Laugh at Liberals

Democracy? Or Oligarchy?

When or founding fathers wrote our constitution, it was a government intended for 13 states. There were few rich, as 90% of the nation was made up of poor, small farmers.

Since this time, American history is filled with heroes and villains, the rise of the industrial north and the fall of the agricultural south. The conquest of the Western frontier and the slaughter of the Native Americans. The Imperialists who sought to conquer the pacific, and the oversea allies and enemies that dragged us into 2 world wars, from which we pulled out of as a economic and military super power. Far from the founding fathers vision of America, but that is a debate for another time.

As Aristotle once said there are 3 forms of government, which can be divided into 6 categories. Below is a grid from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/
In which shows this view.

_____________ Correct____________ Deviant

One Ruler——-Monarchy —————–Tyranny
Few Rulers —–Aristocracy ————– Oligarchy
Many Rulers —Polity ———————–Democracy

In Political theory he goes on to say that in a democracy or a Polity, generally the poor have control over the rich. In an aristocracy or oligarchy the rich few, have control over the Poor.

Lets take this political theory and test it against our own nations history, past and present.

At the time of the Founding fathers and the era of the constitution, the nation had yet to discover true industrialization. The bulk of the economy was based on crops such as tobacco, which it would ship to Europe who was the industrial center of the world, who then shipped the product goods back to America. In this way, Europe was the nation with the classes so utterly divided between rich and poor, but they were still in monarchy. There was no rich and poor amongst Americans, only citizens. This way, the Poor had control over the nation, and the rich could do very little.

Now, in modern times, after all our history, we have become an entirely different nation. We were the industrial powerhouses there for a while, until that of late in which China has taken over that role. But, in the time of our control of this market, we have bread powerful industries such as the oil industry. Big Trusts have formed.

Recently, The government tax breaks have benefited the Richer Americans, Top 2% with a tax break of over $9,000, while the lower class citizens receive $300
Due to administration policy over the last 4 yrs or so, the Middle class of America seems to be getting thinner, and lower class seems to be getting larger. The bulk of American citizens are living off of very poor wages, some off of minimum wage, which by the way, is currently not a living wage at all. Meanwhile those who control the governments have extremely good wages. The average salary of President Bush is $200,000 a year. But add that to the multi millions he has, and has used to gain presidency. It has come to my attention, that one must be rich to be considered a serious candidate for any political office. This is because of the media access required to run an effective campaign. Those annoying political bashing commercials we see all the time during any election, aren’t cheap. Therefore, the people that control our government are the rich, and not the poor. And, it is common knowledge now to anyone, that the highest officials whether they be Democrat or republican have a political agenda, pushing us into the deviant side of Aristotle’s political theory. So, my question to you all is this, are we still a Democracy? Or are we now an Oligarchy?

Antilla The Hun

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Literature referenced for this post:

1. Aristotle’s political theory
http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/texts/aristotle/aripold.htm

2. Article on Aristotle’s political theory
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/

3. Presidential salary
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/24/pay.raise/

4. American History
http://www.geocities.com/theamericanpageant/