Re-Founding America

Glenn Beck, whom I like a lot, constantly harps on the notion of "Re-Founding" America should she fall. And while I too would like for us to start over again, I’m not sure that “Re-Founding” an America is likely…or even possible.

The founding of our country is a great example of “right place, right time”. The confluences of events and fortunes that brought this country into existence and that then kept us sheltered during the critical early years of our Republic are not likely to happen again anywhere else on this planet including here in North America.

A constitution is a tricky thing to have to create…even ours was incredibly difficult. We like to think that all of the founding fathers got together and just put it into effect, but it didn’t happen that way. It took much debate, much compromising, much planning and even more politicking to get all 13 colonies to sign off on it. More than once our country was in jeopardy of losing everything because some didn’t like certain things about the way the government would be structured. And even after it was ratified by all 13 colonies, it took revisions and interpretations by Presidents, Congressmen and Judges to make it work.

The brilliance of the founders’ design of the constitution as a “government of laws and not of men” is unquestionable, but it was neither our founders nor the government they created that kept European powers from meddling in our affairs. It was the relatively insular nature of our continent, and difficulty of communication that kept European powers at bay and allowed us to grow into who we are. It’s why Britain lost the Revolution and later the War of 1812. It’s why Napoleon eventually sold us Louisiana. Britain had learned during the Revolution and France during the Haitian crisis that sustaining supply lines and coordinating military campaigns in the new world were nigh impossible and extraordinarily expensive even when it could be done.

Today, no such situation could exist on this world. There is nowhere we can’t get to or communicate with that it isn’t 10,000 times faster to do so than was possible during that time in history. Mechanized warfare makes it possible for a reasonable sized army and navy to bring troops to any section of the world and keep them supplied and on the move in a way never conceived by even the greatest military minds of the 18th-19th century. A burgeoning country today would be sitting ducks to outside forces. This is a scenario that has been played out in multiple places the past 20 years. For examples one need no further than to look at former Soviet Satellite states that have been born, crushed, re-born and swept up again since the fall of the Soviet Union.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that for some reason we do have to “re-found” America after a collapse of our economy and government. That means you first must address the fall of the current American Republic brought about either by force of military arms or death by suicide from internal issues.

If we are overrun militarily by an invading country …like say China…then you must deal with an occupying government. The continental United States has not been successfully invaded since the War of 1812. We have not been occupied since the Revolution. We have no real concept of what either of those things would mean for us. We cannot imagine the depravities and oppression that would be forced upon us by an occupying force. Our government and its protections would be out the window. The rule of law would become the rule of the occupier. In order to re-establish or “re-found” America it would mean having to force another government out of this country, and be able to keep them out while we rebuild. If the country has been ravaged by war and our military broken, this task will be next to impossible to achieve even with insurrections and guerilla fighting. Think about it for a second. In World War II the French Resistance was unable to oust the Germans without receiving help from an outside and organized military effort. A brutal enough occupier would be able to squash rebellion with the blood of millions. (The modern notion liberals have that you can never extinguish a guerilla war is ludicrous, the Romans did it, the Spanish did it and we did it in the Philippines.)

Now, let’s say that our government falls for internal reasons (that is to say without another country doing anything militarily) a colossal stock market crash or debt crisis akin to the one happening in Greece, only with no bailout in sight. You would see what you saw in Greece on a larger scale and more intense. Mass panic, riots, widespread disease, mass starvation, hoarding, looting, murder, rape, gang/militia rule and a destruction of both infrastructure and industry would be the start. With nothing to pay them, the army either disbands or gets lead to a coup over the current government. We would be ripe for the picking by any foreign government with an eye toward our resources, or an internal tyrant who longs for power and has influence over a large militia. Trying to re-establish a government on this continent under those conditions would be more difficult than we can even conceive right now.

Furthermore, outside our borders, the world would fall into chaos as governments we prop up were overthrown. Economies that rely on us as their customers would face ruin. What little stability exists in the Middle East would quickly evaporate. It is entirely possible that a limited nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran would set off a powder-keg of wars that would end up destroying much of the world and its population. And there would be NOTHING that WE could do about any of it.

I say the line must be drawn; America MUST NOT FALL in the first place. The risk is too great. The damage will be too big to be undone in this generation or 20 generations from now.

America is still the last best hope of freedom in the world. If we don’t make it work here…there is no hope for the future.