Jim bovard biography

Jim bovard biography: James Bovard is an American

In a democracy, people automatically become liable for whatever the government inflicts upon them. Many of the most deadly errors of contemporary political thinking stem from the notion that in a democracy the government is the people and vice versa, so there is scant reason to distinguish between the two—or to worry about protecting citizens from the government.

In , President John Adams pushed through Congress the Alien and Sedition Acts, which empowered Adams to suppress free speech and imprison without trial any critic of the federal government. He declaimed that people were obliged to submit to oppression because the chief executive had been duly elected by other voters. But shortly after he started his second term, he submitted to Congress a declaration of war against Germany.

How can they be responsible for both? Wilson campaigned for the presidency in as a progressive. Shortly after he took office, mass firings of black federal employees occurred. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a president and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country. Yet, because he won in , he effectively implied that the citizenry were somehow bound to accept all of his power grabs as if they themselves had willed them.

Government is the people themselves. The government is us.