Another insidious use of terms concerns our relationship with elected officials.
In a representative republic, the representatives work for the sovereign. That sovereign is the people. As such, it is absolutely incorrect to refer to Congress as “leaders”. Their role is to legislate in harmony with the people they represent. They are supposed to be more followers than leaders.
Of course, the media uses the term, leaders, all the time. Whether intentional or not, this misuse of terminology creates an exercise in mind control that programs the American public to believe the relationship is upside from what it is supposed to be. The net effect of this is that we tolerate a Congress that believes it is above its own laws and fails to represent us. This is exactly what Aristotle meant by “divergent” government. It is how Congress gets away with giving themselves special healthcare and retirement plans that far exceed what the general public gets.
It is also a part of the explanation for why Congress refuses to fix the border laws that they messed up. Of course, a big factor in that is the graft that they take from wealthy donors who have a vested interest in illegal immigration. Nevertheless, both are contributing factors to the fact that the national government is truly divergent from the interests of the people.
In 1776, the people of Mecklenburg and Orange counties in North Carolina explained it to their representatives properly.
- The political power is of two kinds, one principal and superior, the other derived and inferior.
- The principal supreme power is possessed by the people at large, the derived and inferior power is possessed by the servants which they employ.
- Whatever is constituted and ordained by the principal supreme power cannot be altered, suspended or abrogated by any other power, but the same power that ordained may alter, suspend and abrogate its own ordinances.
- The rules whereby the inferior power is to be exercised are to be constituted by the principal supreme power, and can be altered, suspended and abrogated by the same and no other.[1]
It is painful to observe that Aristotle labeled the divergent version of a republic as a democracy. Perhaps we no longer have a republic and are stuck with a democracy. If so, Madison would say we’re in for a wild but short ride into hell. The media is guilty of subliminally conditioning us away from liberty and freedom. They have failed miserably in their first amendment responsibilities.
[1] Dodd, W. F. “The First State Constitutional Conventions, 1776-1783.” American Political Science Review 2, no. 04 (1908): 545-61. doi:10.2307/1944479.
