obvious to ordinary Americans that cannot be mentioned publicly in the polite political company of the Republican and Democratic establishments or among their press agents in the mainstream media, who obligingly pirouette around the truth.

For example, both the Republican and Democratic establishments are composed of hopelessly corrupt, procrastinating control freaks, who seek fame and fortune through over-spending money they didn't earn and enthusiastically crushing any spontaneous outbreaks of democracy among U.S. citizens, for example, the Tea Party.

Thomas Jefferson warned us of the danger of "elective despotism:"

"They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered."

Unfortunately, the wolf is already in the fold.

Taking the rhetoric up a notch from Jefferson, Israeli historian J. L. Talmon coined the term "totalitarian democracy," a political system in which lawfully elected representatives rule a nation state whose citizens, although granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of government.

If you do not think the United States has become an elective despotism, think again.

One of the most honest and courageous members of Congress in decades, Rep. Allen West (R-FL), is about to become a sacrificial lamb of the collusion between the Republican and Democratic establishments in the state of Florida.

And what is West's crime? He is an independent thinker and a rising star of the Tea Party movement.

The Republican establishment hates the Tea Party because it has the audacity to suggest that American citizens should have a voice in their government.

Led by Mitt Romney's spokesman, Representative Will Weatherford, the Republican legislature in Florida is about to push through a re-districting plan, which would redraw the boundaries of Allen West's 22nd Congressional District to include far more registered Democrats and put West at an even larger disadvantage than he was previously.

Under elective despotism, the government is transformed from one based on traditional values, articles of faith and the support of individual liberty into one in which social utility and political expediency take absolute precedence.

Having no allegiance to the principles upon which America was founded, Barack Obama, aided and abetted by the political establishments and the mainstream media, is in the process of dismantling our Constitution and fulfilling his promise to radically transform the country.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama did not present a plan for restoring America, he left a suicide note. Obama, the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media are in the final stages of a self-destruct sequence, while the Republican establishment passively sits by America's deathbed watching President Kevorkian deliver the poison.

Mitt Romney, the chosen one intended to bring balance to the Republican Force, touts his business experience as a credential for the presidency. Unfortunately, political, not business decisions are made in Washington, D.C., and those decisions are no longer constrained by the Constitution and the rule of law.

It is corruption of our political system, not just financial corruption that is the single, most important issue of the 2012 election.

The arrogance of political establishment has only gotten more brazen since 1993, when Lewis H. Lapham ("A Wish for Kings") wrote:

"The politicians dress up the deals in the language of law or policy, but they're in the business of brokering the tax revenue, and what keeps them in office is not their talent for oratory but their skill at redistributing the national income in a way that rewards their clients, patrons, friends and campaign contributors."

Examples of the corrupt status quo:

- More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.

- The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.

- Insider trading is legal for members of the U.S. Congress -- and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.

- The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.

Regarding the crisis of our current national debt, put simply, unconstrained spending by the government is the product of unconstrained corruption in the government.

Here is another political heresy: the emperor has no college records.

Yes, I have the temerity to believe that Barack Hussein Obama should be thoroughly vetted before the 2012 election.

We know far more details about Gingrich's marriages, Romney's mutual funds, Paul's prehistoric newsletters and the voting block made up of Santorum's children than a bare minimum of facts that we need to know about the current Occupier of the Oval Office.

The time has come for the American people to commit political blasphemy by showing a healthy irreverence towards the political establishment and the status quo.

"Cowardice asks the question 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but because conscience tells one it is right."-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.