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Throughout history the natural order for societies has been for nations to be governed from the top down by a ruling elite. This is because man is basically a barbarian driven by self interest and might makes right. Broadly, the structure of nations has been; a ruling elite at the top which has all the power and all the wealth; a security force or army (what Plato called guardians); and the rest of the population—their subjects. The army was charged with protecting the ruling elite from neighboring ruling elites as well as uprisings by their subjects. (Remember, the rich that Robin Hood took from were the rulers.)

Since all the wealth is held by the ruling elite (the king and the so-called nobles in the West—the emperor and shoguns in the East and various other designations around the world) increasing ones wealth was achieved by oppressing ones subjects and by conquest. All the while the powerful prevailed, whether king or barbarian, and the life of the weak was expendable.

Blood determined your station. Born a noble you remained a noble unless your line was killed off. Born a subject you remained a subject unless you caught the eye of a noble who became your patron.

If you doubt this look to Rome. For entertainment they forced men to fight to the death in the coliseum. Today we prosecute people for treating animals that way. Look at the marauding hordes: The Visigoths the Barbarians, the Tartars and the Hun for example. Conquered people were put to death or enslaved. In Athens the infirmed were cast off to die and in Rome unwanted babies were thrown in the trash.

Then something happened that would change the world more than any of the significant world changing events before: A Jew called Jesus Christ walked the earth. Whether you believe that he is Son of God or not doesn’t matter, you cannot deny the history of His existence and His impact on the world. And you can’t deny that His teachings—of peace and love and charity and that man was made in the image of God, and therefore life was valuable and created to serve God—began the process of civilizing man and curbing his barbaric nature. Along the way much injustice was done in His name and in the name of God, but this injustice was done by men drunk with power who corrupted his teachings. This takes place even today.

The world took a couple of turns. The teachings of Christ began to spread throughout what became known as the West. While barbaric behavior didn’t end, disciples of Christ advanced a more civilized way of life.

Philosophers emerged, among them John Lock and Baron de Montesquieu. Locke spoke of natural rights such as life, liberty and property. Montesquieu spoke of small civil societies being more effective than large ones.

Religion played a large role in the lives of man during this period. Religion as expressed by the writings of the Judeo/Christian bible: Not necessarily the religious pronouncements of man. For example: Thomas Jefferson created the Jefferson Bible by translating scripture as written in Latin, Greek, French and English, intending to distribute it among the Indians “…thinking this simple form would suit them best.”

Then a war of independence was fought. The British colonists in the new world objected to having their property taken by taxation without representation and fought to be free of British tyranny. After eight long years of battle the thirteen British colonies became thirteen independent States (countries) each with their own governmental structure. To prosecute the war they had joined together under Articles of Confederation. After the war the ‘Articles” proved to be too weak to serve their post war need—mutual defense against being picked off one by one by England and Spain.

So in the summer of 1787 a Constitutional Convention met to address the problem of how to unite for defense without giving up so much sovereignty as to once again be ruled by despots. Each of the states were jealous of their independence. The small states worried that the large states would take advantage of their size and dominate them. The large states were afraid of too much power being handed to the small states. They argued long and they argued hard but one thing that they did not argue about was that too powerful a central government would lead to tyranny.

Understanding that power grows and begets tyranny they wrote a constitution designed to address man’s passions by restricting the power of government to those things that only the government can do: Protect them from enemies abroad and miscreants at home. Some of them argued that they needed to be more specific and a Bill of Rights was added.

Then in 1789 a second world changing event took place. A nation was born absent a ruling class and in which property rights, and the liberty so provided, freed the individual from the shackles of subjection and allowed men to benefit from their own industry and moral behavior. And living standards soared. In time more progress had been made in the production of food, clothing and shelter (not to mention transportation and communication) than had been made in the previous 5000 years.

The founders of this Republic were very learned men. They knew history, philosophy, the ways of man and his passions. They studied the fall of earlier great societies and developed and applied a set of principles meant to prevent the conditions that brought on previous failure. And they said that if these principles were not taught to each new generation they would be forgotten and our Republic would fail as had all previous attempts at a society of free peoples.

We are at a crossroads. We no longer teach what was widely known during the birth of America. We no longer teach self reliance, responsibility, natural law, personal charity and other elements of our founding principles. They have become forgotten and our survival as a nation of free people is at risk: We are creating a new ruling elite. If we fall, the world will return to the governing structure described in the first paragraph of this writing.