Today's comment is by John Pugsley, our Chairman and best-selling author of many books on financial and personal freedom.
Dear A-Letter Reader,
As Congress grabbed center stage this week with a theatrical all-night session to push for an end to the Iraq war, a far bigger question lay submerged and ignored beneath the rhetoric.
It's the issue that the founding fathers of the country believed they had settled when they created the nation 231 years ago.
Is the United States of America a republic, as the founders intended, a democracy, as so many of the founding fathers feared it would become, or an empire, which they all abhorred?
It's question that will define the future of America, for future generations.
To the founders, only one form of government would work. Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."
But they were not so naïve as to think it would necessarily last. When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Benjamin Franklin was asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Did You Know Our Founders Hated Democracy?
Sadly, if our forefathers were here today they would be forced to concede that their republic did not survive. Nor would they be pleased that the United States supposedly morphed into a democracy.
Franklin had no love for democracy, quipping, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." John Adams, second President of the U.S., opined that a democracy would be doomed: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that didn't commit suicide."
Perhaps what we have left today is the corpse of a democracy that appears to live, but has already been murdered. It's arguable that the hoped-for American republic passed through the democratic phase and has reached the worst point of all: empire.
To many of the founders, that would be the worst of all. "An empire is a despotism," wrote Adams, "and an emperor is a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will."
Does the designation of empire fit today's America, and is George W. Bush a fledgling despot?
Hail to the Emperor, I Mean "Chief"
By definition, an empire is a domain comprised of regions locally ruled by governors (or client kings) in the name of an emperor or empress, which rule is imposed, at least partially, by force.
George Bush would be the first to deny he is a despot, or that he's pursuing imperial ambition. Before being elected to his first term as President, he dismissed any idea that the U.S. should engage in empire building.
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"One way for us to be viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying we do it this way, so should you. I think the United States must be... confident of our values but humble in the way we treat nations who are trying to figure out their own course." - George W. Bush, Second Presidential Debate, October 11, 2000
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Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was more emphatic when the Bush Administration was accused of imperialism: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been."
Evidence of Empire Building - Even Before 9/11
The evidence contradicts them. Around the world, the American government has a presence reminiscent of the British or Roman Empires at their zeniths.
According to the Department of Defense's figures, there are currently some 255,000 U.S. military personnel stationed on 725 bases in 153 foreign countries.
Nor is it just the War on Terrorism that has created this juggernaut. The worldwide American military presence was only marginally less before the September 11, 2001 attack.
If George Washington were here today, what would he think about over 250,000 American troops in bases stretching from Central America, through Europe and the Middle East all the way through Asia, and on into the Pacific?
Doubtless, he and our other forefathers would be despondent over the course American has taken. In his Farewell Address, Washington warned pointedly against foreign entanglements.
John Quincy Adams's argued that it is not America's destiny "to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." If America ever pursued such a policy, he said, she would inevitably make herself the "dictatress of the world."
Take a Lesson from Past Fallen Empires
Any country pursues the path of foreign intervention risks losing its finest young men and women in other people's wars, ends up losing more power then if it had never embarked on empire, and ultimately bankrupts itself.
Remember Rome. Remember Germany. Remember the Soviet Union.
"Experience hath shewn," wrote Jefferson in 1788, "that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
Human nature guarantees that power corrupts. Even when the founders do their best to limit the power handed to those running that government, the gradual evolution of government is always toward a larger and larger, more intrusive state.
Until a new set of Founding Fathers arrives on earth, and discovers a system of government in which some individuals are not given power over the lives and fortunes of others, there is one rational course of action for us as individuals.
To survive and be secure, we must engineer our lives, as best we are able, to keep ourselves, our families, and our assets out of the reach of empire...
JOHN PUGSLEY, Chairman
P.S. The central goal of The Sovereign Society is to help you achieve individual sovereignty over yourself and your assets even while living in a world of empire builders. You can engineer your portfolios and assets to stay as far away from the world's empires as legally possible. Click here for a good place to start.