The above quotation might even seem radical to those of the present age, as if this came from some Marxist or by the hand of a revolutionary from some 3rd world nation. In fact, this sentiment was expressed by James Madison in 1800, who, as one of our Founding Fathers, would become the future two-term President of the United States. Madison goes on to say: “The Legislature, no less than the Executive, is under limitations of power…Hence, in the United States the great and essential rights of the people are secured against legislative as well as against executive ambition.”
Yet, when we look around at our governance, how few believe that the people possess absolute sovereignty. Indeed, even if certain people somehow believe it, our very eyes tell us that in actuality the people do not possess absolute sovereignty, whatsoever, but seem to be, in many cases, subservient to our legislative, executive and judicial branches, as if our government, answers not to the people, in whole, but has separated itself from the people, to therefore go about its business in a superior way and manner that serves those that are the true power brokers of America, which appears to be the superrich, the well-placed, and in addition, corporate power.
Indeed, it could be argued that the people of America are less free today, then they were one hundred years ago, and there does not appear to be anything on the horizon to retard or to stop this disturbing trend, for never have the people of this nation been more surveilled and more monitored then we have today, in which, it would be one thing if those of the criminal class were the ones being closely monitored, but rather we have virtually every citizen who isn’t ensconced in some sort of cave, that the government in conjunction with invasive hi-technology corporations, has in their control just about every piece of actionable information about us, and if so lacking, can retrieve such through a deliberate and comprehensive search of our person through the reams upon reams of information stored about us.
The salient reason why governments are formed to begin with is not just for the protection of the people, but for the betterment of those people, because hands joined together, with a common purpose, can accomplish much more good than those that are not bound together under a united purpose. Yet, what we are dealing with, more and more, is a governance that is about feathering its own nest and ignoring the population that it is supposed to serve. Those in government are supposed to be servants to the people, but instead, the people find themselves to be far too often unnerved, surveilled, and disappointed that things overall aren’t getting better, but are getting worse, with the exception of those who are our elites, who get ever more powerful and richer, at our collective expense.
It needs to be remembered that the people of this nation courageously fought for their independence, and did so through a great deal of risk, while exhibiting bravery to accomplish this worthy objective. So too, the point of this fight was for the right of the people to control their destiny, through their sovereignty best represented, by representative government, of which, this has become bastardized over the decades, so that what we have in actuality is not a government of, for, and by the people, but rather a government that runs roughshod over the people, structured to control and to monitor us, so that we become nothing much more than pliant subjects to a ruling elite.