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One of the most important lessons in life is straightforward: everything in moderation. If you eat too much, you’ll get fat. If you drink too much, you’ll lose your wits. If you play too much, no one will take you seriously. Temperance is a remarkably sound philosophy for living well.
Living with an eye toward moderation is about more than restraining from vice. Experience teaches that thoughtless excess undermines otherwise healthy activities. Reading books without taking the time to consider the meaning of their words can make a person educated but unwise. Almost everything in life is done best when done with earnest reflection and restraint.
You do not need to read through the correspondence of America’s Founding Fathers to appreciate their preference for moderate government. Philosophically, of course, they were the radicals of their age. They rejected the notion that an elite aristocracy should exercise power by divine right and fought a war for the revolutionary principle that “all men are created equal.” They defended liberty, property rights, and speech as essential elements of what it means to live. When it came time for them to design a government best equipped to protect these freedoms, however, moderation was the key!
The English Civil War of the previous century weighed heavily upon their minds. The fall of the Roman Republic two millennia earlier guided their thoughts, too. They understood the corrupting influences of power, but they also appreciated the carnage that corrupt governments wreak. Mercurial monarchs and political repression guarantee war and forestall peace.
The Founding Fathers’ spirit drove them to fight for freedom, but their temperance restrained their actions after achieving victory. It has been said that General George Washington could easily have made himself king, but he was a man of humility who sought to follow in the footsteps of Cincinnatus — the virtuous Roman statesman who relinquished power and returned to his farm. Similarly, had the Founding Fathers suffered from the same unchecked passions that seized Robespierre and the Jacobins during the French Revolution, America might have quickly ended in a Reign of Terror of its own. Instead, the Founders’ commitment to moderate forms of government nurtured civic peace.
Their first attempt at a national charter — the Articles of Confederation — was so moderate, in fact, that it did not last even ten years. So wary were the Founding Fathers of a strong central government and so concerned were they for the preservation of the states’ sovereign powers and Americans’ inherent rights that they required a second bite at the apple to get the U.S. Constitution right.
Even then, the whole document is an exercise in slicing and dicing government power into discrete parts. The Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches are coequal entities meant to keep one another in check. The Constitution restricts Congress’s authority to a short list of enumerated responsibilities, curtails the president’s unilateral decision-making power, and grants the Supreme Court limited jurisdiction over particularized controversies. The whole document screams, “These are the only things that the federal government is allowed to do. All other rights and powers belong to the individual states and their citizens.”
Then, just to make sure that future ethically challenged politicians didn’t get any immoderate thoughts of their own, the Founders stamped a Bill of Rights at the end that screams even more loudly, “Future federal government functionaries, you may never, ever do any of these things! Really, these rights are off-limits and cannot be infringed!” If only later government stewards had listened.
Just as moderation in life keeps us balanced, moderation in government keeps passions in check. Constitutional republics with robust democratic norms do not require a Deep State. If a citizen is not happy with something the government is doing, there are peaceful avenues for change. Contacting representatives, voting for new representatives, or running for office are simple ways to alter public policy without having to alter the form of government.
When government agents operate beyond the reach of citizens, however, they damage the essential mechanisms for self-government. When the only thing that matters is who is in charge, the contest for who controls the reins of government becomes a zero-sum game. Excessive power leads to immoderate behavior, and immoderate behavior threatens long-term civic peace. Government instability is the inevitable result.
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If the American Republic one day falls, its cause of death could be rightly pinned on a lack of civic moderation. Corporations posing as political parties divide Americans against each other while doing what’s most lucrative for a small cabal of financial elites. A detached and unelected government bureaucracy furthers its own insular interests while disregarding the wishes of the public it pretends to serve.
A private central bank manipulates markets, causes unnecessary inflation, and steals from everyone with meager savings. The Pentagon stations troops all over the country, as if it is more concerned with safeguarding the federal government from citizens than with protecting the country from foreign enemies. The Department of Homeland Security aids and abets foreign nationals in the commission of immigration crimes that cause widespread harm to American communities. Dozens of covert agencies spy on the American people without warrants or even the pretense of probable cause.
The Department of Justice and its sister agencies censor, intimidate, and incarcerate any American who objects to the government’s excessively unconstitutional behavior. This thing we call the federal government is the walking, talking embodiment of immodesty.
We all got a good look at its immodesty when the Supreme Court broke rank last month and ruled that President Trump has broad immunity from criminal prosecution. This small expression of dissent from an otherwise ideologically homogenous government blob produced paroxysms of Deep State rage. Justice Department praetorians quickly condemned the Court for recognizing the president as the person constitutionally vested with executive power.
Senator Chuck Schumer and other legislative flamethrowers immediately set to work on a strategy for neutering both presidential immunity and the Court’s recognition of it. So much for coequal branches of government, right? Corporate news media erupted in such fits of schizophrenic paranoia that top-dollar “journalists” claimed presidents could now murder citizens without paying any price. Strangely enough, none of these hyperventilating nitwits seemed to mind when Barack Obama was using drones to execute Americans without any concern for due process or civil rights. But that was King Barack, and different standards apply!
Although the headlines were all about Donald Trump, the Deep State’s fury was about something else. For over a century, administrative departments and agencies have enjoyed relatively unchecked power. Although they are either legislative creations or quasi-constitutional outgrowths of the Executive Branch, they operate remarkably independently. This arrangement makes a mockery of the Constitution’s checks and balances.
The DOJ’s power exists only to the extent that the president lends constitutionally vested authority to institutions under his control, but the DOJ’s argument to the Court has been that it alone decides what the president can and cannot legally do. In this way, the DOJ and similarly powerful departments have placed themselves above the Constitution’s three branches of government in a kind of bureaucratic coup d’état.
By holding that executive power resides in the president alone, the Court directly threatens the illegitimate powers of all those government officials who operate beyond the Constitution’s constraints. Combined with the Court’s complementary decision to strike down Chevron deference, which gave administrative agencies broad discretion over the implementation of bureaucratic rules and regulations these last four decades, it seems as if a majority of justices are weary of the federal government’s growing intemperance.
To no one’s surprise, the worst “extremists” all work near D.C. For any chance at future peace, Americans must force the government back into its constitutional cage. Without a little moderation, this Union cannot last.
Rep. Matt Gaetz: There Are Five Known Trump Assassination Teams in America
by The Gateway Pundit
President Trump’s life may be in greater danger than anyone, including himself, realizes according to a Florida congressman. As The Gateway Pundit reported, a second attempt was made on Trump’s life on Sunday, just two months after he came within a centimeter of being killed in Butler, Pennsylvania by a…
Is There a Mole Within the Secret Service?
by Townhall
There have been two attempted assassinations of former President Donald Trump, and both times, the suspects have known information only insiders would know about security. How could that be? Since Sunday’s attempted assassination of Trump, making it the second one in two months, several questions have still gone unanswered, such…
Diddy Reportedly Paid Off Home Mortgage Before Being Arrested
by The Dupree Report
New revelations emerged regarding Sean “Diddy” Combs’ opulent Miami estate during his recent bond hearing. In a dramatic turn of events in March, federal agents descended on the hip-hop titan’s luxurious abode on Star Island, uncovering what they allege were preparations for illicit gatherings known as “Freak Offs.” These events…
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Mike DeWine’s History Raises Concerns About Potential Conflict of Interest With Haitian Migrants
by Daily Caller
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has faced a series of conflicts of interests on key issues in his state, including with the ongoing Haitian migrant crisis affecting Springfield. DeWine recently pledged support to Springfield to assist with the influx in Haitian migrants, according to Spectrum News. Over a period of…
The Coincidences Continue: New Details About Would-be Assassin Ryan Routh’s Wife
by American Greatness
As details continue to emerge about the man accused of attempting to shoot former president Donald Trump, one of the more curious developments involves Ryan Routh’s wife Kathleen Shaffer and her work. During questioning yesterday by Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Homeland Security Investigations Executive Associate Director Chief Katrina W. Berger…
We Can Stop the Democrats From Rigging & Stealing This Election. Now. Today. Here’s How.
by Wayne Allyn Root
I have the solution to what’s coming on November 5th. But President Trump needs to act fast. He must make this high-profile, controversial, headline-grabbing, announcement TODAY! Trump is winning an electoral landslide. We all know that. In every credible and historically accurate poll, Trump is leading in the popular vote…
Congressional Probe Into Democrat Fundraising Platform, ActBlue, Finds Potential “Criminal Activity”
by Darlene McCormick Sanchez, The Epoch Times
(The Epoch Times)—A congressional investigation analyzing more than 200 million political contributions found potential “criminal activity” and referred the information to five state attorneys general for further review. The review involved donation reports from ActBlue, an online Democratic fundraising platform, to the Federal Election Commission, according to Rep. Bryan Steil…
Man Screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ Stabs One to Death, Gravely Injures Another in the Netherlands
by Human Events
Witnesses said that the suspect began attacking people at random while shouting the Arab phrase meaning “God is great,” commonly used by Muslims. One person is dead and another is gravely wounded after a man screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ and carrying two knives went on a stabbing spree late Thursday in…
Jeremiah 18:8, “If that Nation Against Which I Have Spoken Turns from Its Evil, I will Relent of the Disaster that I Planned to Bring on It”
by The Gateway Pundit
As the US Congress is debating the Continuing Resolution (CR) that authorizes the national budget, most are concerned about the government shut-down that will occur if the CR is not passed. “Woe!” is being sounded by various Congressional members announcing the calamitous ruin that will fall upon our nation if…
One GOP Lawmaker Says It Doesn’t Feel ‘Safe’ to Work in Politics
by Townhall
Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said in an interview this week that it does not feel safe to work in politics and that she’s been the target of threats. Luna made the remarks in an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation. “The rhetoric that continues to be pushed…when you…
Bill Gates Launches New Netflix Series That Lays Out Mass Suicide Plan for Global Human Depopulation
by Ethan Huff, Natural News
(Natural News)—Scheduled for a Netflix launch on September 18 is a new docu-series from billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates that pushes the notion that “we have to give up hydrocarbons almost entirely,” among other anti-human ideas. Because the climate is currently not to the liking of Gates and his acolytes, major changes…