Revolution: The Jeffersonian Answer to the Modern Social and Political Problems in America

The “Great American Experience” is finally beginning to show its true nature, empirical. The United States has always found pride in its pseudo-democratic way of life. Still, the view that America will always be, may be a dream of the past. Democracy and the individual are at the heart of American society. In The Republic, Plato warns of the innate problems that a democracy would bring forth. By placing emphasis on each individual quest for self-actualization and opportunity, the door is opened for the vices of man to influence society. In America, these vices have brought forth a government eerily representative of that found in George Orwell’s 1984. It is from such comparisons that one must answer the question, what is next? The evolutionary chain would seem to suggest that a more tyrannical, oppressive government is approaching; perhaps Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan,” or Machiavelli’s “Prince.” As the country approaches a national election, it becomes vitally important that the government recognize the abhorrent direction the nation is headed and be given an opportunity to alter its course. In the event that the government does or will not acknowledge its loss of morality and ethical leadership, the answer to the retention of individual freedoms and preservation of our way of life can be found in a Jeffersonian document that the government holds most dear, The Declaration of Independence.

Found in the Declaration of Independence is a short list of individual, creator-given rights, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights form a large portion of the foundation of America. One could make the assumption that the American pursuit of happiness has fallen from its early colonial roots and now describes the lust for power and monetary wealth that consumes many Americans’ lives. Decades ago, in his speech warning against becoming an empirical nation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke on the importance of fighting the urge to become a nation built on greed:
As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.

As one begins to observe the current state of America, it becomes increasingly evident that the United States has become the very nation the Eisenhower and history has warned against. It has become a nation whose government has the ability to assume absolute power and has charged itself with the “heavy” task of suspending individual liberties. With the poverty levels soaring to astronomical levels, it becomes evident that the right to “life” is constantly threatened. As the nation struggles with issues pertaining to individual freedoms, one must be vigilant in their defense of these rights. For example, many feel that the Patriot Act infringes on an individual’s right to privacy because it allows the government to do what is “in the best interest of national security.” It is a phrase whose utterance can mean a simple wiretap without a warrant, but has the potential to expand to the suspension of habius corpus. It is at this moment, where individual rights are suspended, that the government no longer derives its powers “from the consent of the governed” (Jefferson 627). The shift of power is one of subtlety; where the majority believes that the actions of the government are a necessary injustice. This belief, according to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is flawed because, as he writes, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (654). This belief tends to play in favor of the minority and is therefore extremely unpopular at times. Dr. King asserts that simply because the majority deems an action or decision right does not make it so. For an example of this one need look no further than the American Revolution. The majority of Britain felt that the unequal treatment of the colonists was both accepted and warranted.

As one may invariably notice, many other parallels can and should be drawn between the control of Britain over colonial America and the government control over citizens today. One may consider the recent election problems and abuses of power by the president and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in line with Jefferson writing:
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. (627)

Once one realizes the severity of the matter at hand, the problem becomes deciding the limits to which one government can and should be allowed to exercise absolute and unquestioned power. Should it be after the majority of the people do not approve of the leadership and the direction the nation is headed? If the answer is yes, than the recent approval ratings call for revolution. Is revolution only necessary once the government has been told of their misuse of power? If that is the case, than they have already been warned and the next step is revolution. The question must now be “when” not “if” a dramatic social change is necessary. The institutions that currently exist create a tyrannical government ruling a class-based society much like the one America experienced under British domination. The answer to the problem at hand, unfortunately, lies in The Declaration of Independence. It is the same answer seen throughout the ages; when one people are oppressed and their natural freedoms are suspended, revolution!