Banners for Constitutionalists
from The Sly Tyrant's Handbook
  

Satire by
Robert Wilfred Franson

 

January 2012

  
The freedom of the Individual

Δ  Citizens who are not outraged have not grasped the scale of their disaster — nor its intentionality.
  


  

Postcard art - Dear flag of our country, circa 1917 (small)

Δ  Envy is a hardy perennial: the well-structured Republic expects and utilizes envy, other systems succumb to it.

Δ  There hardly could be a simpler assault on the concept of, and potential for, true Nobility in American statesmanship, than the casual downgrading of Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday into Presidents' Day, where these best are like the worst.

Δ  Managers of a covertly controlled Democracy lull the masses into self-congratulation for merely voting. Pioneers of an openly structured Republic shift the ground so it is a matter of conscience for citizens to inform themselves and vote thoughtfully on principle, but shameful to vote casually or uninformed.

Δ  A prudently structured Republic is not designed primarily to propel the Best of men to power, but to prevent the Worst of men from establishing themselves in Absolute power.

Δ  Big Bore politicians are no substitute for high-caliber Statesmen.
  


  

Δ  As Politics is the Artfully Possible, too often we have done the Regrettable; but (in a Free Republic) we retain the Constitutional opportunity to re-do it aright.

Δ  The value of an honest common ground for settling disputes must not be underestimated; for general Freedom a true and honored Constitution is essential.

Δ  Constitutional debates in the Supreme Court, so far as they stray afield from the precision of Originalism and Strict Construction, necessarily must be about how much further will the Constitution be distorted and redirected via the case before them.

Δ  Knowledge of History, learned from insightful writings and shared via Civil Discourse and Debate, is essential for Citizens' maintenance of the machinery of a Republic, and hence of a free society.

Δ  Citizens who believe that teaching American Patriotism is stupid and old-fashioned, have not anticipated the baleful Consequences of what we will be given in its place.
  


  

Δ  The American Electoral College is designedly a keystone of the system of structured representational government, a hindrance to mass manipulation of the voting for President by overloading votes reported from rotten boroughs. Demagogues always deprecate the Electoral College.

Δ  A Two-Party System provides the unappreciated procedural benefit of resolving political disputes in structured Popular Elections; contrast this with the Multi-Party deferral of conflict into relatively unstable parliamentary coalitions, aligned via insiders' concealed negotiations. Power Brokers prefer manipulable coalitions of politicians to voting citizens; they naturally favor Multi-Party politics.

Δ  Free Men do not stand in the middle between two "opposed extremes" of Naziism and Communism, but on the high ground from which we can, if we care to look, discern their basic commonality.
  


  

Postcard art - Freedom smiles, her fate secure - GAR - Tuck, circa 1908

Δ  Domestic weaponry of both offense and defense is mostly psychological; keep your wits about you.

Δ  While the Economy and the common Welfare often are given pride of place in public attention and legislation, domestic disasters can be restored by an honest and industrious Populace; whereas Foreign Policy and Military Effectiveness, once compromised and weakened, may not be restored without an irretrievable loss of lives, property, and perhaps of the Nation itself.

Δ  As the true political Head of State also is ultimately its Commander in Chief, the Populace with or without Intention and Foresight has placed the safety and even the survival of their Nation in his hands more than in any other's.

Δ  Arms Control is a clever strategy to disarm the naive while strengthening the clever. Reference the military buildups of Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union — while disarmament treaties hampered their intended target nations.

Δ  Define the Battlefield to your advantage. If the enemy be strong by Land, hem their forces by Sea; if they excel Militarily upon your territory, thwart them with Sabotage, or with Propaganda in their own country. Conversely, in whatever places or aspects you are the stronger, do not let the nature of the Battlefield go by default, but Shape it yourselves.

Δ  The American Revolution was not won nor kept by Virtue Unarmed.
  


  

Δ  The Hummingbird's unique flight earns it great Self-Confidence; but when we have seen our Cat rouse from her watchful repose to catch hummingbirds on the Wing, we learn how avian Audacity may be clawed down by the feline's Prudent Leap.

Δ  Reality is the only incorruptible Tyranny; yet Knowledge is its master.

Δ  Inspiration and Optimism are foes to Control.

  

— the Sly Tyrant

  

© 2012 Robert Wilfred Franson


  
Neither Despots nor Constitutions
will be Installed or Preserved without due Consideration.

On the contrary, my friends! —
Maxims for Despots
from The Sly Tyrant's Handbook

Note of clarification by RWF:
All "Sly Tyrant" aphorisms,
to the best of my knowledge, are my invention.

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