Slow Operations

By Groff Schroeder

Late in the age of enlightenment, brave and brilliant citizens of the “new world” created a constitutional democratic republic called the United States of America. While waging a difficult “Revolutionary War” between 1775 and 1783, America's founders adopted three documents, a “Declaration of Independence” (July 4, 1776), a Constitution (September 17, 1787), and a Bill of Rights (August 21, 1789). Together with a series of elegant symbols such as E Pluribus Unum (the motto “from many one”), these documents founded a “federalist” nation, a democratic republic whose government is the functional aspect – the working reality – of the United States of America.

This new national government, which Abraham Lincoln would call “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” at Gettysburg in 1863, implemented important, radical, and historic new ideas, granting the people not only democratic rights (political power), but also equal civil rights (right to free speech and free assembly) and human rights (right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness).

Despite the incalculable value of these rights, and even as American soldiers sacrifice life and limb defending them, many churches, corporations, individuals, and organizations strongly oppose paying taxes to support them. Furthermore, despite the founders' documented attempts to prevent concentrations of wealth and power, Thomas Jefferson correctly observed in the Diffusion of Knowledge Bill of 1779 that "even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

The Corrupt Foreign Practices Act makes it illegal for American companies to provide foreign officials with anything of value to influence any act of that official, yet corporate “slow operations” led to the Supreme Court's decision equating “campaign donations” (which are neither free nor speech) with free speech. Similarly, apparent politico-legal trickery led to the recent “Citizen's United” decision.

Such “deregulation” (making illegal things legal) means any corporation, organization, individual – even foreign governments - may now secretly provide officials of the United States government with almost any/every thing of virtually value imaginable to influence virtually any/every act imaginable by the official. These decisions appear to thwart the intentions of America's Founders, granting those with vast wealth virtually unlimited power to influence not only American elections, but also the votes of representatives once they take office.

Meanwhile, churches and religious organizations such as the “Moral Majority” and the self-described “Christian Mafia” (no kidding) have also gained vast political power, apparently through inter-generational pulpit politics. Even as they sometimes oppose compliance with public policy mandates, religious organizations increasingly insist that their “freedoms” override the civil and human rights of actual human beings. The “Fortnight of Freedom” project advances the Catholic Church's (Rome, Italy) “religious freedom” to use health insurance policy to force its American employees comply with its religious teachings.

On the Fourth of July, many will celebrate Independence Day and the principles of American freedom with libations, food, and fireworks. At least some Americans will wonder how long We the (little) People will be able to exercise our democratic, civil, and human rights, which increasingly appear to belong to mega-churches, multinational corporations, and individuals with enough money to purchase them outright on America's “free” market of political power.