In addition to be a novelist who managed to give form to the American identity in his tales, James Fenimore Cooper also had a keen insight into America’s social and political culture. His writings on politics, culture, society, and government also magnificently captured the early American ideals of liberty, humanity, and freedom, preserving the wisdom and insight into these concepts that so many of us so desperately need today, but have lost. Drawing from his work, “The American Democrat,” I explore Cooper’s insights into subjects such as social equality, liberty, the basis of good government, the limits of political power, and more. If more people understood these truths then the world would be a freer, safer, more prosperous place for all.
Tag: The U.S. Constitution
President Oaks Taught The Principles of Anarchy at General Conference
This past weekend was General Conference and President Dallin H. Oaks delivered an address where he outlined five inspired principles of government which he taught are what make the U.S. Constitution an inspired document and why Latter-day Saints should feel some special loyalty to the document. Outside of the typical American culturalism in his talk, what really astounded me was that the five principles he outlined are not unique to the U.S. Constitution. They’re not even fully realized in the Constitution because of how the violence of statism limits or altogether prevents these inspired principles from operating to their fullest. But they do in consensual, non-statist government systems such as those found in libertarianism, anarchism, and voluntaryism. In this article I explore each principle individually, demonstrate how they are hobbled in the U.S Constitution, and how they are actually principles of consensual governments like anarchy, libertarianism, and voluntaryism because those forms of government allow these divine principles to operate at their highest and holiest potentials. In teaching these divine principles as the basis for righteous governments, President Oaks has inadvertently made the strongest argument for the rejection of the U.S. Constitution and the embracing of anarchy I have heard from any General Authority.
Is The Slide Into Autocracy Inevitable?
The State has been tried in every form imaginable – monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, republicanism, constitutional monarchy, Socialism, minarchism, democracy, etc. In every instance it has failed. In every instance it has delivered the exact opposite of what it has promised. In every instance the dream of the State has proved to be a nightmare. So why on Earth do we keep trying it? That is a question I have puzzled over for some time now because I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it. But, I’ve finally found an answer. I have found the answer to not only why we keep reverting again and again to the State in all its different forms, but I’ve also found the answer to the question of why democracy always slides in to autocracy – one man authoritarian rule. Additionally, I have discovered exactly why minarchy – such as under the U.S. Constitution as it was originally written and interpreted – also always fails and descends first into populism and finally into oligarchy or dictatorship. In short, I have found the explanation of why voluntaryism and anarchism are the only ways in which to build a functional society which allows for any form of social governance without descending either into authoritarianism and autocracy on the one hand or chaos and self-destruction on the other. And I have found these answers from an unlikely source – the writings of Dr. Carl Jung.
Why I Am A Radical (And Why You Should Be, Too!)
I am often asked why I feel that I have to be so radical in my positions. Cannot I not moderate my views and make compromises in order to win immediate political victories? The answer is a resounding, “NO!” And this article is the reason why. It is an explanation of why compromising, often presented as some virtue, is in fact an evil that has wrought nothing but misery for millions of people and why I am a radical who refuses to abandon the morality and truths that I know and why you shouldn’t either. This is why we should all be radicals and why being a radical is the only way to make the world a better place.