Limited Hope for 2025 – No Republic, No Constitutional Government: The Anti-Federalist Are Correct

I am delighted with the Trump reelection but it has been painful for me to look at the November election without stating that in the natural, there is Limited Hope for 2025. The icing on the cake regarding my research for this newsletters content was In listening to Ned Ryun on Tucker Carlson the other day (see this link.) For years you have heard me warn and comment that a functional U. S. Constitution is not to be found due to the administrative state (Shadow Government,) and that the Republic and Federalism is laid waste by the use of Madison’s and Hamilton’s theology of a consolidated ‘commerce driven’ national government, leading to new type of feudalism (see episodes on modern feudalism).

Buckle up since this is a long read.

This theology of modern feudalism, this ‘consolidated commerce driven socialism,’¹ has its believers, its vassals secure in their bureaucratic fiefdoms, acting according to the creeds of their priests, imams and shamans in how they will resist the constitutionalism of the Trump administration^{2 and 3} from invading their realms. This massive resistance of ‘nearly half of the bureaucrats’ resisting the will of their fellow citizens regarding those who are freely elected to govern is the encroachment, if not the demise of constitutional republicanism, but more so a lack of constitutional understanding of rights, equality⁴ and property⁵. I give you the references to the Founders’ discussions on equality and property because I do not have the time to cover them in this discussion on rights. I will cover these two principles in the next newsletter.

Back to the point

As we return to the point of Limited Hope for 2025, bear with me momentarily as I refer to quote that captures the point of those who pressed commercial national socialism and modern feudalism upon this Republic. You will see this quote again later, “Could one still speak of republican citizens when contemplating merchants, for which the “mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains”? (Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, 17 Mar. 1817, cited in Papers 14:221).”

Now back to what Ned Ryun has apparently confirmed in his book ‘American Leviathan.’ As many of you know, I have been historically presenting this travesty of the ‘administrative state (shadow government)’ on my programs for over ten years. Beginning with the development of progressivism in the secon decade of 1800’s. Then following through with the social gospel rise in the 1830’s and Marx manifesto in 1848. These shifts brought on by the emerging humanism of the late 1700’s where rationalism lead to the full birthing of ‘Administrative State’ in the first decade of the 20^th Century. Let me be very clear: I am ecstatic that Ned Ryun has written ‘American Leviathan’ and that he gets high profile recognition as well as media time to get this information out. Yet, I don’t believe that the General citizen population is getting the message sufficiently from him or anyone such that it will make a continuing difference beyond November 5^th 2024.

Right from the beginning of our Constitution in 1787 and into the first ten years of the Constitution, many shifts in morality, the shifting views of commerce, questions of republicanism, federalism and constitutionalism were affected by theological and philosophical alterations influenced by the humanist enlightenment. This become the land governed by the idealism of rationalism over Biblical covenantalism. Remember that covenantalism was inculcated in the general population of the colonies up and through the 1700’s. That changed at the turn of the Century, into the early 1800’s.

I don’t want to leave this section without saying that I will discuss real HOPE for 2025 and beyond at the end of this newsletter.

No Republic, No Constitutional Government – Indoctrination

Remembering that this is an Echo Chamber, in preparing for this month I dove back into the first volume of The Founders’ Constitution from the University of Chicago Press. As I was reflecting on the planned disaster of the O’biden corporatist / progressive / Marxist administration leaving office, especially their pernicious deleterious systemic schemes to thwart the potential Constitutional reclamation policies of the new administration under Trump. I had to have an honest look at the major themes of the U. S. Constitution as laid out in the Preamble. My focus was on: Republican Government, Rights, Equality, Property and Energetic Government. Just by reading the ‘Introduction’ in each of these chapters, I was reminded that the assumption of the citizenry of that time was that ‘we had a moral, virtuous and religious’ citizenry, which fully comprehended the underlying concepts of self-governance.

The simple conclusion as to why we have veered so far off from ‘original intent’ of a Constitutional Republic, morphing into the oligarchical corporatist administrative state, is the confusion of what a Republic is and the John Dewey / Horace Mann system of indoctrination versus education. Every chapter of the Founders’ Constitution, with all the supportive writings that are developed and explain ‘original intent,’ address an educated citizenry that had the ubiquitous moral fabric delivered from deep Biblical pulpit teaching. This teaching, included covenantalism, which in turn had principles expecting a good education for citizenship. Thereby having good good leaders engaging in good governance.

We have few modern pulpits teaching as did those of the 1600’s and 1700’s. For the most part, we do not have the pulpits like those of the founding era nor do we have the education methods like then, therefore we do not have the ubiquitous morally principled, republic minded citizenry necessary for governing our constitutional republic.

One linchpin of my Limited Hope for 2025 is the questionable actions to be taken toward the Department of Education – defunding and shut down. We will continue to have the department of indoctrination under the 47^th President. I have little confidence that the appointee of President Trump will be able to shut out and shut down this department of indoctrination. Why?

Well, I look back to the Reagan Administration when there were fighters put there to design and implement the demise of the Department of Education. I was 1% relationally away from Charlotte Iserbyt who was a policy strategist put in place to take this unconstitutional agency down. Sadly, the unions and lobbyists took her out, forced her out of Reagan’s administration. Thereby thwarting the intent to counter this destruction of our next generations through federalized indoctrination. Here is a link to Charlotte’s book ‘The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.’ I’ve done a lot of independent research and this book is a wealth of documentation.

The bottom line is: I do not believe that the new head of this agency is going to do anything but kick the can down the road. The monied interest will prevail and the administration will be useless in the demise of this agency. And yes, I get that Congress must change some laws and funding but, they are nutered when it comes to the education unions and lobbyists.

Hence, No Hope in 2025 for a well educated Citizenry.

No Republican Government

In the very opening of the Preamble, even at the initiation of the Constitution in 1787, there was and continues to be confusion as to what a republican government is. Our present confusions regarding our form of government is not new. Therefore we have one reason why so many claim this nation is a democracy. Additionally, the present ideologies of socialism, communism and all the other isms exasperates the dialogue and messaging regarding our form of government. Yet, according to the introduction to Republicanism in the Founder’s Constitution, the conceptualization and function of Republican / Republicanism had no fully matured definition nor common consensus of implementation. The whole concept was muddled from the very inception of ‘the United States.’

The setup to our present conundrum in governing can point back to these summary paragraph statements in Chapter 4 of the Founders’ Constitution – Introduction (For expedience I will bold and italicize key points):

The republicanism of the Founders’ Constitution might seem to be a matter of course. According to Article 4, section 4, the United States shall guarantee to every state in the Union a republican form of government, but nothing is said to add specificity and clarification to the critical term…

At the core of the notion of republican government appears to be the principle that the many should rule, and that the body politic “should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority” (Locke, no. 1)… What was critical, John Adams insisted (Novanglus, no. 7, 6 Mar. 1775), was that the government be “bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.”

Throughout his long lifetime Adams was to refine and enlarge and qualify this early effort at defining republicanism, but even at this stage he was sharply at odds with others for whom republic meant minimally and irreducibly, no king…

Reading from Jefferson’s Autobiography it is easy to forget that the case for republicanism had still to be made. Yet according to John Adams’s account, a large body of contemporary opinion expressed itself in “the sneers of modern Englishmen” who contemned the principles, reasoning, and very memories and names of those whom they dismissed as regicides, commonwealthmen, and radical Whigs…

I am including the next two paragraphs in total. In the first John Adams gives hint to what is now our problem with the Constitution and in the second is the efforts of the primary antagonist for the Constitution, manipulating the narrative to get the thing approved:

Principled republican that he was, Adams resisted the simplistic dichotomies adopted by both friends and foes of republican government. That seeker of royal and republican loans was “no king-killer, king-hater, or king-despiser” (Letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 21 May 1782). In an advanced stage of popular corruption and civil conflict, a desperate people might well be driven to institute hereditary offices, the very lineaments of Paine’s detested British polity. So prudence might dictate muffling the antimo-narchical and antiaristocratical drums for the present, even while laboring to contrive popular elective embodiments of monarchical and aristocratical principles. The truly challenging problem for Adams was to embed in republican institutions and procedures the self-sustaining elements of his cherished notion of a balanced government. From that point of view he thought he could already discern a major weakness in the new American Constitution: the monarchical element in it required enlargement and bolstering against the all-engrossing aristocratical power (no. 29).

It was, however, reserved for the two principal authors of the Federalist to recast the terms of the public discussion of republicanism by insisting on treating a republic as a species of popular government and distinguishing it from the other species, democracy, by the use of representation. Rule by popular majorities was not enough. The good name of popular self-government would be redeemed by a republic properly constructed (no. 12; see also ch. 17, no. 22). Among other things this entailed rejecting in the name of majority rule the right of equal suffrage in the national legislature enjoyed by the small states under the Articles of Confederation (see ch. 5, no. 23), and reconsidering how much dependence and popular derivation were necessary to proclaim a constitution in conformity with the true principles of republican government (nos. 24, 26).

The Federalist’s great vindication of republicanism called forth Hamilton’s intense efforts and Madison’s truly original contribution to political thought. No small part of their task was to convert a widely held objection to the proposed Constitution into a matter of rightful relief and pride. Montesquieu had taught moderns an ancient lesson (but for modern purposes), that republics would thrive only in fairly compact territories. The contiguity of private and public good would be more visible, more intelligible, more attainable, more actual, in a small state of relatively homogeneous free men. The Anti-Federalist dread of consolidated government turned largely on this Montesquieuan premise (nos. 14, 16). Hamilton’s riposte was to claim that the dread was ill placed. Not largeness but smallness lay at the root of the domestic turmoil and sedition that made “the petty Republics of Greece and Italy” horrible and disgusting to contemplate, and the recent doings in western Massachusetts and Rhode Island even more vivid. A literal reading of Montesquieu would bode ill for America, for when Montesquieu said “small” he meant small, not a Virginia of 125,525 square miles (according to Jefferson’s calculation in Notes on the State of Virginia). By this token Americans would be reduced to the alternative “either of taking refuge at once in the arms of monarchy, or of spliting ourselves into an infinity of little jealous, clashing, tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt.” Happily, modern improvements now made it possible for “the enlightened friends to liberty” to stand forth as republicans (no. 18). Of those progressive developments in political science, none was more critical than the discovery that “the enlargement of the sphere is found to lessen the insecurity of private rights” (see Madison, ch. 5, no. 16). In part this lessening would come about in a large republic almost as a matter of course thanks to the barriers to easy collusion posed by distance, time, and heterogeneity. In part it might come about through a properly devised “process of elections as will most certainly extract from the mass of the Society the purest and noblest characters which it contains.” In and of itself, however, the extended republic might well favor protracted misrepresentation rather than the refinement and enlargement of popular views (nos. 19, 27). Nature had still to be perfected by political art. With cool self-assurance the proponents of the Constitution would point to that document as an unparalleled exemplar of the art that was needed.

Lastly we can further understand our present form of governance by the movement that takes the Citizen from a focus on preserving Personal Liberty in the age of a Republic to: The Economy Stupid.

Republicanism Thwarted

Republicanism is thwarted by a societal and governmental focus on Commerce over Liberty through the use of Republicanism. “Could one still speak of republican citizens when contemplating merchants, for which the “mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains”? (Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, 17 Mar. 1817, cited in Papers 14:221).”

Even with the extended republic temporarily secure and orthodox republican leaders in office, there still was cause for concern. Would the Americans’ zeal for a commercial republic prove the undoing of both republic and republicans? It is tempting, but unhistorical, to treat this concern as a quaint or irrelevant atavism in a people as zealously commercial as the Americans. It was one thing to recognize the inevitable prominence of commerce in American life, as did Jefferson (Letter to George Washington, 15 Mar. 1784), Adams (Letter to John Jay, 6 Dec. 1785), and Hamilton (see ch. 7, nos. 13, 14). It was another matter to assess accurately the benefits and costs of that development. Following Montesquieu (no. 2) and Hume (no. 3), some Americans could recognize and welcome the ways in which commerce would soften men’s harshness and hatred, creating bonds within and among states (no. 32; see also Agrippa, no. 1, 23 Nov. 1787, and ch. 18, no. 30). Hamilton was loath to credit such pacific expectations (see ch. 7, no. 10), though of course this in no way diminished his ardor for the promotion of commerce and manufacturing (no. 31).

Much more vexing were the probable effects of those developments upon the habits, tastes, and concerns of a self-governing people. Republicanism presupposes a people who care about the res publica, the public thing. Commerce changes the focus of individuals’ vision; manufacturing permits, while encouraging, the indulgence of private gratifications; and a life cut off from the soil is, to that extent, a life of increased dependency on the wills of other men. Could one still speak of republican citizens when contemplating merchants, for which the “mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains”? (Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, 17 Mar. 1817, cited in Papers 14:221). Would the avarice that set men in motion leave them the taste or energy for pursuing the public’s concerns? Recognizing those problems was a first step toward trying to cope with them, and there were, among the American founders of republican government, those who were intent on facing that challenge (see ch. 18).

We are ruled by the modern feudalism of necessity through globalist free market internationalism. The corporatist have melded the mechanism of commerce into the webs of the Mirkwood spiders to consume the light of the rule of law, republicanism, and put the citizenry in cocoons to keep their power fed. It is interesting to understand the allegories of The Hobbit and The Matrix.

Limited Hope for 2025 – Rights, Equality and Property

As I consider the administrative / deep state’s embedded powers, such that they have redefined what most people assume to be Constitutional definitions of rights, equality and property, I must now pop your bubble head. That which is assumed as Constitutional definitions are misunderstood concepts in modern jargon and foundational principals.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter, I am not going to address each concept noted above. I will quickly and directly focus on rights from the corresponding chapter of the Preamble.

The modern claimants of ‘contrived rights,’ do so contrary to first principals that are ‘the language of America has been being the language of rights. Whether conceived as the rights of “any natural born subject of England” (no. 1), or as “the natural, inherent, divinely hereditary and indefeasible rights” of British subjects (see ch. 3, no. 4), or as “those rights which god and the laws have given equally and independently to all” (no. 10), a statement of rights is a claim, not a request. The language of rights is not that of supplication.’⁶

Limited Hope for 2025 Regarding the Bill of Rights

The modern bewilderment of thoughts regarding what are rights is due to the disparate presuppositions of morality, what is a human, creation versus humanist evolution, and who is the Biblical God versus the government god. The deep administrative state hates individual rights. They despise the Bill of Rights as shown not only by direct lawfare but through the various agencies establishing rules beyond codified authorization that dictate what you eat, what you breath, what you drive, how you heat your house or water and so on.

The key points regarding ‘rights’ from the principles in the Preamble explained in the Founders’ Constitution, does not give room for what are presently argued and codified as ‘rights’ in our modern society. The following from Chapter 14 – Introduction:

The dignity or urgency of the claim of those irreducible and inalienable rights is mirrored in the gravity and dreadfulness of the threat–a recourse to first principles, and beyond that an appeal to heaven, in short, revolution. Neither the claim nor the threat is to be taken lightly. A prudent people jealous of their rights, a prudent magistrate jealous of his office (or his head), would alike cherish that “great Charter of fundamentalls.” They would equally welcome those solemn prescribed occasions when all members of the body politic are reminded of the distinctive prescriptions and prohibitions that define their collective life (no. 4). Much like the kings of Israel who were enjoined to write a copy of the Law and keep it by them that they might veer neither to the left nor to the right (Deut. 17:18–20), so too ought a free people to have their rights “Expressed in the fullest and most unequivocall terms” (no. 16). The conditions on which man agrees to enter into society ought to be marked out “with perspecuity and plainness . . . so as to admit of no Prevarication” (no. 17).

The discourse concerning ‘rights’ in America has always been rendered to the moral theological presumption of the people. From the 1500’s to the mid-1800’s, the majority of individuals and political leaders had a Biblical frame of reference. Although not all the people lived an exemplary Christian life, the ubiquitous understanding of rights and governance was in the Christian context and not in ‘feelings.’

‘The free fruition of such liberties Immunities and priveledges as humanitie, Civilitie, and Christianitie call for as due to every man in his place and proportion without impeachment and Infringement hath ever bene and ever will be the tranquillitie and Stabilitie of Churches and Commonwealths. And the deniall or deprivall thereof, the disturbance if not the ruine of both.

We would it therefore our dutie and safetie whilst we are about the further establishing of this Government to collect and expresse all such freedomes as for present we foresee may concerne us, and our posteritie after us, And to ratify them with our sollemne consent.

We doe therefore this day religiously and unanimously decree and confirme these following Rites, liberties and priveledges concerneing our Churches, and Civill State to be respectively impartiallie and inviolably enjoyed and observed throughout our Jurisdiction for ever.’⁷

In all, the fabrication of rights happen when humanists/marxists/statists religion dictates emotionalism and what is morality. This allows for the cock-and-bull story of erecting of laws that demolish foundational ‘rights, liberties and privileges concerning our Churches, and Civil State.’

Students of history, think that James Madison is the savior of rights by ensuring the ‘Bill of Rights’ was amended into the Constitution. Madison never wanted a bill of rights. He as well as many other Federalists believed that the enumerated powers in the Constitution sufficed such that all other rights were secured. He assumed as well that the States would ensure the preservation of individual rights. We have seen how that has worked out even with a Bill of Rights.

You must read the section of the Introduction where it is clearly shown that Madison was against any additions referring to rights. Madison and Hamilton were in concert with Wilson who argued –

‘(no. 27) that a bill of rights was not only superfluous in a government of enumerated powers founded on popular sovereignty, but “preposterous and dangerous,” “improper.” Would not such a declaration be tantamount to an enumeration of reserved powers? And would not such an enumeration support the detested presumption that all that was not reserved was granted? Who would entrust the enjoyment of his liberties to some body’s overweening claim to having made a complete enumeration? (See also no. 34.)

Madison was masterful in his manipulation of language, proceedings and setting the substance of the issue surrounding a federal Bill of Rights. Consider these last several paragraphs in Vol. 1, Chpt. 14, Introduction:

In raising and pressing the issue of amendment and in seeing the amendments through Congress, Madison kept two goals in the foreground of deliberation: “to satisfy the public mind that their liberties will be perpetual, and this without endangering any part of the constitution” (no. 50). He had to steer the proposed amendments between those who wanted no part of the business and those who had very different amendments in view. In this he fully succeeded.

He did not, however, succeed in incorporating the amendments in the body of the original Constitution. Here Madison had a double purpose in view. Drawing special attention to the amendments by mounting them as it were on the prow invited and reinforced the habit of considering a bill of rights and a constitution proper as very different things. It invited and reinforced the habit of easy and frequent recurrence to large, abstract first principles, a habit deeply at odds (Madison thought) with society’s continuing need for regular, stable expectations. Tying the amendments onto the stern like a dinghy in tow might have an opposite bad effect, inviting people to consider the amendments as mere afterthoughts inferior in dignity to the great instrument itself. Blending the amendments into the body of the Constitution would avoid both dangers. Nor did Madison succeed in extending the reach of the Bill of Rights to the states, in keeping with his–as distinguished from the Anti-Federalists’–view of the main source of danger to rights. A decade later, however, as co-leader with Jefferson of the Republican opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Madison found effective ways to use the Bill of Rights as a curb on the federal government, and in the process gave expanded meaning to its free speech provision. (See Report on the Virginia Resolutions, Jan. 1800.)

When, finally, “the nauseous project” (no. 53) was over, Madison had got more than he feared he might and less than he wished. But, most important, by his maneuverings he had seen to it that the continuing disgruntlement of some leading Anti-Federalists would no longer be mirrored in their followers. The general desire for a bill of rights had been satisfied, and the business of governing could proceed.

Administrative State Violation of Rights

This brings us to my closing. The summation of why I have a Limited Hope for 2025. There are two key points. The first of which I elaborated on enough regarding the administrative / deep state (shadow government). If you need more or a reminder on my positions and references, go to these past programs.

The second will always be an uneducated citizenry with little to no moral framing. As Sam Adams would include in many policy writings, children needed to be educated in the roots of Christianity and the historical consideration of self-governance. As noted above, our education system is in fact indoctrination of all that is contrary to foundational truth, religion, history and morality.

To prove me wrong, and I hope that it happens, the Trump administration will have to overcome more than one-hundred years of progressivism instantiated in the bureaucracies as well as the federal unions and the external leftist lawyers.

Most importantly, those so called republicans in Congress, both houses, will have to become mindful of what was intended by the Founders of the Constitution for a free people to govern in a representative republic.

Franklin said we have a Republic if we can keep it. Well, we have not kept it as was intended. So now what?

There is Hope for 2025

There is hope. It is an individual turning to a personal relationship in a personal God given in Christ Jesus. Now, I want you to enjoy A Christian Take on Conspiracy Thought. Also, the churches need Reformation Biblical truth which was fundamental during the Colonial period and up through the end of the War for Independence. For a quick and recent reference watch this: Christian Nationalism Basics.

In the final note for this paper, Setting your hope only in the results of the November 2025 election and those being appointed to positions in the new administration is a setup for disappointments. Our Hope is in King Jesus and that when He turns the hearts, minds, values and morality of the people, including politicians and bureaucrats, righteousness can prevail and good governance will bring greatness to a nation.