Save The Tea, Dump The Leaders!
By Lisa Richards
February 16, 2009
“All I dare hope, is, that, if in executing this task I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendence proof, of the confidence of my fellow citizens; and have thence too little consulted my capacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me; my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, a d its consequences be judged by my Country…”
George Washington,
First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
George Washington understood the great job granted him by the American people, he knew he must uphold his duty honorably, he was obligated to “…renounce every pecuniary compensation [financial rewards] …and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station [of President of the United States]…be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.” Washington became president to serve the people, work for the people, to be held accountable to and for everything he did. His pay, he believed, was to go toward his public service, not personal whims.
That philosophy is now considered whimsical.
Washington wanted to serve, not dictate or control. He had no desire for a life term befitting monarchs like today’s leaders. Washington saw his role as one bestowed upon him with honor he must uphold or leave office in disgrace.
That attitude today is considered old-fashioned.
On May 8, 1798, Washington told the House of Representatives that he viewed his “…past endeavors in Service of Country” as being “far overpaid by its [America’s] goodness…” He further declared he did not feel the presidency deserved such high pay since he could not guarantee perfection in his leadership. He told the House he would “rely” on their “wisdom” in deciding what he deserved financially.
Today’s leaders simply bail out Wall Street while purchasing prostitutes.
America’s Founders truly saw leadership as service to God and country. They viewed their role with humility, an honor given by one’s fellow countrymen in a nation where all are equal in liberty.
Washington believed he, one of the people, was accountable to the people and must never attempt control over liberty and life. A man who would administrate oppression was not a leader but a tyrant.
Today’s leaders do not follow Washington’s philosophy; they adhere to Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive ideology: the Republican autocrat who banished the role of servant by usurping the power of the people. Washington led an army against such control, fighting to be free of monarchial tyranny governing man with an iron fist of control.
The idea that people govern, government should be limited, and states should, and do under the Constitution, have rights, flew out the window with Teddy Roosevelt, a dedicated progressive, who believed centralized control from the Executive Office was imperative to limiting the will and rights of the people he believed needed to be aggressively restrained by the president.
While Washington asked he be held accountable to the people, Roosevelt’s administration carried disinclination toward the Constitution. Unlike Washington, who truly believed he was a servant of the people, Roosevelt conned Americans into believing his progressive populism served their interests. According to Elmer E. Cornwell Jr.’s book Presidential Leadership of Public Opinion, Roosevelt’s theory was called “popular rhetoric,” the beginning of the age of the “Rhetorical Presidency” where the “technique” of one’s speech, according to Cornwell, could be used to sway people into lock-stepping with a president’s ideology. The idea of persuading people for votes was not new, but Roosevelt, a wealthy American, preyed on the middle-class and poor with his oratorical style, strong-arming the wealthy, as well as workers, by “subordina[ting] the big corporation to public welfare.”
The “Rhetorical Presidency” is allegorical, nothing more than a symbol of something grand, a pseudo-savior limited in power by the Constitution Americans have forgotten. But Americans a century ago, like Americans today who voted for the great melodramatic Messianic orator Barry Obama, fell for the declamatory theatrics of the booming Roosevelt, and what followed has been a century of creeping progressivism, slowly removing guaranteed privileges from the Bill Of Rights into what I refer to as the Divine Right of the President.
The only way to prevent further harm to America and the attempt of a second bill of rights, as once endeavored by FDR and strived for by Obama, is to rid this nation of liberal leaders; i.e. progressives.
On October 1, 1787, Richard Henry Lee, worrying the new Constitution may give Congress too much power, wrote to George Mason in a letter titled “On The Deviousness Of Congress’s Actions, And The Need For Amendments,” stating Congress was filled with devious men hungry for power and amendments must be made to the new Constitution, preventing aristocratic acts against Americans:
The greatness of the powers given & the multitude of Places [government offices] to be created, produces a coalition of Monarchy men, Military Men, Aristocrats, and Drones whose noise, impudence & zeal exceeds all belief…This constitution has a great many excellent Regulations in it and if it could be reasonably amended would be a fine system—As it is, I think ‘tis past doubt, that if established, either a tyranny will result from it, or it will be prevented by a Civil War…It is certainly the most rash and violent proceeding in the world to cram thus suddenly into Men a business of such infinite Moment to the happiness of millions.
Two centuries later, the Obama Administration, like the TR Administration a century ago, attempts to “cram thus suddenly” bills undermining Americans and violating the Constitution.
Our great Constitution is our life’s blood. It was given unto us by our Founders through God Almighty who gave us liberty—natural law.
Americans must stand up and fight those absconding with Constitutional rights, inflicting America with false rights. Such acts are tyranny.
Classical liberals: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Jay, the Framers and Signers, were willing to die so we could live free. They did not seek lofty provisions; they fought for liberty, the Constitution, and America we must fight to preserve.
Washington, who asked that he be held accountable for all his actions, would be appalled to see what Roosevelt did, and Obama is doing, to America. He would say free individuals are self-governed, not controlled by those placed in power.
It is time to remove the droning pseudo-aristocrats and revive our glorious founding.
Lisa Richards Copyright ©™ February 16, 2010 All Rights Reserved
www.lisa-richards.com [8]
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