THE HYPOCRISY OF DEMOCRACY
By Gordon PhillipsIn a democracy, voters live under the illusion of self-rule. But how can one rule himself when he is continually voting away his rights and property to others? Or when others are continuously stripping away his own rights and property?
Freedom is impossible without private property, yet most Americans have been brainwashed by government-credentialed institutions to believe (not think) that mass acceptance of democracy equals freedom, resulting in the majority selling its birthright of liberty (rights and property) for a bowl of porridge (Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, free cheese).
We have devolved from eagles into lemmings in just eleven generations. Democracy shares many characteristics with its more outwardly totalitarian equivalents, including 'public education' (translate: government mind conditioning) of those children who survive abortion. Yet Socialism is no less tyrannical when viewed as government benevolence by numbed, compliant minds.
Simple equality before the written law has been replaced with mandated equality of outcome in every area of life, proving to the global elite that it is possible to homogenize and re-educate (condition) an entire nation to think in terms of forced sameness (democracy) as freedom.
The following is reproduced from a chapter titled 'Republic vs. Democracy' from my book, 'Losing Your Illusions':
Most adult Americans living today started out each school day as young children by pledging allegiance to the flag '... and to the Republic for which it stands.' Can you imagine pledging '.. and to the Democracy for which it stands?'
Yet President Clinton and most of our elected politicians keep referring to America as a 'Democracy.' No doubt this is because they weren't taught the difference under government-funded, outcome-based public 'education.' And their parents and teachers probably weren't taught the difference either.
The Founders knew the difference, however.
James Madison warned: 'Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.'
Alexander F. Tyler stated: 'A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the treasury with the result that democracies always collapse over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship.'
Fisher Ames stated: 'Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.'
Samuel Adams stated: 'Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes itself, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.'
As Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, he
was asked by an onlooker what form of government he and his countrymen had created during the first and to date, only constitutional convention. His answer: 'A Republic, if you can keep it.'
The Founders understood that there is a spectrum of Liberty that spans a gradient from anarchy, which is 0% government and 100% Liberty, to totalitarianism, which is 100% government and 0% Liberty. On this scale, Democracy is past the center and heading towards increasing government and Socialism. A little further past Socialism and you reach Fascism and then true totalitarianism -- 100% government and zero individual Liberty.
Bear in mind that not all republics have a written constitution. Remember the USSR -- the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic? A constitutionally limited republic, with restrictions that properly limit government, provides for the protection of life and property yet still preserves individual liberty.
Many in America today already view our present government as Democratic Socialism, just a step away from the pure Socialism practiced in countries such as Sweden. Many of today's alert students of recent history see numerous, uncanny parallels between Germany in the 1930's and America in the 1990's.
Good government is based on the collective right of self-defense where each Citizen is in the law enforcement business and stands as an armed shield against government tyranny.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote: 'Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.'
Our Founders designed America as a constitutional Republic under the rule of written Law, not a Democracy under the rule of opinion or public policy guidelines. A vast ocean of difference separates the two forms of government.
As students of history, the Founders knew that democracies always degenerate into favoritism, special interest groups, mob rule, and, ultimately, tyranny due to a majority of the uninformed public consistently and predictably voting to reelect those politicians who would guarantee them the redistribution of public wealth.
They knew that a Republic protects minority individuals against a malicious and willful majority. A perfect, if somewhat cynical, definition of a Democracy is two ravenous wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for breakfast.
Explaining the disaster that a Democracy can become, Karl Marx, known as the 'Father of Communism' and himself a student of political science, stated: 'Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury and bankrupt the nation.'
Even our military command knows the difference. The United States Army training manual number 2000-25, dated November 20, 1928 states in defining a Democracy:
'A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meetings or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude towards property is communistic; negative property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation of the governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse without restraint; or regard to consequences. It results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.'
This same 1928 Army training manual had the following to say about a Republic: 'Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights and economic procedure. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. Avoids the dangerous extreme of tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. It is the 'standard form' of government.'
So apparently, our military does understand the advantages of representative, republican form of government over raw democracy. A constitutional Republic, vigilantly guarded by an informed and enlightened electorate and represented not by politicians, but by statesmen who would tirelessly defend Liberty and Property, stands a fighting chance of not deteriorating into a Democracy.
Remember this the next time a TV newsreader extols the virtue of the recent imposition of Democracy in some emerging nation, or a public figure wants to pick your pocket to make the world 'safe for Democracy.' Under a Democracy, one can appear to be free but can never truly be at Liberty as under a Republic.
Always keep in mind that the perfect slave is one who believes he is free.
Under a Democracy, we apparently need bureaucratic swarms of self-annointed responsibility consultants to decide what is in the public's best interest to read, view, inhale, ingest, inject, etc.
Under a condition of true Liberty, however, a medical practitioner could hang a sign on his door exclaiming: 'Quack! Come On In And I'll Remove Your Appendix!' Since the public would be expected to be responsible for their own actions, there would be no need for bureaucrats, agencies, regulations, and licensing to protect them; since they could choose not to patronize the quack simply by voting with their feet.
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The Journal of History - Winter 2008 Copyright © 2008 by News Source, Inc.