Cornell Republicans Speaker Todd Douglas: American Republic on ‘Edge of Abyss’

Beginning his lecture with the line “All of us have had our birthright stolen from us,” a stern-faced Todd Douglas delved into a forty minute lecture at today’s Cornell Republicans meeting detailing what he describes as the systematic unraveling and destruction of the U.S. Constitution and American Republic. The event was titled “A Republic, If You Can Keep It,” which is the name of Douglas’s 2013 book.

Douglas, a former US Navy Intelligence Specialist attached to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a 23-year veteran police commander, spoke at length about the erosion of individual liberties and the Constitution by all three branches of government and both major political parties, especially since the dawn of the 20th century and the administration of progressive Woodrow Wilson.

“You’ve been told all your life you’re free, but you’re really not,” Douglas said. “We live under a suffocating web of rules, laws, regulations, taxes, surcharges, and fees… The notion that government knows what’s best for us and is entitled to fruits of labor has become so ingrained in us we don’t even realize our freedom is all but gone.”

Douglas discussed the constraint an ever-expansive centralized, bureaucratic state forces upon people, and quoted extensively speeches delivered by presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt concerning the need to succumb the individual to the “common good” and similar collectivist ideals.The author and former college adjunct professor singled in on Wilson’s ideal of the “beehive” state wherein all people have a specific, assigned role whose sole purpose is to work for the common good. Douglas made the point that a beehive is composed of a queen, her select drones, and thousands of worker bees who feed the queen and drones.

Douglas argued that the rising tide of progressivism and the notion that government can be the source of solutions to all the world’s problems which started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the result of America’s unprecedented prosperity. He said the country became a “victim of its own greatness,” when leaders like Wilson mistakenly attributed the country’s wealth and prosperity to government instead of the free, unregulated, and constitutionally protected citizenry.

The U.S. government, according to Douglas, has “transformed from a federal republic of sovereign state to a centralized command and control global empire headquartered in Washington D.C.”

Early in the lecture, Douglas urged audience members to move beyond partisan political thinking–to move beyond labels like Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc. He lamented deeply about the current state of political affairs, saying the major problem with partisan politics is that “we’re having the debate at all… talking and arguing about things the federal government shouldn’t be talking about at all.” Douglas brought up the Department of Education as an example, and how, for example, Republican calls for decreased funding for that department misses the point that the federal government is not constitutionally authorized to be involved in education policy.

“In terms of freedom and liberty” is how people ought to think when it comes to government, Douglas contended.

For most of the lecture, the audience appeared in agreement with Douglas’s message. He did run into some opposition, however, when he expressed his opinion that U.S. entrance in the First World War was a mistake and heavily criticized its role in the Second World War.

Douglas closed his lecture by saying the constitutional republic can still be saved, but that opportunity is rapidly withering away, concluding with “[It is a] monumental crime watching the flame of liberty die.”