Over the years in this column I have written about the
American Empire.
I have advocated
jettisoning the Empire to save the Republic.
This topic has sparked debate and controversy even among the most
dedicated readers.
Usually the argument
runs like this, “
America is
not an Empire, never has been and never will be,” or “
America’s
far-flung military deployments are not the garrisoning of an empire it is
instead a forward defense of the homeland.”
In my most recent column along these lines, aptly entitled,
“Republic or Empire?” in several publications there was spirited debate about
whether or not America
could be called an empire. Some people
seemed to take offense at the very idea.
Others who usually agree with my political stands find this and my other
foreign policy positions such as bringing our troops home, concentrating on
defending America,
and equitable trade with all unacceptable.
I present and promote these foreign policy positions as requirements for
restoring limited government. It is my belief that as long as we are involved
in endless war there is no real possibility to re-gain control of our
government, our budget, or our future.
What I propose to do in this column is examine the hallmarks
of empire and ask my readers to honestly ask themselves, “Is America a republic
or an empire?”
First, it makes no difference whether it is the President,
the Paramount Chief, an Augustus, the First Citizen, the Dear Leader, the Great
Helmsman or der Fuehrer. It doesn’t
matter if it is an executive branch, a Politburo, a Central Committee, the
Cabinet, or the collective leadership.
Whatever form it takes, an empire is always dominated by a highly
centralized executive power.
America
was designed not to be an empire but instead to be a federal republic made up
of a central government and state governments which were the precursors and
creators of the central government.
This central government founded upon and constrained by a written
constitution originally presented the world with something new, a national
government made up of divided co-equal powers.
The Congress to make the laws, the executive to enforce the laws, and
the judicial to judge if the laws conformed to the Constitution: the guiding
light and touch-stone of American limited government. This worked well to establish and maintain a
republic but it would not foster nor perpetuate an empire.
Thus the Constitution established the framework of what
became known as the system of checks and balances. Only congress could make laws, but the
President could veto them. Congress
could over-ride a president’s veto, but the Supreme Court could declare laws unconstitutional
making them null and void. The president
is in charge of foreign policy and is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed
forces, but the Congress controlled the purse and could cut off funding. Upon petition the Supreme Court could declare
the actions of the president unconstitutional yet the president could appoint
justices to the Supreme Court.
Did this work perfect?
No, there were always swings one way or another. There have been powerful Supreme Courts such
as under Chief Justices Marshall or Warren that changed the complexion of the
country. There have been powerful
Congresses such as the one from 1865 to the mid 1870’s that virtually ignored
presidents and set policy. There were
powerful presidents such as Jackson or Lincoln.
However the pendulum always swung back and forth. If you examined all three institutions there
was one thing missing. Where was the
sovereignty? Who was the nation?
In the highly centralized state, which is an empire whether
personal or national, the leader or leadership operates according to the
sentiments of the Sun King, Louis XIV of
France who
said,
“I am the State.”
During the birth of
the American system, our Founders had spent more time debating this than any
other aspect of the government, who would be the sovereign power.
They had just fought and defeated one tyrant
and they did not want to exchange one for another.
They didn’t trust the sovereignty of the
nation in the hands of an executive because of the long and bloody history of
Europeans with
absolutism
and
divine
right.
They didn’t trust an assembly
after their recent history with the tyranny of the British Parliament and their
Stamp Act,
Quartering
Act and other attempts to bring the colonies to their knees.
They couldn’t place it in the hands of the
Supreme Court for that body would be merely judicial.
Instead they came up with a new idea in the world. They placed the sovereignty of the nation in
the hands of We the People.
The Constitution is designed to empower the people not the
government. Though today it is stretched
and interpreted to give the government the power to do whatever it wants
whenever it wants originally it was constructed to limit government.
We the People
could vote the Congress in or out, we could choose our own president, and if
the Supreme Court said something was unconstitutional that we wanted we could
change the Constitution using a mechanism embedded within the document
itself. For the first time no leader or
oligarchy owned the state, instead the state belonged to the citizens.
What do we see in
America today?
We have a president who
says, “We can’t
wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they won’t
act, I will.”
When Congress after
deliberation decides not to pass the
Dream
Act giving amnesty to millions, the President uses an executive order to
make it law by decree.
When the Congress
refuses to pass a
cap-and-trade
law that many believe will hamstring our industry and hobble us in the race
with other nations, the president orders his EPA department to enforce it
anyway.
Without consulting Congress the
President
takes us to war against
Libya
and deposes a government.
These are the
actions of an executive out of control.
Under the original American system if anyone would have asked, “Who
speaks for the people?” the answer would have been the House of Representatives
because they were elected every two years and were thus closest to the
people.
It wouldn’t have been the
Congress as a whole because under the original system the senate was chosen by
the various state legislatures and was designed to represent the states.
It was the House which spoke for the
people.
Today it is the President who
uses the bully pulpit magnified by a subservient press and a thousand
government media pressure points and outlets saying in effect, I have a mandate
from the people.
I am the embodiment of
their will.
I am the state.
The next hallmark of an empire we will look at is that
domestic policy becomes subordinate to foreign policy.
The American President is constitutionally in
charge of foreign policy so there is no better place for the holder of that
office to act without any restraint.
Treaties must be ratified, so our presidents began in the 1940’s to
forge personal
agreements
with the leaders of other countries that had all the force of treaties with
none of the messy Senate confirmation required.
Using their power as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces modern
presidents have also used their authority to start wars as in Kosovo and Libya,
to sign cease fires as in Korea, and to commit America to the support of
dictators and tyrants through deployments and equipment transfers, all without
any Congressional oversight.
If we ask ourselves, has domestic policy really become
subordinate to foreign policy think about whose infrastructure are we being
taxed to rebuild?
In
Afghanistan and
Iraq
our money and our companies are building new schools while ours fall apart, we
are building new roads in
Afghanistan
while we watch our own bridges crumbling.
We give billions to countries and governments that despise us.
We borrow money to
give
it away and then sometimes borrow it back all in a
bizarre
dance
balancing foreign interests at the expense of We the People.
Another hallmark of an empire is that the military mindset
becomes ascendant to the point that civilians are intimidated.
Think about the Defense budget.
In
2012
it was over 600 billion dollars.
Does
anyone believe Congress or anyone else really knows where all that money is
going?
The
size,
scope, and unbelievable
waste
in the defense budget stagger the imagination.
However, to even question the defense budget will immediately get
someone labeled as an isolationist who wants to gut our defense and surrender
to the enemy.
Many people will argue that we are in a war and that during
war of course the defense budget will be bloated.
Can you remember any time since 1942 that we
haven’t been in a war?
Yes, there were
the brief days of the “Peace Dividend” under
Clinton
after the
Soviet Union dissolved which
actually became the
rational for increased defense spending.
And during those brief days of peace back in the 1990’s we fought a war and
enforced a decade long no-fly zone in Iraq, attacked Serbia, sent troops,
planes or other assets to Zaire, Sierra Leone, Bosnia (numerous times),
Herzegovina, Somalia, Macedonia, Haiti, Liberia, Central African Republic,
Albania, Congo and Gabon, Cambodia, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan,
Afghanistan, and East Timor.
And this
was our only decade of peace since the 1940’s, and to question any of this is
considered tantamount to treason.
We
must ask ourselves, “Has the military mindset become ascendant to the point
that civilians are intimidated?”
Perpetual war for peace has led the peaceful American people
to be ensnared in the clutches of the military-industrial complex as president
Eisenhower
warned
it would in 1961.
All empires develop and maintain a system of satellite
nations. When we hear of this we
immediately think of the old USSR
and their slave states in Eastern Europe. Advance the idea that America has
satellite nations and people become irate.
“How could you say such a thing about America?” Look at our so-called allies. Do they fit the description as satellite
nations? A satellite nation is one that
the empire deems is necessary for its own defense. It is also one that feels it cannot stand
alone and wants the empire’s protection.
That is the deal. The
empire commits to protect the satellite and the satellite agrees to stand with
its back against the empire facing a common foe. Add to that the fact that we supply money and
material to build the national defenses of our satellite/allies as well as
economic aid and a preferential trade system.
Think about these ideas and decide for yourself whether or not America has
satellite nations ringing the heartland of the empire.
Another hallmark of empire is that a psychology or psychosis
of pride, presumption, and arrogance overtakes the national consciousness. We are all familiar with the twenty-first
century incantation of “Too big to fail.”
That was applied by our bailout happy leaders to their pet banks and
companies during the opening days of the Great Recession. It is also an apt description for the way in
which most Americans view our position as the most powerful nation on earth or
as the silver tongued talking heads like to say, the world’s sole
superpower. Since the end of World War
One the United States
has been the unchallenged mega power among the western block of nations. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union we have towered like a colossus over the
rest of the world. In the memory of most
people now alive it has always been this way.
To most people the way it has been is the way it shall
be. We speak of embracing change and of
realizing that change is the only constant but few can really think that
way. The familiar seduces us into
thinking that the momentary circumstances of today are the unshakable
foundations of tomorrow. To the children
and grandchildren of the greatest generation the world will always gaze in awe
at the great American eagle soaring above the world. Our navies rule the waves, our masses of
fighters, bombers, and drones can reach out and touch any corner of the globe,
our troops are the best trained, best equipped, and best led armies the world
has ever seen, so such a mega power could never fall.
So it seemed to the inhabitants of
Rome the eternal empire.
So it seemed to the British when the sun
never set upon the union jack.
And so it
seems to us.
Even though a rag-tag group
like Al Qaeda defies our attempts to destroy them and continues to grow and
multiply around the world.
Even though
the Taliban not only have withstood more than a decade of war they stand poised
to reclaim their country as soon as we leave.
Even though our
deficit
spending and the
national debt it
creates is leading us to a financial collapse that our own military leaders
have identified as the
greatest
threat to our security, and our leaders
only answer is more spending.
This
pride, presumption, and arrogance blinds us to the enduring truth of what comes
before a fall.
Finally an empire is the prisoner of history. A republic is not required to act upon the
world stage. It can pick and choose its
own way seeking its own destiny as a commonwealth of citizens. An empire must project its power for fear that
if it doesn’t another leviathan will arise to take its place. A free republic that has maintained its
independence is able to decide where and when it will become involved. An empire is always the leader of a center
heavy coalition comprised of the imperial core and the associated or satellite
nations. As such it is the collective
security against the barbarian, the other that drives the actions of the
empire.
In the parlance of our day it is our turn. It is our turn to be the policeman of the
world, our turn to keep the peace, to guard civilization from the unwashed
hordes who seek to turn back the clock and bring darkness into the world. We are a vanguard of stability in a world
beset by chaos, and so were the British and the Romans before them.
Other writers may say something has been left off these
hallmarks while others may say some of these don’t apply. To all I would recommend a study of former
empires to see if they agree these properties are found in all of them. Then ask ourselves, “Are these properties
present in America
today?” Once we have completed this
process we will be able to answer the question for ourselves, “Is America an
Empire?” If we decide, yes it is, we
have to realize that there is a trajectory all empires follow: they rise and
they fall.
We might decide that,we as the first empire that is not
set-up to plunder wealth but instead to distribute wealth, are different, and
therefore we will break the mold. We
will stand while others have fallen. One
look at our debt should persuade anyone that what we have built is as
unsustainable as the British, the Roman, or any other empire we wish to use as
a standard.
Do you say, “We can’t be an empire because our president is
elected.” So were the emperors of the
Holy Roman Empire, so were the kings of Poland. It is the empire that
empowers our executive. Do you say, “We
can’t be an empire because we have a Congress.”
So did Athens, Rome,
and Britain. Do you say, “We can’t be an empire because we
have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, why we even have the freedom to
own weapons.” So did Athens,
so did Rome, and so did Britain.
While we are yet on the glory side of the fall let us
abandon the empire to save our republic.
Let us resign from the great game of thrones, rebuild America, secure our own borders instead of those
of Korea, or Afghanistan,
and reaffirm our dedication to be the last best hope of mankind: a federal
republic operating on democratic principles, securing our God given liberties,
providing personal freedom, individual liberty, and economic opportunity to all
its citizens.
