Our Threatened Freedom

Are Politicians Destroying Faith in the American System

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 145-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 145

Dictation Name: Vol. L - Part 02 - Are Politicians Destroying Faith in the American System

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Are politicians destroying faith in the American system? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

In 1982, republicans and democrats alike indulged in a great deal of gerrymandering in the various states. Voting districts were realigned to give a maximum voting strength to the incumbent party. In one state a senator in an urban community found that he now had a narrow district of about 200 or more miles designated to eliminate most of his supporters. In California, the re-apportionment plan was so bad that voters rejected it on the November 1982 ballot referendum. However, then the democrats, led by Congressmen Philip Burton of San Francisco and Michael Burman{?} of Los Angeles, designed an even worse plan, without holding a hearing. The state legislator approved it, and on his last day in office, Governor Brown signed the measure. So distorted were the districts that republican Assemblyman Bill Thomas found that his extended from Death Valley, near Nevada, to Pismo Beach on the Pacific Ocean. Across the country this was a game both parties played. In California the democrats gained 10 new seats in the House of Representatives, although the voting gave them no such edge.

Gerrymandering is nothing new, but what is new and dangerous is that people are beginning to see the political process as hopeless. Whenever in history people lose faith in a political system there is trouble ahead. What people want from politics is justice, peace, and freedom. When politicians use the state machinery to churn out injustice, people lose faith in that form of government.

More and more people see our political process as morally bankrupt. Justice is not being served by our politicians, Congress votes itself tax breaks but adds 5,000 new agents to the Internal Revenue Service to after the people. Congress represents itself and the federal government more and more, and the people less and less.

We once had a free and happy republic, we now have a people distrusting their own political leaders and resenting them. This spells trouble, and Washington had better take heed

This has been R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.