Franklin would be very upset.

By Matthew Meiners

“I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

-Benjamin Franklin

We have a problem.

This nation, once a “great experiment” in Enlightenment ideals and values, has become, through a series of truly unfortunate events, and truly awful decisions, a cesspool of corruption, inequality, favoritism, and special access reminiscent of the old patronage systems of imperial Europe. The same imperial Europe from which our forbearers separated in a violent and hard fought war of independence.

Our government has abandoned its ideals and has embraced the very worst of all moral mistakes, the idea that good things can be achieved quicker through terrible acts and questionable shortcuts; that the greatness of our future can be hastened by using tools that may harm now, but pay off later.

The NSA domestic wiretapping program, the ill-conceived war in Iraq, and the indictments of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Lobbyist John Abramoff in separate corruption related cases, are just the most recent proof of the fall from grace of the United States of America. What is worse is that this sort of malfeasance has been the common practice of both major parties since time immemorial.

Remember, if you will, the decades long rule of the Democrats: a rule pocked by constant and pervasive unscrupulousness, double-dealing, and fraud, a rule whose noble ideals and great works have been permanently stained by the errors of great men who were incapable of restraining their desire for power, money, and expediency.

Remember the decade or so of recent Republican rule: a rule studded with public scandal, ethics violations, and federal investigations that have undermined a strong and popular reform movement meant to “clean up” government.

Remember the seemingly unending military adventurism undertaken by both Republican and Democratic governments: undeclared wars undertaken in Korea, Vietnam, Beirut, Granada, Panama, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and twice in Iraq, as well as numerous other engagements, most of which were dogged by credible claims that they were waged for reasons other than those offered to the sovereign citizenry. Remember the lives lost, the money lost, and the nearly universal disapproval heaped on our country by the civilized nations of the world.

These are terrible things, but the funny thing is that they were all done in what our leaders viewed as our best interest. The ends, so they believed, would justify the means, and history would vindicate and forgive them.

These acts speak of a nation that has lost its way and abandoned its principles. Ours was meant to be a nation of civic virtue and a beacon held out to the world, showing the way to great new possibilities. How, then, did we get here? How did the voting public allow these things to happen? Were we duped? Did we want things to turn out like this? Or are we just indifferent, apathetic, and stupid?

We are certainly all somewhat to blame for allowing these things to happen, and we are all the (perhaps unwitting) victims of human nature unchecked.

But the real problem, the real cause of our woes, lies not entirely with the awful creatures we call parties (bad as they are, corrupt as they are), nor with the military-industrial complex of which Ike tried to warn us, nor with the great bureaucratic civil service, nor, for that matter, with “we, the people,” but with a vice as old as human history: the thirst for, and addiction to power. It is this vice which enables and even rewards a system corruption. A system where money is king, and where campaigns to obtain and retain power are more important than the earnest exercise of that power for the common good. It is this system that is chiefly to blame, and it is this vice that the “founding fathers” attempted to blunt.

Their efforts, it would seem, have failed. We have truly lost our way.

The real kicker is that the founders, or at least Franklin believed all of this would happen, and built into our form of government a way to fix the problem, should it ever be necessary (and it is necessary... and now!).

The Constitution tells us that two thirds of the House and Senate may call for amendments to be approved by the states, and that two thirds of the state legislatures, should they desire, may call a new Constitutional Convention, the report of which would likewise need approval by the several states. So why not take advantage of the tools offered us?

As citizens, who in our country are supreme, we must seize the opportunities offered us by our Constitution to take back our government, to break the stranglehold in which the two corrupt parties hold all of our fates and futures, and to right the ship of state. We must use these tools to demand a government subject to close scrutiny, to demand a government of greater transparency, to demand honesty in public officials, and to demand a system that rewards doing things the right way, and eschews efficiency for efficiency’s sake (the doctrine of “ends-justify the means”).

If we do not do this, we will surely fulfill Franklin’s prophecy that this government can only end in despotism.

We are a great nation, a great empire. Let’s think of where all the other great empires have gone, then act to prevent their fate from being our own.