Can We Get a "Democracy vs Republic" Memo Please?

Last week Ron Paul hosted the historic Rally for the Republic event in Minneapolis, MN where a reported 12,000 liberty loving, home schooling, pro-gold standard, pro-gun, pro-privacy, pro-property owner rights, pro-non-intervention, pro-constitutionalists gathered from all corners of the U.S. They flocked to what the mainstream press coined the "counter convention", in defiance of the GOP's atrocious disrespect for Dr. Ron Paul, during the presidential primaries. Despite garnering 1.2 million votes and breaking several fundraising records, the so called "conservative" party passed over Ron Paul for a speaking role at the GOP convention in St. Paul.

Families, college kids, teens, grandparents, blue and white collar workers, suits and hemp activists alike showed up to honor Ron Paul's exemplary stewardship amidst three decades of globalism and subservience. The majority of the proceedings were broadcast live by C-SPAN2.

The Rally for the Republic was billed as "Calling the GOP Back to its Roots." This calling included the launching of the Campaign for Liberty grassroots organization with a day of campaign training and a day of strategic visioning and dialog with over 600 attendees each day. Tuesday's Rally included MSNBC's Tucker Carlson as emcee, a rock/reggae/spiritual concert from Aimee Allen and a country music concert from Sarah Evans.

But most impressive was the slate of authors, legislators, governors, and former federal officials who came to honor Dr. Paul and help inspire the Campaign for Liberty movement to take over the GOP.

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform summed up things succinctly. He explained that those who have come to Ron Paul’s primary race and now the Campaign for Liberty have one thing in common. They all want one thing from the government – to be left alone. To be left alone to make a living, to educate their children, pass on their passion for freedom and enjoy the fruits of their own labor.

Norquist, who asks every legislator to sign an oath to not raise taxes, expounded on what he called the “Transparency Movement.” He cited that states such as Texas and Missouri were publishing on the web every check that the state writes. He proposed that if this cost free measure of transparency was adopted in more states, on school boards and in county and city governments, voters would be seeking candidates from the Campaign for Liberty to clean things up. This movement could “change the relationship of the people with the state,” Norquist stated.

Directory of links to videos of the speakers is here.

Suffice it to say, the enormous amount of positive energy, information, education and momentum these three days churned out will inspire hundreds, if not thousands, of principled informed leaders like Ron Paul, for generations to come.

Vanity Fair's Chris Bateman writes, "A goodly number of the Paul supporters I encountered at the concert on Monday night and the blowout on Tuesday told me with calm conviction—or slightly unsettling zeal—that it was just a matter of time until they sought office, if they weren’t running for Congress or state assembly already. And if most didn’t have the intellectual capacity of Bill Clinton or the charisma of Ronald Reagan, a few had genuine potential, and most, upon cursory inspection at least, seemed generally free of the conspiracy thinking and fringe lunacy that stalk the edges of Paul’s events."
Full story here.

Did we really expect to roll back over ninety years of the unconstitutional federal income tax over night?

This freedom movement embraced a big reality check at Ron Paul's Rally for the Republic.

The reality that this battle to win back America's sovereignty and rule of law will be longer than a single presidential election.

And the reality that while the source of needed solutions is simple, restoring a constitutional government requires more than one general in the revolution.

My only disappointment about the Rally was an inadvertent perpetuation of the myth that a democracy and republic are one in the same.

Had only all the speakers huddled with the John Birch Society's President John McManus, before giving their speeches. McManus was a speaker last Tuesday and one could recognize his voice as the voice over in the thirty minute documentary "Overview of America."

The primary thesis of that film, which was available for free in DVD form at the JBS booth, is the United States was ratified by the states explicitly as a republic, NOT a democracy. A democracy, or mob rules, system eventually leads to anarchy and back to a monarchy. History has proven it over and over.

In the film, McManus tells us that the term democracy does not appear in any of the founding documents, nor any of the state constitutions.

A republic maintains rule of law, rather than a rule of men.
Thus the Campaign for Liberty's "Rally for the Republic" moniker.
Thus calling the Republic -an party back to its roots theme.

Yet, speakers as academic as former deputy attorney general Bruce Fein and as athletic as former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura both referred to America as a democracy in their speeches.

It's an innocent mistake. Several generations have been slowly brainwashed to hold the ideal of "democracy" as sacred and requisite for our country to flourish.

Even Dr. Paul himself used the term "democracy" when referring to the hypocrisy of our foreign policy in the Middle East during a presidential debate. However, here he is accurate in his use -- "democracy" is what we claim we are selling to the Iraqi's when we invaded.

Now keep in mind these inconsistencies between using the term "democracy" at the Rally for the Republic is only further proof of the "hands off" approach Ron Paul takes to those around him. He may have had a hand in helping decide the roster of speakers but he didn't vet their speeches. This was not a hyper-controlled and scripted environment like the GOP show across the river.

This movement got this far with out a heavy hand of control and public manipulation.
And that's what scares the establishment to death.

I respectfully suggest that, in the future, the Campaign for Liberty make watching "Overview of America" documentary a requisite for any speaker at its events, to ensure consistency of terms and definitions for its audiences.

Bradley Harrington put it well in a guest editorial in the River Cities' Reader:
"Our Founding Fathers recognized the tremendous threat to man's liberty that government power represents, and sought to limit that threat through a detailed separation of powers - including the subordination of "democracy" to the supremacy of individual rights. That crucial limitation created the freest society ever to exist."

For that matter, if you want to cut to the quick as to where a local candidate for office stands -- or how much educating he or she may need -- ask them: "What's the difference between a democracy and a republic?"

How an aspiring steward of our communities answers is a great place to start.
Then ask them if they support habeus corpus... but that is for another posting.