You might remember reading or hearing that in 1776 when our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence not everyone here was happy about it. We glorify and glamorize the Patriots, those new Americans who took up arms against England and King George. But, there were people who remained loyal to the King. We called them Tories. It was not good to be called a Tory, not in those barely united states.
But Tories
were more in line with the rest of the world than were the Patriots. Before our Declaration of Independence, governments
fell into one of four general types: a
government that was ruled by a noble class and to be a ruler one must have been
born into that bloodline. Kings and
Queens ruled by birthright and the thought of opposing such autocracies was
rare and almost suicidal. The second
type of government was also autocratic and that was the military junta
type. In such governments, a strong-armed
man would gain control of the military and beat everyone else into submission. Again, it was not wise to challenge such
autocratic authority. Think of Napoleon
as an example. The third type was the
demagogues using demagoguery to convince the common people that there were
things to fear and things to be angry about, most of which were not true, but
these men would use anger and fear to gain control and rule as autocrats. Hitler was a great example of this type of
demagogue and the government he set up was autocratic. And finally, the theocracy form of government
wherein religious rulers ruled by reference to some sort of holy book and threatened
hellfire and damnation of the common people if they did not comply. Think Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Tories in
the Americas supported autocracies ruled by bloodlines and where the common man
would simply maintain his place in society, peasant, skilled craftsman, artisan,
or nobility. The American Tories did not
want to see anything as bold as a democracy.
And that
was the term that terrified autocracies around the world. Democracy was to be of the people, by the
people, for the people. Democracies
believed all men were created equal.
Democracies believed that all men had certain rights, given them at
birth, that could not be separated from their humanity. (I use the term “man” because it took us a
while to understand that rights applied to women and minorities as well.) Democracies believed people should vote for
their leaders. Democracies believed the
government existed with the consent of the people. Democracy was a brand new thing! And when our forefathers penned our
Declaration of Independence from the nobility of England a revolt not just in
government structure but in the philosophy of government was initiated:
We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government…
Had one studied Descartes, Hume, Espinosa, Plato, Aristotle, Newton,
Bacon, and most importantly John Locke one would know this was a real revolution. It displaced the powerful and wealthy by
giving everyone the right to rule their government. This was the opposite of an autocracy, it was
a democracy. It was the most liberal
form of government ever conceived. John
Locke, the English philosopher is called the father of liberalism for his
thinking. Our Founding Fathers read every
word of his and loved every word of his.
We are not a nation ruled by the nobility, nor a nation ruled by the
military, nor a nation ruled by a demagogue, not a nation ruled by a specific
type of religious leader. We are a
nation ruled by the people. A liberal,
secular democracy. Wow.
If you do not understand the above it is very difficult to understand
America.
In a
democracy citizens’ rights are protected, they are not dismissed. They surely are not dismissed for religious
reasons. In a democracy, citizens are
encouraged to vote. They surely are not
restricted or oppressed for voting. In a
democracy, no man is above the law.
Surely not the wealthy, not the pious, not the military, not
anyone. The law applies to all citizens. In a democracy, truth matters, and respect
for the law matters.
It occurs
to me as we approach the mid-term elections that the Republican Party has
become a group of Torries. They want
their religious perspective to become law at the expense of citizens’
rights. They only want certain people to
vote. If they do not like the outcome of
an election they declare fraud. They
monger fear of immigrants and others in our society. They foster anger along racial lines. They seek to improve the wealth of those at
the very top at the expense of everyone else.
They seek to put all the power in the hands of those at the very top of
the capitalist ladder, rather than have citizens govern and restrain unbridled
money-making. Yep, Republicans are the
Tories. They are conservative. They support a man who lost an election but
falsely declared the outcomes fraudulent.
They have celebrated religious beliefs becoming the law of the
land. They do not support the civil
rights of anyone other than their chosen group.
They even talk about a Constitutional Convention to rewrite our
constitution so that it aligns with autocracies, not democracies. They oppose supporting other nations fighting
for freedom and democracy. They oppose our
membership in organizations that defend democracy and hold autocracies at
bay. Quite frankly, I can in no way see
the signers of the Declaration of Independence supporting anything they stand
for. They are un-American.
Please
vote on November 8. Please vote for our
democracy. Be wise and careful: Be a Patriot.
The Tories are coming and they want to take our democracy away.
Perfect. It's what I want to tell non-voters, young and old, but I am far from eloquent.
ReplyDeleteBob, thank you for writing this. Democracy is too valuable to be left to the Tories/Republicans.
ReplyDelete