Good morning Hal, Thank you for your support of the COS Project, and for sending us this article. Allow me to explain why were excited to have progressives on board. This email is a little long and involved because I need to explain some of the background to the terminology at play here. I want to make sure you have the whole story so you understand what were doing. First off, the Convention of States Project is unaffiliated. We dont help any other organizations or lend our support to them. That includes the BBA, CFA, and Wolf-Pac folks. It absolutely includes political parties. However, were glad to receive support from anyone. Heres why: the United States of America, a democratic republic, is founded on the notion that liberty is best preserved by a variety of ideologies working together to analyze and discuss problems in government and provide the best response. In fact, the founders were very afraid that factions would dominate and overwhelm the political system. That fear stems from the recognition that any form of democracy, including a democratic republic, requires a balance of ideas. Even if one political party or politician was completely well meaning in holding to a well meant ideology, that person or party would at best have blind spots and at worst be completely wrong about the correct response to a given solution. Having a blend of ideologies counteracts this, and this is the sort of thing we hope to see at a Convention of States: the brightest and best American patriots from all states and many backgrounds and ideologies, selected to represent the people in the great democratic republican tradition and craft the best response to current blights affecting government and liberty. We do not want any one party to dominate this, since that will dangerously weaken the process and the results. At this point I need to make a long aside. The article throws around terms like democratic and republican, using them to mean different things at different times, and it is confusing. So lets clarify. First, lets address what small-d democratic means. A democratic nation is one where the people govern themselves. Pure democracy sees all the people making all the decisions. In a (very) small nation-state, this could be an ideal format; unfortunately, on any sort of medium to large scale, having all the people making all the laws quickly becomes impractical. Thats where small-r republic comes in. A republic is sort of a generic term for a nation that is not ruled by a king, but by some other body of leaders. Thus, a republican nation is a nation ruled by some non-specific body of rulers. In modern times, the term republic is starting to become erroneously interchangeable with the concept of a democratic republic, which is a modified form of democracy that uses a body of democratically elected leaders to represent the will of the individual citizens. In the USA, we have a democratic republic. We elect leaders to make the laws; we dont decide on all the laws ourselves, and, at least in theory, the leaders are obligated to obey the will of the people. This means that even though we still do have rulers, the people of the US are truly the government. The leaders are merely the representatives, democratically elected, of the people. In other words, lowercase republican and democratic are just pure, technical adjectives for types of government. Theres not really a right or wrong connotation to either term; we just have a democratic republic because it is an efficient way to allow the people to govern themselves. That brings us to the political parties. For clarity, a convention has arisen that when speaking of the party or party affiliation, it is proper to capitalize the terms. Thus, a Republican is not necessarily someone who doesnt want a king, but merely someone who happens to align with the Republican party platform. In the same way, a Democrat is not necessarily someone who embraces the ideal of all the people individually making all the laws, but is merely someone who aligns with the Democrat party platform. Its worth noting that these party names are not inherently in conflict. The parties took the names from forms of government, but even in their infancy, the Republican and Democrat parties certainly werent more aligned with one or the other. Both parties equally embraced the US democratic republic. In the many years since these parties were formed, the ideologies represented by each party have shifted, and by now the names are nothing more than a well known identifier for specific political ideologies. In the modern day, the names of the political parties mean absolutely nothing for the ideologies represented by the party platforms. Thats why it is important not to confuse the technical and academic terms describing forms of government (democratic and republican) with the more or less meaningless names for the political parties (Republican and Democratic). Just because someone is Democratic in party does not mean that they reject a republican form of government by calling for all the people of the US to meet perpetually and vote on every law together; Democrats still believe in the concept of a democratic republic. In the same way, Republicans do not (at least in ideology) reject democracy and try to rule without representing the will of the people; the Republican party certainly does also embrace the democratic republic wherein the people elect representatives and the people give them authority. Regardless of political affiliation then, Democrats and Republicans alike support the notion of a democratic republic. At the Convention of States Project, were also wholeheartedly behind the ideal of a democratic republic, and we think that a Convention of States is a great way to use that form of government to preserve liberty. Think about it: the people (democracy) select delegates to represent them (republic) at a Convention to select the best amendments to the Constitution. Thats why we embrace people from any background in our call for a Convention. We trust the system to allow the best American patriots to eliminate dangerous, ineffective, and crazy ideas in a Convention of delegates from a broad variety of backgrounds. We trust the democratic republic system to present the best solutions, not the solutions that align with a party platform, since neither party is effectively representing the will of the people. Finally, the plain and simple truth is that unless we can get both support from both Republicans and Democrats, we cannot hope to get our application passed in 34 states. We are absolutely, completely, and unapologetically non-partisan. Along with many US citizens, we dont like the way either of the major parties govern, and were much more concerned with preserving the rights, liberty, and will of the individual citizens, regardless of ideology. This is the United States of America. We are the mixing pot of races, religions, and philosophies. We believe that we are stronger for it. Fearing the true democratic republic that represents the whole US, not just one small faction of it, is foolish. The blend of ideas will preserve, not destroy, American freedom. I hope that helps you answer these questions when they come up! Im sorry this email is so long and involved but I want you to be well equipped to understand the background to what were doing. Sincerely, Eric Burk Grassroots Coordinator Citizens for Self Governance Convention of States Project Office: 540-441-7227
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 03:12:17 +0000
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