American democracy teeters on the brink of collapse
According to many historians,the average life expectancy of democracies is around 200 years. Noted Scottish historian Lord Alexander Tytler explains in his writings how after two centuries, nations collapse into dictatorship. He identifies “Eight Stages of a Democracy” from beginning to end. The eight stages are:
1. Bondage to spiritual faith.
2. Spiritual faith to great courage.
3. Courage to liberty.
4. Liberty to abundance.
5. Abundance to complacency.
6. Complacency to apathy.
7. Apathy to dependency.
8. Dependency back to bondage.
The U.S. is close to 250 years old and signs of apathy are everywhere. Most people pay little attention to what our government is doing and dependency on our government for food and income is high. The COVID-19 pandemic really amplified this situation. Businesses are finding it nearly impossible to hire workers even though there are an estimated 13 million unemployed people in our country.
Apathy has allowed small groups in our country to gain great power in our government and, in some cases, do great harm. The environmental movement is an example of good intentions gone wrong. It started out doing things that needed to be done and morphed into a radical organization bent on forcing its theology down our throats. We can look at California to see where their policies are leading us: massive forest fires because of no forest management, electrical blackouts, turn down your air-conditioning and don’t charge your electric car that we forced you to buy and in the winter, it will be turn down your heat.
Where is environmentalist concern for the strip mining and child labor in Third World countries that is used to produce the “rare earth” metals that we must have to operate solar panels, windmills and the batteries in your electric car? We presently import almost $200 million worth of these metals; 80% of them come from China. What about the great environmental problems that will come with the billions of batteries going into landfills? California has a shortage of electricity and experts are predicting the same for the Northwest. Why are we even talking about breaching the four lower Snake River dams? Shouldn’t we pay attention to Germany and the other countries where extreme environmental policies have completely failed?
Our federal government has gotten so big and out of control that many people believe that we are now living in a post-constitutional America. The Democratic Party has weaponized the power of the federal government. We have seen a dramatic increase in their use of the FBI, Department of Justice and the judicial system to go after political opponents. Now, according to a 2017 Government Accountability Office report, our Internal Revenue Service has at least 5,000 weapons and 5 million rounds of ammunition. Their job posts state that applicants must be willing to carry firearms and use deadly force if necessary. IRS agents are supposed to be accountants, not law enforcement officers. They are hiring 87,000 new agents.
President Joe Biden has named MAGA Republicans as enemies of the state that must be destroyed. He is attacking me and 74 million other Americans who voted for former President Donald Trump for our political beliefs. Trump has been the target of the largest witch hunt in American history and now they are coming after us, his supporters.
Trump has never been convicted of anything.
Hillary Clinton illegally kept top secret documents on an unsecured private server at her New York home. When the servers existence was exposed, she purposely deleted more than 32,000 emails. All the computers were wiped clean and all cellphones were smashed with hammers.
Hostile foreign powers probably hacked her system. Hillary Clinton was never investigated or charged with a crime.
Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith purposely altered an email enabling the FBI to obtain warrants to spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. His actions triggered the whole Russia hoax that put our country through years of political hell.
Clinesmith later pleaded guilty to altering the document and was given one-year probation. He resigned from the FBI but didn’t even lose his license to practice law.
Former FBI Director James Comey purposely leaked classified information initiating the Russia collusion investigation against Trump. He was never prosecuted.
The Steele (Trump-Russia) dossier that was used to attack Trump was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier was not properly investigated and has since been totally discredited. But judges and the FBI used it to justify spying on our president.
Several days before the Jan. 6, 2021, protest in Washington, D.C. Trump authorized the deployment of 20,000 National Guard members to help control the expected crowd. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol police refused the help.
If Trump was planning an insurrection, he wouldn’t have done this.
There were a significant number of suspicious actors in the Jan. 6 event who instigated violence that were never identified or arrested. Was this a setup? Go to www.theepochtimes.com, “The Real Story of January 6,” and make up your own mind.
The raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was just another fishing expedition in search of a crime.
Charges of illegal possession of classified documents will never hold up in court. The U.S. Supreme Court in its 1988 decision on the Department of Navy v. Egan determined that the president’s power over declassification comes from his executive authority granted by Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. According to the ruling, the president has the full right to declassify documents with no restrictions, except for strategic nuclear information.
The Democratic Party is terrified of Trump. If elected, he will expose their corruption, so they are doing everything in their power to destroy him. A justice system used for political purposes is a hallmark of failed government. How much longer can our democracy survive?
Dugger retired as a journeyman carpenter from Clearwater Paper. He lives in Lewiston.
