For the Founding Fathers government is an active player, oriented in principle to protecting the equal, sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.

In contrast, a so-called pragmatic government is not restricted by principle to a limited scope. It is oriented to bestow special privileges on special interests. It necessarily tramples the rights of the individual because it tends to ignore the personal interests of the common people.

Our government began as 'principled' and degenerated over time to 'pragmatic'.

There is an inevitable progression from 'principled' to 'pragmatic' and then from 'pragmatic' to corrupt government. As the governing elite becomes more powerful than the ballot box, unaccountable power leads to corruption.

Pelerin ends his article on a pessimistic note. He concludes that no return to the limited government of the Founders is presently possible without an economic collapse.

That a self-interested, corrupt elite would diminish the People is to be expected. But we need not be so pessimistic.

We must forcefully remind our self-appointed rulers their mastership is no more than a duty to be our servants. We are not responsible to them. They are responsible to us.

Article IV, Sec. 4 of the Constitution guarantees to every State a republican form of government. The word 'republic' derives from the latin res publica - "a thing of the people".³  By definition, republicanism is very much associated with popular governance.  For many years We the People have been losing our constitutional republic to an arrogant lot. It is time for us to take back our Constitution.

In the packet on page __ there are excerpts from the monograph The Tea Party Movement and Popular Constitutionalism.⁴  Popular constitutionalism has usually been identified with populist movements of the political left.

The Tea Party is unusual in one very important respect:  it is the first such popular movement in many years to focus its efforts primarily on limiting the power of the federal government.

The popular constitutionalism of the Tea party is the salvation of our republic.

Recently, President Obama gave a so-called populist speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. There, nearly hundred years before, Theodore Roosevelt laid out a similar progressive platform he called "the New Nationalism".⁵

It is ironic that, in his speech, Obama talks about preserving and expanding the middle class.⁶

His class-envy rhetoric threatens to impoverish the American people. He is leading the middle class down a 'road to serfdom'⁷.

What's going on here?

Obama is clearly seeking to co-opt the Tea Party as a popular movement on the right by appealing to the Occupy Wall Street crowd as a populist movement of the left.

He is using Alinsky rule # 11 : "If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside". Mr. Obama is twisting the bottom-up popularity of the Tea party movement into middle-class populist envy against the so-called "one percent".⁸

We must counter this Alinsky radicalism. While being innocent as doves, we must be shrewd as serpents.

In the packet a couple comments are appended to Pelerin's article. Let me close with one reader's reply to Pelerin's pessimism:

"If enough of us make the choice to become the kind of people worthy of the priceless legacy our ancestors left to us, we can protect and defend our beloved nation. On the other hand, if we cynically believe that "It's too late, nothing will work," and fail to take action, we will lose the America of our ancestors." ^P

We must not give into despair.

The popular constitutionalism of the Tea party is the hope and salvation of our American republic.

Thank You

-- Peter Cooper