The question that has been bothering me the most on the heels of the new gun debate is the pro-gun constituent who insists his or her second amendment rights not be infringed to protect them from government tyranny. Simpler, they want to be able to fight it out against a tyrannical (federal) government should one arise. It is among their greatest fears, along with being able to protect their family from just an ordinary burglar or criminal.
So, when do we actually define our government as having become tyrannical? After all, we were set up as a republic. Our founding fathers chose a democratic form of government with checks and balances to keep the three executive branches of the Federal Government in line while placing the power of changing two of those branches (the legislative and the executive) in the hands of the voters. By changing the executive branch it follows the judiciary would also be changed in time as well. This makes it very hard for any party of government to fall in line under one would-be tyrant, or for one party to enact such legislation to the point where large groups of citizens would find their rights and their person diminished in the eyes of the law.
Or maybe the better question(s) are what are the trends of tyrannical governments rising to power?
In an Op-Ed piece appearing in Forbes Magazine on February 5, 2013, Historian Jim Powell wrote an article on how dictators come to power. He might have been writing this in regards to Barack Obama's overuse of executive orders, which circumvented the Congress and judiciary temporarily. The amount of gridlock in our democracy was pushing the president to try to achieve things sans any kind of quorum or agreement. This was a disturbing trend.
Naturally, one of his primary citations was the rise of Adolf Hitler in a democratic Germany back in the 1930's. World War I had left Germany decimated, but not stupid. University enrollment shot to all-time highs by 1931 according to Powell, and though there was anti-Semitic sentiment at times, it seemed very unlikely to gain a foothold. So, why then was Hitler given a platform?
From the article:
Why, then, did the highly educated Germans embrace a lunatic like Adolf Hitler? The short answer is that bad policies caused economic, military and political crises - chow time for tyrants. German circumstances changed for the worse, and when the people became angry enough or desperate enough, sometime they'll support crazies who would never attract a crowd in normal circumstances.
The executive order trend didn't begin with Barack Obama actually. Most of our war-time Presidents issued the largest number of executive orders and with good reason. We were at war. In the post Korean War era, the largest numbers of executive orders issued by a President starting after John F. Kennedy's inauguration is Ronald Reagan with 381, then Bill Clinton with 364 and Richard Nixon with 346. Perhaps it was the type of executive order Obama was giving or simply the era of social media casting more deliberate eyes on undesired actions by the populace, but Obama's number falls nearly dead center with 276. Probably more importantly, was the escalation of uncooperative rhetoric between the two parties causing government gridlock by Obama's second term.
Whatever the reason, the perception of Obama trying to become a king as opposed to a President was a favorite protest from the right. Eventually, by the end of Obama's term, though his number of E.O.'s were average, that perception certainly mobilized the GOP and the populist fringe of their party, and beyond all expected odds (admittedly by the left and the right) Donald Trump won the Presidency.
Since Trump's inauguration, he has issued 58 executive orders, putting him on pace to well exceed Obama in four years and to exceed most other Presidents who served eight-year terms in a time of relative peace.
Regardless, it is not the executive order we should fear. What we should be looking at is other disturbing trends that are on the rise across the country.
1) Party gridlock -- the two-party system is failing to address, and more importantly, achieve the will of the people. According to Nate Silver's 538 website, President Trump has a 40.4% overall approval rating, but when that poll is just adults, it dips just under 40%. Congress is even worse at 16%. The people are unhappy and angry.
2) The Executive Branch is in upheaval -- no matter what the President or his Press Secretary tell you, turnover with so many cabinet positions and advisers, including the most important one, the Secretary of State, puts the executive branch in a great unsettled state. Now there's talk Trump will remove H.R. McMaster as his National Security Adviser, the second turnover in that position in barely fourteen months. The government is unstable right now.
3) Normalization of hatred in the name of 'freedom.' -- I'll disclaim this by saying that everyone has a right to free speech, but free speech does have limitations. Your speech comes with a responsibility. You can't lambaste the CEO of your company publicly such that it damages the company then complain when you're fired. Hate speech will nearly always result in job termination if it publicly affects the brand of your employer. Groups who have gone further and acted on hate speech by committing atrocities are not so easily protected, which is why what happened this past week in Tennessee on the surface is incredibly disturbing. A democrat in Tennessee's state government proposed situating the law to view hate groups such as Neo-Nazis and Skinheads the same as we do terrorist groups. No second was given, and no vote was taken. It was not even considered. Think about that for a second.
4) Gaps of distrust between the government and its people -- No matter what legislation is brought up in Congress, we have a very divided populace armed to the teeth with guns. Though gun ownership households had declined to thirty-one percent (31%) by 2015, the amount of guns out there is over three hundred million. That means, even if you want to restrict gun ownership now and force not only background checks, but enact the kind of laws Israel has where you have to have so many hours of training to get your permit, and so many hours of education, etc., there are so many guns available to people that in order to get current unregistered owners to obey the law, you'd literally have to go door-to-door. That isn't likely to happen.
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| WARNING: Xi Jinping of China just removed term limits |
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| Trump said, maybe we'll do that sometime. |
Perhaps Snyder's most relevant point as it pertains to the fall of a democratic republic is the continuous attack on the institutions that have built that democracy and kept it safe in the first place. Not just the government itself, but the services (the FBI, the CIA, the police) and the intent to cast doubt and distrust, which further sows seeds of doubt and aid in an eventual capitulation.
Look around at what pundits are doing to Andrew McCabe, Robert Mueller, and anyone who dares investigate thoroughly possible misdeeds. Listen to those pundits, including one that threatened me and my children yesterday (I call him a pundit glibly - he's a fringe specimen on the far right to say the least) and you find exactly the sort of behavior that established Hitler firmly in power. And why shouldn't the pundits who favor our President act this way, after all they are only emulating their leader?
It's no secret right now that the fringes of this failing two-party system are manipulating the media with their outrageous rhetoric which become today's biggest headlines. The rest of us are sitting in the middle, wondering where we turn next to make sure America makes it to its 250th year and still resemble the country Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Hancock, Washington founded.
So, when does a government become tyrannical? Simple, when we, as the middle ground, allow what we see happening to continue. When we sit by and allow people with no sound logic or argument to disparage the institutions that you know in your heart are legitimate. It becomes tyrannical when we don't stand up for the idea that jailing political opponents is never a right thing to do UNLESS laws have been broken. It becomes tyranny when someone you disagree with is shouted down in a riotous manner, and you join in the mob mentality.
We need to share our voices. Make ourselves louder. Do not accept what is happening as normal -- it is not normal. These are the warning signs of the tyranny every paranoid gun owner cites when defending the reason they need their guns. It is the harbinger of a doomed state.
Our government isn't at tyranny's door just yet. However, it appears like it may not be long before it comes knocking.
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