To understand the nature and quantity of government proper for man, it is necessary to attend to his character. As Nature created him for social life, she fitted him for the station she intended. In all cases she made his natural wants greater than his individual powers. No one man [or woman] is capable, without the aid of society, of supplying his [her] own wants, and those wants, acting upon every individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as gravitation acts to a centre. -- Rights of Man: Part the Second (1792)
Government and the people do not in America constitute distinct bodies. They are one, and their interest the same. Members of Congress, members of Assembly, or Council, or by any other name they may be called, are only a selected part of the people. They are the representatives of Majesty, but not majesty itself. That dignity exists inherently in the universal multitude, and, though it may be delegated, cannot be alienated. Their estates and property are subject to the same taxation with those they represent, and there's nothing they can do, that will not equally affect themselves as well as others. -- The Necessity of Taxation (1782)
That civil government is necessary, all civilized nations will agree; but civil government is republican government. -- Rights of Man: Part the First (1791)
It has always been the political craft of courtiers and court-governments, to abuse something which they called republicanism; but what republicanism was, or is, they never attempt to explain. let us examine a little into this case.
The only forms of government are the democratical, the aristocratical, the monarchical, and what is now called the representative.
What is called a republic is not any particular form of government. It is wholly characteristical of the purport, matter or object for which government ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed, RES-PUBLICA, the public affairs, or the public good; or, literally translated, the public thing. It is a word of a good origin, referring to what ought to be the character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which has a base original signification. It means arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which, himself, and not the res-publica, is the object.
Every government that does not act on the principle of a Republic, or in other words, that does not make the res-publica its whole and sole object, is not a good government. Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expense of supporting it. -- Rights of Man: Part the Second (1792)Keep these things in mind when electing your policy/law makers this year.
It is also most abundantly clear to me that the contrast between the incumbent presider of the federal government and the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee is as stark as any has ever been in the history of America. Well, at least in my lifetime. And Bernie should dispel all doubt about where he stands on the subject of electing Joe Biden the next presider.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Tuesday that it would be “irresponsible” for his strongest supporters not to get behind former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Sanders warned that progressives who “sit on their hands” in the months ahead of the November vote would just be enabling President Donald Trump’s reelection.
“Do we be as active as we can in electing Joe Biden and doing everything we can to move Joe and his campaign in a more progressive direction?” Sanders asked. “Or do we choose to sit it out and allow the most dangerous president in modern American history get reelected?”
NOTE: due to the COVID-19 crisis, the filing deadline has been changed this year to July 15, 2020
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