The Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes in "Leviathan, The Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil" wrote that chaos could only be averted by a strong central government, a concept firmly rejected by our founding fathers. Today, with little more than a murmur from the people, we cede to (or have taken by) the federal government all those powers reserved to the states and people respectively.

The beast that our federal government has become grows and grows, feeds on the people, and grows some more. It is, by all definitions a Leviathan, a great beast run amok and devouring everything in sight from banks to car companies, by taxation, corporate takeovers, and by eminent domain.

Today, our two party system has become in essence a one-party system, with the parties distinguished not so much by ideology, but by degree. There is little difference between a big government Democrat and a big government Republican. The balance and separation of powers has been subverted, not to any particular ideology, but to incumbency. The primacy of action in both parties and branches is to remain in office, no longer are decisions made and actions taken based upon an adherence to ideology, but an adherence to the polls and the bid for reelection. Every decision made is weighed and balanced not on the scales of principle but populism.

We have traded individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise for the rickety crutch of big government and socialist support programs, not only for ourselves but for our corporate enterprises. We abrogate our personal responsibility, trading our freedom for the perceived safety of a government check, putting self-interest ahead of our common interest.

Where Thomas Hobbes denied the right of rebellion, our founding fathers embraced it, before, during, and after the revolution. From the Declaration of Independence which stated "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government." To the documents that followed it such as the New Hampshire Constitution which states " Whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government."

The means of rebellion in a democracy is by the vote of the people, yet in a two-party system, when the parties become as one, there is no choice, only a matter of degree. I am now, and have always been a Republican, coming of voting age during the Reagan era I have embraced the principles of individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise. Dissatisfied with the present state of our party I have toyed with others, the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, yet have come to the firm conclusion that viable change can not come from without, it must come from within. Now is the time to retake our party, to return to our roots, now is the time to tame the leviathan.

As America drifts down the path of socialism, we must come together in principle. We must set aside our differences and work together towards a common goal, a common platform and become an actual alternative choice to the American people, not more of the same. We have betrayed our principles, offering the American public nothing more than Democrat Lite in an attempt to compete, not on our terms, but on theirs. Just as one can not be a little bit pregnant, one can not be a little bit socialist. The Republican Party must become, absolutely and distinctly, the Other party.

We must reposition ourselves, we must define ourselves not by populist issues but by basic principle, we must become the alternative to the Democratic Party for Constitutionalists, Libertarians, and even moderate Democrats. We must stop allowing the Democrats to define us simply in opposition to their latest populist platform talking point and must start defining ourselves by the basic core competencies of our principles. We must form new alliances in a back-to-basics platform of individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise.