America is Not a Country, It's a Business

A government which functions on the basis of Democracy means that ordinary people are involved in decision making as opposed to decisions made by fiat by the elite. This broad inclusion of participation should be the only requisite for open debate and discussion. The expressed opinion of ordinary people does count. Yes, there are certainly dangers of taking action based on the latest opinion poll! But the danger of rule by the effete is just as great if not a greater danger. It was alleged from the beginning that a republican form of government would deliver the result of "government by the People", thus eliminating the dictatorial nature of a tyrannical government. But after an experiment in government of more than 200 years, is democratic republican government what we now have? No it is not. The experiment has failed by evolution toward the side of tyranny. One of the most influential Founding Fathers was Alexander Hamilton and in his commentary on the new Constitution presented in The Federalist No. 11, there may be revealed one of the major reasons for the disastrous erosion of the power and influence of the common people on the government which in modern times rules their lives. Hamilton was in a position as the first Secretary of the Treasure to put his ideas of economics into reality and in so doing to precurse the history of the United States. The perfect example of this is the issue of slavery. During the formation and deliberation of the Declaration of Independence some members of the Continental Congress were against allowing slavery to continue and others were for it. The issue was put off; slavery was continued based on economic reasons. The moral issue of slavery was postponed until The American Civil War based on economics. Economics and industry has always been the strong suit for the United States. What a massive commercial, industrial, and economic juggernaut we became. The question is "has this strong suit of capitalism become the weak suit for the original inalienable rights we tried to establish in the course of human history? We have granted the balance of power to economics and commerce over human rights! The Founding Fathers, gentry that they were, were somewhat fearful of pure democracy. Using the term populists, or populism, they considered such democracy unstable and conducive to insurrection,they anticipated a deadlocked government disabled by extreme passions. Observing the events of the French Revolution would lend some credence to these views. The French Revolution ushered in a temporary tyranny of the new French Citizen and executed so many without the benefit of due process. Shying away from pure democracy they chose the republican form. In a similar way the evolution of the republican form under the guidance of American business interests has stolen the power of the populace and and awarded that power to American business, commerce, and industry. The scales are tipped. The People are at a loss. The power of voting for representatives has been relinquished into the hands of those who have the money to buy it. With the last line of the movie, "Killing Them Softly", Brad Pitt says, "America is not a Country, it's a business".