USA vs America

It is understandable that the word “America” is often used interchangably with “the United States of America”, but the two expressions do not describe the same thing. “America” describes the place on the North American continent that many of us call home. “The United States of America” describes a national government that was ratified back in 1788. Before that, America had a confederation form of government which lasted from March 1, 1781 until June 21, 1788, when the State of New Hampshire became the ninth state of the original thirteen to ratify the new constitution. America has thus far had two national governments.

The current national government, the United States of America, has become delusional. It refuses to face the fact that it is deeply in debt, continuing to operate as if nothing is wrong, spending money it doesn’t have at a huge rate on disordered military misadventures around the world, as the throbbing empire it has become. The people of America, meanwhile, are beginning to see the reality, as the bracing ice water of a crippled and disintegrating economy puts more and more of us in the grip of personal impoverishment. There is nothing quite like being out of work for over two years while struggling to sustain oneself and one’s family without diving into depths of despair to help a person see things as they really are. How much longer can the monster government, the United States of America, survive, dragging the people of America down with it?

If only the simple solution, UN-ratifying the constitution, would fix the problem. Certainly that would go a long way to fixing the problem, since what is left in America is the fifty states. But would all those states, some with multiple nuclear missile silos, play well together? Would they go back to a confederation form of government, or perhaps start over again with the US Constitution? Would the people have learned enough from the current experience to realize that they have been living under an oligarchy that has made them serfs, that any government that imposes taxes on them makes them victims of involutary servitude?

In short, have we had enough of government by coercion? Are we ready to build governments based instead on cooperation? Are we finally ready to realize the truth spoken so clearly in 1776 that “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”, a consent that must be personal, real, measurable?

If I thought we knew enough not to make ourselves slaves again of another coercive government, I would not have created this website. But clearly all around us either remain in the delusion that all is well with “the United States of America”, or that government by coercion is just fine. I am here to say, “it’s not”! Every permutation of government by coercion is a form of slavery and an affront to human dignity.