From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome:

"Rome's history spans more than two and a half thousand years, since its founding in 753 BC, with the union of rural villages."

And:

"Beginning in the 2nd century BC, Rome went through a significant population expansion as Italian farmers, driven from their ancestral farmlands by the advent of massive, slave-operated farms called latifundia, flocked to the city in great numbers."

----------

Sounds something like the United States of America, doesn't it?

Neither the "rural villages" of Rome, or the "rural villages" of America - the ones that formed the two nations - were smart enough to see that, in order to remain free, Government needs to remain in the hands of the "rural villages." Even counties in America that have large populations need to be broken into smaller counties with each county given autonomy. Some counties with smaller populations probably should be combined.

State Governments should only have authority if neighboring counties cannot seem to agree on some issue. And then, the State authority should be very limited.

The same should be done with regard to the Federal Government. Fed Gov should regulate only the States when neighboring States have disputes that cannot be decided upon. Fed Gov authority should be extremely limited when acting with the States. Fed Gov's only MAIN job should be protecting the States from attacks by other countries.

Any agreements that States, counties, or individuals make with Fed Gov should NOT have any authority within the States except with regard to said State, county or individual carrying out the terms of the agreement. And if it is an individual that makes the agreement with Fed Gov, county supersedes that agreement if it is adversarial towards the individual. Fed Gov stays out of the States. If the individual doesn't like it, he can move out. All agreements between governing entities are effective only when ALL individuals are in agreement.

The point is, Government must remain with the "rural villages." This means that the people of the rural villages (the counties) need to know enough about Government so that they can DO IT.

Now, I know, the above is a very simplistic view, and it should be thought about deeply by thinkers and statesmen before being implemented. But the point is this, the rural villages were the ones that started the Governments. And they did it for their own benefit. If government doesn't remain with the rural villages, then they will lose the benefits of self-Government and freedom that they had worked so hard to achieve when they formed Government.

How does a rural village maintain the ability to govern themselves? It only works when the people know about Government. Any other way automatically decays from freedom into slavery.
 

I, for one, am tired of seeing people like PureTrust blame the victim. The concept that "we give scary powers to government and then we apply 'eternal vigilance' to make sure they don't abuse them" is an ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE model. You are asking a citizenry who have other jobs and other lives, and who lose money every minute they have to waste watching their government, to ride herd on a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats who go to work every day and draw a paycheck to sit behind a desk and discover ways to defeat such control. Distilled to its essentials, the idea is immediately and obviously ludicrous. People who have actual families to care for and bread to earn can NEVER pay enough attention to government to compete with people who are being paid with their tax money to devote their FULL time and attention to finding ways to circumvent the limits put on them. Not only does this not work now, it has NEVER worked. Witness the example of the Alien and Sedition Acts: BLANTANTLY unconstitutional, not all the "eternal vigilance" in the world among the freshly-minted citizens of our brand-new Republic was sufficient to get it repealed. These Acts had to practically die of old age before they could be repealed. Answer honestly: do you check your tire pressure and your auto fluids once a week? Check your tread monthly? Change your belts annually? Rotate your tires? I doubt it. Frankly, the only reason most of us remember to fill the gas tank is that the car stops within a day or two if we forget. The difference is, your car does not spend every waking moment chafing at your control of it and scheming at ways to neutralize you. The entire concept of representative, limited government is that you can delegate the work to someone else and largely forget it. That works as well for government as it does for self-defense, which is to say, not at all! Face the facts: it is time to admit to ourselves that the concept of a limited republic kept in check by a written constitution has been conclusively proven to be a FAILURE. It has never and can never successfully do what it was designed to do.

From http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/662

When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, he was approached by a Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia. It was then and there that she asked the now famous question, "Well, Doctor, what have we, a republic or a monarchy?" It is said that Dr. Franklin, without hesitation, said, "A Republic, ma'am, if you can keep it."

----------

A question is, was this the only time that such a question was asked of Ben Franklin? Was this the only time he answered the question in this way?

The problem isn't the form of Government. The problem is that people are too ignorant - ignorant in the sense that they lack knowledge, not in the sense that they are unable to learn. They don't understand what they have and how it works, its advantages, its limitations and its downsides.

People aren't unintelligent. They simply don't have knowledge. They are ignorant. Things seem to be flowing smoothly in life, so they don't take the time to learn... even though they have the ability to learn, if only they wanted.

We all have our lives to live. Whatever our vocation is, few of us have an interest in other vocations. Few of us have a vocation within Government, so few of us are interested in Government

If the Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia, back in 1787, was the exception, strict adherence to the Constitution might have lasted more than a year or two. We can see by how quickly portions of the Constitution were set aside by the governing people in the early Republic, that few people understood what the Republic was supposed to be like... or else they weren't serious about it right from the start.

Whatever we do, the importance of Government in our lives needs to be made know to all, especially the children.

Is there a place - Internet site - where we can go to see a step by step, point by point, explanation of the limitations placed on Government, as they are listed in the Constitution... and how they are being abused by Government people today?

Amen!  A lot of believers got a truth injection---and how do you undo the truth?  They won't be fooled again!  The power hungry elites don't and won't follow their rules---those rules are meant for the ruled, not for the rulers. Now pass over your wallet....