Restoring representation--A Strategic Proposal I

By Alan Keyes

Introductory Note: Whatever the activity involved, sound strategic thinking requires a clear view of the overall objective to be achieved — one that starts by taking account of the context and circumstances of action, including especially the nature of the obstacles that may be part of that account at any given time. The obstacles include, of course, those posed by "the enemy," even when that word does not literally refer to one's opponent in time of war.

Making the objective the conditional premise of thought, we then proceed to lay out the actions required to achieve it, first taking stock of the relative distribution of means suitable for attaining, or thwarting the attainment, of the objective.

Finally, we think through and lay out the structure or plan of action in all its dimensions (the physical dimensions of time, space, and available physical energy, including human resources in their purely material physical aspect; and the human dimension of morale — i.e., conscience and spiritedness).

In light of these requirements, this proposal for action by people determined to restore the politics of representation beginning with the 2012 election (hereafter referred to as "true republicans") will be presented in three parts:

I. The context and circumstances of action, detailing the present crisis of representative government in the United States;

II. The means of action, beginning with a description of the strategic objective of electoral action by true republicans in the 2012 general election;

III. The plan of action

Part I

The Crisis of Representation
During the general election in 2008, the GOP's sitting President responded to the financial equivalent of Pearl Harbor by openly surrendering to socialism. Then the GOP elitists' carefully engineered nominee for President abandoned and disheartened the voters the Party is supposed to represent when he contemptuously refused to voice their opposition to that surrender. When John McCain refused to represent the large majority of Americans who rejected G. W. Bush's TARP bank bailout, he effectively threw the election to Obama. The GOP and the Democrats are supposed to be opposing teams. But, in fact the same elitist conglomerate owns them both. The GOP quarterback's intentionally thrown interception pass made this obvious to anyone willing to see.

So has behavior of the GOP's leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives since the 2008 result. On issues of constitutional moral principle; on budget matters; and even on issues like border security, illegal immigration, and education, they have stubbornly refused to represent the priorities of the Tea Party constituency whose vote restored the House of Representatives to GOP control. Worse still, they have positively aided and abetted the Obama faction's contemptuous subversion of the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, in many places, GOP leaders at the state level have made little or no effort to hide their determination to thwart and excise Tea Party influence, up to and including efforts to redraw election districts to defeat Tea Party incumbents.

Obviously, the coaching staffs of both the so-called major political parties answer to owners who made or enhanced their fortunes by betting on the political games; who hedge their bets by fixing the games; and who have been paying themselves off by raping the public income, and destroying the good faith and credit of the American people. So despite the people's reaction against them, their stranglehold has gotten far more explicit and deadly under Obama, largely because the GOP's theatrically feigned reluctance is just that: a thoroughly scripted, lavishly staged, badly acted performance.

Obama and his cohorts pursue left-wing socialist (communist) goals with right-wing socialist (Nazi/fascist) tactics. His good-sounding prologue won them some rhetorical applause before the curtain went up. But by now their hardline socialist predilections have become undeniably evident. As I and others like me predicted, many Americans have recoiled from their crudely aggressive push to socialism. Like people poisoned with bad fish, they are nauseated. Their nausea urgently impels them to find the appropriate facility for emptying their collective political stomach, before the fishy meal puts them out of their misery. If the GOP were anything like the conservative alternative it pretends to be, its leaders would have worked to make sure the November election provided people with a good, clean rest stop with facilities suitable for the purpose. They would also have taken pains to reassure people that the GOP's food preparation process includes none of the fishy stuff that has so painfully disagreed with them.

Instead, the GOP's crypto-socialist elite engineered a primary process dank with the stinking fog of fishy manipulation. It included: a primary in Virginia with ballot access so clumsily rigged that only one candidate made it through to face their favorite; results from other states that were skewed by misleading reports and/or blatant lies put out to create a false impression of their favorite's momentum; and a media blitz intended to foment a phony presumption of victory that would stampede the vote at a time when states that had, respectively, the largest blocks of delegates at stake had yet to go to the polls.

So the nominee of their presumption, the not-so-closet socialist Willard Mitt Romney, has become the GOP's "presumptive nominee." His record shows that in every relevant test for socialist tendencies he shows up with the same harmful characteristics as his opponent (sometimes more definitively so — as for example, the institution of socialist healthcare while he was Governor of Massachusetts, complete with government-mandated insurance purchases and government funded abortions). To be sure, Romney's socialism flopped onto the deck of the ship of State a bit earlier than Obama's. But spending more time at sea to camouflage his origins, he is now being delivered to the nation with the same rotten catches as his opponent.

Romney's presumptuous nomination constitutes the conclusive proof that the so-called two-party system is an electoral façade. It puts on a false show of consent to legitimize what is otherwise the self-selection process of an elitist leadership that has rejected the republican vision of America's founders. In this false show of consent, people get to "pick" a winner, but only in the sense that successful bettors do as they follow the horses at a race track. No matter what the majority decides, the outcome of the race isn't decided by their choice. Insofar as human will determines the outcome, the people who own, train, and ride the horses have the say, not the people who "back" the winner with their bets.

Pathetically, by accepting this kind of election, Americans end up picking "winners" who have in fact already been foreordained by the choice of others. By the time they get to the race track on any given election day, the available field has been set without their participation. Of course instead of trainers and riders, the owners prepare the candidates they have entered into the race with the help of media bobbleheads and political handlers, nourish them with generous bushels of money, and build their credibility with carefully timed and fabricated oddsmakers, otherwise billed as pollsters.

Viability is the concept that translates all this into pricks and goads intended to herd voters toward the betting windows (voting places). Media coverage and money are the chief components of viability. Since both are controlled by elements of the elite faction, this means that no one can be recognized as part of the field without their backing. Having thus determined the choices, the elitists have determined the choice, since no one they have not vetted will be perceived by voters as available to be chosen.

This way of rounding up people to participate in their political theatricals has worked especially well in the opening scenes of the partisan electoral show, the caucuses, and primaries. It has its counterpart, however, in the general election, since ballot access in many states is far easier for so-called "publicly recognized" candidates (i.e., those favored with attention from the elite-controlled media and money powers) than for others. The "publicly recognized" candidates can often avoid the petition drives and fees imposed on "ordinary" folks (however extraordinary they may be) who commit the offense of exercising their citizen rights without elitist approval.

This way of "disappearing" some candidates unacceptable to the elitist faction, while keeping others off the ballot altogether, produces elections that offer no more real choice than the electoral puppet shows engineered by the Communist Party in the Old Soviet Union. Voters become the passive consumers of political choices made to suit the dictates of the elite faction. Of course in politics, a choice of candidates dictated by elitist forces results in office-holders whose actions represent the priorities and interests of the forces that dictated the available choices, not the people who ostensibly voted one of them into office.

Thanks to this elitist dictation, American politics now involves elections in which the people get no real choice. But where there is no real choice, there is no real election. Where there is no real election, there is no true representation. And where there is no true representation, there is no consent of the governed. But according to America's founding principles, the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. So without true representation, there are no just powers of government.

In Federalist #51, James Madison rightly declares that justice is the end of government. In its preamble, the U.S. Constitution gives that aim almost the first priority, excepting only civil union. But civil union will always be threatened when unjust powers run rampant in the name of government, for then its name is invoked to defeat its purpose, which is to secure the unalienable rights which the justice of the Creator makes available to all.

It has been said that politics is war by other means. However limited the truth of that observation, there is no doubt that it is far preferable to secure justice without war, than to achieve it at such terrible cost. America's founders framed the constitutional government of the United States to respect that rational preference. But as long as the American people continue to allow a presumptuous elite to usurp the initiative that determines the choices available for their vote, the process of representation that made it possible to perpetuate their self-government will be undone. The just exercise of government power will be banished. The loss of union, liberty, and peace will be inevitable. In political terms, therefore, the American people face no greater or more urgent political challenge than to reclaim the initiative of choice on which the restoration of their true representation in their country's government depends, at every level.

[Check back soon for Part II: The means of action]

© Alan Keyes