by Clay Barham

The history of the world is full of examples of the one tried and true form of human governance.  It began with the family, where father knows best.  It expanded into relatives gathering into tribes for mutual defense and survival, and the wisest or mightiest chosen as chiefs and later, kings.  Everyone agrees it existed and how it functioned, as most of the world still follows this model.  There were always a few elite at the top managing the many on the bottom.  This is the accepted form of governance.

The interests of the community were paramount, always above the interests of the individual. The elite who ruled established community interests, and few dared disagree. Individuals' thinking out of the box, making waves and disturbing the way things worked, was dangerous for the individual. Individuals had less value than the whole of community, and, if inconvenient, could be eliminated.

Not all rulers were sensitive to the needs of their subjects, like a Nero or Caligula.  Some leaders were sensitive to only segments of their nation, such as Hitler's attempts to purify the Aryan race in Germany.  Some were brutal in their methods of making sure people were alike in their thinking and behavior, like Stalin and Mao.  I am sure there were some elite who intended to be compassionate, though ruthless in defending their right to rule.

Somewhere along the line, however, people discovered that they could and should stand on their own and rule themselves and care for their immediate families.  A number of them settled in New England in 1620 with their guidebook of behavior and governance, the Geneva Bible.  They traded with one another, wrote laws defining unjust behavior and for the protection of life and property. They grew in prosperity and changed the rules for how a society should be governed.

They grew so prosperous that some among them became envious of others who did better than they did, and wanted to renew the older form of governance so no person, except for the elite who ruled, would have any more than another would. They called for change.  They agreed on a candidate who promised change, to bring America back to the old tried and true, proven method of governance.  Nero, Caligula, Hitler, Stalin and Mao would be proud to see America return to the Old World ways.

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