There has always been, and probably always will be, a tension between consolidating power at the top and decentralizing power to the people.  Imperial powers yearn to expand their idea of an improved, common order with ever larger borders.  Empire building has been popular throughout history.  All empires eventually fell when they got too large, unwieldy and tyrannical.

Our Founding Fathers gave us a highly decentralized Republic with most power vested in the states and with the people.  The Founding Fathers wrote language into the Constitution to guard against loss of this sovereignty.  Most Americans hope to pass on to their children and grandchildren a better nation than our parents left us just as every previous generation was able to do.  That, in essence, is the American Dream.  However, sovereignty is being lost at all levels as power is shifted to Washington and world organizations outside the reach of the voter.  Americans are slowly losing control of our lives and our prosperity is slipping away.

One tires of confusing terms like Globalization, Post-Industrialism, and New World Order and on and on.  These ideas are all cut from the same cloth and come down to another attempt to put us all in one big “happy family” where everyone is content and all conflict is behind us.  These are attempts by powers that be to establish commonality with no borders, organized around a world-wide authority.

Some people in America think this is a wonderful idea since this worked so well within the 50 United States.  All of the sovereign states traded amongst themselves and brought prosperity and power to America the likes of which the world had never seen before.  This was done in a mere 200 year span of our nation’s existence.

What worked so well for the American states has been a disaster for the world as we try to overlay free market and free trade ideas onto a world that has none of the controlling factors that America has: a common language, a common currency, common laws, and consequences for deviations from those laws as well as common business ethics and morals.

For “free” markets and “free” trade to work they must be….you guessed it….free!

Today there isn’t a free market in sight and free trade exists only in textbooks.  Every nation intervenes, at an ever increasing rate, to influence outcomes or to counter another nation’s attempt to influence trade flows in their favor.

This New World Order has none of the controlling factors needed and as a result outcomes are out of control.  Rather than the most industrious and efficient succeeding, the most ruthless and deceitful do.  Like previous attempts to dominate the world, this one will fail as well.

This time the power trying to rule the world isn’t an individual nation.  It is trans-national corporations and financial institutions that want free reign to deploy their resources and exploit local labor forces wherever they see fit.

Consolidated power at the top (empire-building) never works as it runs counter to man’s nature.  Humans want to be as free as possible. They want local control.  They want to know their leaders by name and fire them when they get out of line.  The more that power is consolidated at the top, the more distant, disconnected and unresponsive our leaders become.

In the history of the world most empires were brought down with a lot of bloodshed and massive pain.  Power holders never want to give up any power.  Let’s hope that when this current regime is brought down there will be no bloodshed, but only financial pain the whole world is now getting a taste of now.

Decentralized power and authority – local control – created the American Dream.  However, “globalization” is the order of the day – remote control.  We have all heard of the worst cases — Greece, Portugal, Spain, Scotland, etc.  Globalization is rapidly consolidating wealth at the top and virtually every nation’s middle class and economy is shrinking.

The results have been opposite of the American miracle of the last 200 years.  Nations are printing money at alarming rates to keep their economies afloat.  We all know this will not end well.  The world needs drastic changes and no nation is capable of leading us out of this mess except America.

We need to elect leaders who will restore lost national sovereignty and return power to the states and people.  Empirical evidence shows that local control produces national prosperity and centralized power produces wealth at the top while destroying the middle class and creating poverty for everyone else.

Local control worked for America once and can do so again.  It is up to us, an informed electorate, to make this happen.

Frank Shannon served in the U.S. Army, was an engineering/operations manager for AT&T for 27 years, was the owner of a small manufacturing business for 23 years, served as Colorado Chair of the Coalition for a Prosperous America and moved to Mesquite in 2013.