As I explained in my article "The Tao of Government, (OpEdNews.com, 28 February 2009), the idea of personal or individual sovereignty is ridiculous. Sovereignty exists at the nexus of power and authority, and we as human beings, have so little of either individually, over anyone or anything except ourselves, that to speak of individual sovereignty is ludicrous.
It is only when we "at the ballot box, in the streets with (hopefully) peaceful protests, or through pressure on our elected representatives "collectively exercise our rights as citizens to have a say in the functions of our government, that We the People demonstrate our power of sovereign authority.
This power and authority is based entirely on the belief of a majority of the people in the government and its institutions, no matter how badly those institutions may be flawed. The fundamental ability of any government to govern is dependent on the belief of a nation's people in the government's authority to do so. As I have said before: If tomorrow everyone believed me king, I would be king "and abdicate immediately.
In a recent article on Alternet.org, "The Wing Nut Code (2 September 2009), Adele M. Stan brought to my attention the underlying meaning of "sovereign for some people on the right. For these right wing crazies, "this term has two meanings. The most troubling refers to a notion called 'sovereign citizen,' a term popularized by the violent Posse Comitatus militia formation in the 1970s to argue that white people have a superior form of citizenship to that of black people. More commonly, the term 'sovereign' refers to a states' rights philosophy that is consonant with secessionist ideologies.
Secessionist? Didn't we settle that in 1865? If not, my answer to all potential secessionists is that of President Andrew Jackson when South Carolina passed its Ordinance of Nullification back in 1833; "The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government; not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the states or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all of the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the states; they retained all the power they did not grant.
But each state, having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other states, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league but destroys the unity of a nation; and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact but it is an offense against the whole Union. (Lost Triumph: Lee's Real Plan at Gettysburg "and Why It Failed; Tom Carhart; Copyright 2005, p. 25.)
In other words, the states implicitly surrendered their right to secede "or otherwise act in contravention of the Constitution "when they joined the United States of America. This is in part, the purpose of the Supremacy clause (article VI, paragraph 2) in the Constitution. Any attempt at secession (or nullification) is an offense against the other states that form the Union and their people, as well as the Union itself. And like President Jackson, I am not above hanging a few gentlemen in every tree from Columbia to Charleston "or Austin to Houston for that matter "in order to preserve the Union. Secession is the only area that I find myself even slightly in favor of the death penalty.
How many of you were aware of Andrew Jackson and his reaction to South Carolina's Ordinance of Nullification? How many of you know the reason behind the Ordinance? (High Tariffs.) How many of you knew that President Jackson informed the South Carolinians "including his former Vice President John Breckenridge "that he would bring the United States Army down to South Carolina and hang secessionists from every tree on the road from Columbia (the state capital) to Charleston (the major port) as an example? President Jackson's actions delayed the Civil War by nearly three decades, and "in my humble opinion "guaranteed the preservation of our Union.
Unfortunately, I believe that the answers to the questions I've posed above are, "Not many. Certainly when we have Governors and other politicians who are "bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; (The United States Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3), openly expressing support for secession, and being cheered by the crowds of Know-nothings (look it up) rather than driven from office by the people of their state; then I know that education and knowledge in this country, particularly for those on the authoritarian Right, have been replaced by propaganda and wishful thinking.
Another example of this endemic ignorance on the right is all of the people who describe President Obama as a "socialist, "Marxist, Communist, "fascist, or "Nazi.
These are the same people who have cheered on Pat Buchanan for many years, despite his ongoing pro-Nazi (or at least Nazi apologist) sentiments.This includes his column, "Did Hitler Want War? on the seventieth anniversary of the start of the Second World War in Europe. A casual reading of either Mein Kampf, or Hitler's second, unpublished manuscript, gives the lie to Mr. Buchanan's statement that Hitler did not want war. I, out of kindness and lack of solid evidence, will place Mr. Buchanan in the same category as Charles Lindbergh: a delusional fool. The people who call the President a "Nazi, use the word as a pejorative and an insult, without understanding its underlying meaning.
Same thing with the word "fascist. Although I must admit, if President Obama does not quit kowtowing to the health insurance companies, Big Pharma, and the other health related corporations that are bleeding the American people dry for their healthcare, and provide America with a strong public option to give the American people a real choice, I may have to reassess my position.
Marxist and Communist? Are you insane? President Obama, the man who oversaw the loan of billions to America's largest banking and financial firms, as well as the bail out of GM and Chrysler? Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and Mao, would all be spinning in their graves for one of their followers to misuse such a golden opportunity to overthrow the capitalist oppressors and begin the dictatorship of the proletariat in the United States. This simply demonstrates the ignorance of most Americans about Karl Marx and the system he proposed. This system was taken by men like Lenin, Stalin and Mao, and twisted into something Marx never would have recognized or accepted. I do not generally agree with Marx's solutions, but many of his observations about antisocial (or laissez faire) capitalism were on the mark.
Finally, there is the accusation of socialism. I still believe that most people on the right would not know real socialism if it came up and gave them a big, wet, sloppy kiss on the lips. In Europe, President Obama's policies would barely make him a centrist. His failure to push for single payer health care, let alone a strong public option, would probably mark him as center-right in Europe: like the Liberal Party in England or the Christian Democrats in Germany.
A nation can only be called "socialist, in my opinion, when that nation's government actually takes over direct control of a significant percentage (25%+) of that nation's means of production and distribution of goods and services. It is not when the government regulates business in order to prevent price fixing, collusion, or other harmful business practices that lead to consumer fraud, monopolies, hostile takeovers, consolidations of economic power, or other abuses that makes the corporations and their owners a threat to the government and its citizens. Taken to its logical conclusion: total, unregulated consolidation of economic power in the hands of corporations and their owners, with the concomitant political power, has a name: fascism.
For those of you who are still clinging to the delusion that Adam Smith's metaphorical "invisible hand is all that is required to keep control over the extremes of laissez faire capitalism, look around you: It has never worked in the past, it is not working now, and it cannot work in the future; because it is completely contradictory to the avaricious motivations and practices that make the antisocial capitalists successful within our economic system. The "invisible hand is only a metaphor, not a reality.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
