Alan Keyes
A portent of tyranny: Trump's ill-tempered tantrum
Donald has no use for 'constitutional self-discipline'
By Alan Keyes
Donald Trump's ill-tempered non-participation in the Fox News debate confirms the contrived character of everything going on in the GOP's sham primary process. People with their heads hopelessly stuck in the GOP sandbox can be counted on to take this farce at face value. But people less mentally enslaved should start pondering a simple question: How does this self-involved elitist spectacle serve the voters in Iowa or the common good of the people of the United States?
Donald Trump's opinion of Megyn Kelly's fairness is irrelevant to those questions – but whether the action he has taken on account of it serves the best interests of his country is highly relevant. He recently boasted that his showing in polls is so great he could get away with murdering someone in broad daylight. In the same vein, he now acts as if the pollsters empower him to dictate or else destroy the process by which the people directly implement their sovereignty. So what will he do to the Constitution if they are foolish enough to trust him with its chief executive power?
Well, he has already repeatedly indicated his intention, if elected, to ignore constitutional constraints just as Barack Obama already has. People mesmerized by what they mistake for a forceful personality may be impressed with his shrewdly calculated display of temper. But elections are supposed to be part of the constitutional processes that keep the exercise of government power within the limits of respect for right and justice, including in particular the retained rights of the people, and the residual sovereignty of the states, respectively, and the people. This constitutional self-discipline is the key to the survival of our liberty.
It requires that all government officials, including especially the president of the United States, have the strength of character to accept that discipline. They must put the interest of the people as a whole above their own whims, especially when discharging their duty to the sovereign body of the people. But Donald Trump's behavior makes it clear that he has no use for such self-discipline. His temper tantrum exploits voters for his own advantage, without regard for the voters' responsibility as members of the sovereign body of the people.
He acts as if the political process exists to exalt his prospects and ambitions, rather than serve the information and deliberation of the voters. He treats voters like props in a stage show where he is the all-important star. This could simply be ascribed to a self-obsessed personality unfit for public service, but his arrogant attitude is more likely an effect of the elitist culture in which he was raised and has spent his life.
That culture has more and more openly returned to the mentality of mankind's benighted past. The oligarchs of old regarded the "common" people as artifacts of their convenience, whose status entirely derived from proximity and service to their "betters." Outwardly, elitist-faction public figures these days pay lip-service to the public's good, but they have long since forgotten that the word "public" refers to anything but public display. They have severed the word from its root meaning, which pertains to the property of the people, beginning especially with their unalienable rights.
This is the same root that haunts the meaning of the word republic. It refers to the people's belongings, the properties they own and cannot surrender, derived from no source but the Creator, God, and which no claims of eminent domain can take away. But the present renaissance of self-idolizing oligarchic rule shuns any implication that self-government is among those belongings. For all his crudely chauvinistic blather, purportedly in the service of the sovereignty of the American people, nothing about Trump's life or disposition suggests any real regard for their sovereign authority as arbiters of the government's activities and institutions.
In this respect, his disregard for the best interests of the voters of Iowa is entirely in character. Some people think that his abuse of his present popularity shows what a strong leader he will be. In fact, it proves his knee-jerk determination to play the dictator; to pretend that popularity is a mandate to do whatever pleases the present appetite of the people who back him, without regard for the principles and provisions that uphold the whole people's sovereign power of election in the first place.
This leads to government by the tyranny of the majority; the dictatorship of the Volk or proletariat; the irresistible mandate of the vanguard party. It seems at first to favor the people, but in effect it panders to their power for a moment – to destroy their authority forever. For once constitutional constraints are discarded in the name of the power the majority derives from the Constitution, constitutional authority, thus self-annulled and disrespected, no longer functions. The competition predicated upon the power of the people is openly replaced by contests of powers such as money, military prowess, or technological superiority.
The terrorism which, at the moment, the elitists still pretend to fight, will thereby be reinstalled as the de facto premise of government. Things will return to the reality that prevailed throughout the history of the world, before the success of the United States proved that people could do better. Elitists will rule: terrorizing the flesh with arms and the spirit with false, manipulative lies, doubtless made more potent and inescapable by the products of perverted science and technology.
People more and more realize what I have been saying for years: In this era, Americans are deciding the fate of rightful liberty, just as the first generation of Americans did when the Constitution was framed and adopted. Tragically, the whole point of the elitist faction's sham political process is to distract American voters from the momentous nature of what they are deciding. That staged farce focuses on the interplay of personalities. It encourages people to be emotionally preoccupied with candidates' personal traits and sagas, without thinking through the implications of that preoccupation for the ongoing and decisive crisis in the saga of America's liberty.
This has turned politics into a free fire zone for cynical demagoguery, a contest intended to reveal and empower the most likely destroyer of our constitutional liberty. Enormous wealth, voracious ambition, and the temperament of ruthless power are its defining parameters. When Donald Trump abuses his popularity with the pollsters to destroy even the semblance of open debate, he serves the elitist faction's ultimate intention, which is to turn elections from the thoughtful path of deliberation onto the mindless path of manipulation.
By that course, the people go from deliberately choosing those who will represent them in the exercise of rightful liberty, to being the manipulated rubber stamp of some elitist faction figurehead, loyally committed to liberty's destruction. For a time, his name has been Barack Obama. Will it soon be Donald Trump?
February 1, 2016
Donald Trump's ill-tempered non-participation in the Fox News debate confirms the contrived character of everything going on in the GOP's sham primary process. People with their heads hopelessly stuck in the GOP sandbox can be counted on to take this farce at face value. But people less mentally enslaved should start pondering a simple question: How does this self-involved elitist spectacle serve the voters in Iowa or the common good of the people of the United States?
Donald Trump's opinion of Megyn Kelly's fairness is irrelevant to those questions – but whether the action he has taken on account of it serves the best interests of his country is highly relevant. He recently boasted that his showing in polls is so great he could get away with murdering someone in broad daylight. In the same vein, he now acts as if the pollsters empower him to dictate or else destroy the process by which the people directly implement their sovereignty. So what will he do to the Constitution if they are foolish enough to trust him with its chief executive power?
Well, he has already repeatedly indicated his intention, if elected, to ignore constitutional constraints just as Barack Obama already has. People mesmerized by what they mistake for a forceful personality may be impressed with his shrewdly calculated display of temper. But elections are supposed to be part of the constitutional processes that keep the exercise of government power within the limits of respect for right and justice, including in particular the retained rights of the people, and the residual sovereignty of the states, respectively, and the people. This constitutional self-discipline is the key to the survival of our liberty.
It requires that all government officials, including especially the president of the United States, have the strength of character to accept that discipline. They must put the interest of the people as a whole above their own whims, especially when discharging their duty to the sovereign body of the people. But Donald Trump's behavior makes it clear that he has no use for such self-discipline. His temper tantrum exploits voters for his own advantage, without regard for the voters' responsibility as members of the sovereign body of the people.
He acts as if the political process exists to exalt his prospects and ambitions, rather than serve the information and deliberation of the voters. He treats voters like props in a stage show where he is the all-important star. This could simply be ascribed to a self-obsessed personality unfit for public service, but his arrogant attitude is more likely an effect of the elitist culture in which he was raised and has spent his life.
That culture has more and more openly returned to the mentality of mankind's benighted past. The oligarchs of old regarded the "common" people as artifacts of their convenience, whose status entirely derived from proximity and service to their "betters." Outwardly, elitist-faction public figures these days pay lip-service to the public's good, but they have long since forgotten that the word "public" refers to anything but public display. They have severed the word from its root meaning, which pertains to the property of the people, beginning especially with their unalienable rights.
This is the same root that haunts the meaning of the word republic. It refers to the people's belongings, the properties they own and cannot surrender, derived from no source but the Creator, God, and which no claims of eminent domain can take away. But the present renaissance of self-idolizing oligarchic rule shuns any implication that self-government is among those belongings. For all his crudely chauvinistic blather, purportedly in the service of the sovereignty of the American people, nothing about Trump's life or disposition suggests any real regard for their sovereign authority as arbiters of the government's activities and institutions.
In this respect, his disregard for the best interests of the voters of Iowa is entirely in character. Some people think that his abuse of his present popularity shows what a strong leader he will be. In fact, it proves his knee-jerk determination to play the dictator; to pretend that popularity is a mandate to do whatever pleases the present appetite of the people who back him, without regard for the principles and provisions that uphold the whole people's sovereign power of election in the first place.
This leads to government by the tyranny of the majority; the dictatorship of the Volk or proletariat; the irresistible mandate of the vanguard party. It seems at first to favor the people, but in effect it panders to their power for a moment – to destroy their authority forever. For once constitutional constraints are discarded in the name of the power the majority derives from the Constitution, constitutional authority, thus self-annulled and disrespected, no longer functions. The competition predicated upon the power of the people is openly replaced by contests of powers such as money, military prowess, or technological superiority.
The terrorism which, at the moment, the elitists still pretend to fight, will thereby be reinstalled as the de facto premise of government. Things will return to the reality that prevailed throughout the history of the world, before the success of the United States proved that people could do better. Elitists will rule: terrorizing the flesh with arms and the spirit with false, manipulative lies, doubtless made more potent and inescapable by the products of perverted science and technology.
People more and more realize what I have been saying for years: In this era, Americans are deciding the fate of rightful liberty, just as the first generation of Americans did when the Constitution was framed and adopted. Tragically, the whole point of the elitist faction's sham political process is to distract American voters from the momentous nature of what they are deciding. That staged farce focuses on the interplay of personalities. It encourages people to be emotionally preoccupied with candidates' personal traits and sagas, without thinking through the implications of that preoccupation for the ongoing and decisive crisis in the saga of America's liberty.
This has turned politics into a free fire zone for cynical demagoguery, a contest intended to reveal and empower the most likely destroyer of our constitutional liberty. Enormous wealth, voracious ambition, and the temperament of ruthless power are its defining parameters. When Donald Trump abuses his popularity with the pollsters to destroy even the semblance of open debate, he serves the elitist faction's ultimate intention, which is to turn elections from the thoughtful path of deliberation onto the mindless path of manipulation.
By that course, the people go from deliberately choosing those who will represent them in the exercise of rightful liberty, to being the manipulated rubber stamp of some elitist faction figurehead, loyally committed to liberty's destruction. For a time, his name has been Barack Obama. Will it soon be Donald Trump?
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
