Posted on 07/17/2021 3:41:29 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The global pandemic, the ongoing cultural revolution, and the divisive politics of the 2020 election have revealed the extent to which the American republic has trended toward oligarchy.
Throughout the pandemic, federal and state officials have determined which businesses would close, which would stay open, who must wear masks, and where they must wear them. Our ruling class decided what gatherings were permissible and what gatherings were impermissible. Our governmental and medical elites decided what drugs our doctors could prescribe for us and what drugs they could not. And they have made clear that the unvaccinated population will have fewer rights and freedoms than the vaccinated.
On the cultural revolution front, the American ruling elite has normalized transgenderism in schools, athletics, and prisons, including allowing male inmates who identify as females to be housed at women's prisons. Our leaders have punished some rioters and left others unpunished, depending on the political motives of the rioters. School administrators have forced Critical Race Theory upon our public school students, regardless of the protests of parents.
Meanwhile, our Big Tech elites continue to censor political and cultural viewpoints they deem "false" or "harmful." Rudy Giuliani, the principal lawyer who represented former president Donald Trump in his election challenges, has been suspended by the New York and D.C. bars. Trump partisans who opine that there were irregularities in the 2020 election have been repeatedly censored on social media platforms. Members of our journalistic elite have openly called for Trump partisans to be jailed or to leave the country.
Our ruling elite continues to take down historical statues and rename schools and parks. The latest statues to be taken down include the explorers Lewis and Clark, Confederate general Robert E. Lee, and progressive president Theodore Roosevelt (who apparently is not progressive enough).
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.” ~ George Orwell
No, it’s not “worth it.”
We've reached that point...in fact,we're far beyond it. I must confess that I'm glad that I'm a lot closer to the grave than to the cradle.
“Democracy” is a word with multiple meanings, depending upon whom you ask. It is not “North Korea”, but the “Democratic Republic of Korea”, and it was the “Democratic Republic of Germany”, not “East Germany”.
Odd both of them turned out to be some starkly militaristic Communist dictatorships.
Democracy is never worth it. Especially for the sheep.
America is a republic. Anyone calling us a democracy is at least ignorant, at worst an anti-American subservise.
Constitution of the United States of America, Section 4:
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
A 10 minute video primer on types of governments:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jJEuZrvNYg0
Democracy will by its very nature, be a living hell for up to 49% of its people. In a state where, “majority rules,” is the only means of deciding an issue, what’s to stop the poorest 51% from voting to take 100% of the wealth of the “richest” 49%?
I’m not seeing where the author answers his own weak question.
It deserves to be read twice!
However, he then goes on to say that the polling booth is our hope.
Oh well, hope springs eternal I guess.
17th Amendment destroyed the Republic as founded...
I favor CS Lewis’s view on Democracy (as broadly defined not necessarily a pure democracy). I favor it not because people are so virtuous that they all should be given a hand in government, but because people are so corruptible that their hand in government must be limited.
It may be that Mosca and Michels are right and "democracy" doesn't exist in the modern world, but we do need words that distinguish systems with some public accountability and some freedom from authoritarian and totalitarian systems. We also need to understand the changes that our system has gone through over time. We're right in thinking that the Founders and Framers would be appalled by the current situation, but they would also have been appalled by 19th century America.
Those who have money, connections and who are willing to put in the effort rise to control institutions and governments. That’s unavoidable, but the author may not be wrong in seeing a way around it. The “circulation of elites” means that elites are constantly changing, adding new members and groups as others fall away. It could also refer to the repudiation of one elite at the ballot box and replacement with another, couldn’t it? We don’t escape from elites and oligarchs, but we may have some control over which ones govern us, so long as our votes actually do count and are counted.
1) How fair are elections if the electorate is increasingly composed of recent immigrants who don't share the values that defined America at its founding? And how fair are elections if the electorate is submerged in propaganda funded by the current set of wealthy elites?
2) How do we break free of this cycle if we are not allowed to say that democracy is a scam? One good thing about an open monarchy is that the populace knows where the buck stops. With the current hidden oligarchy we are supposed to blame Biden if things go wrong. Just like we were supposed to blame Trump even though he was never allowed to be completely in charge.
If we ever get to a situation where journalists are allowed to tell the American people that democracy is, and has always been, a scam then we may be getting somewhere. If everyone realizes that democracy is not about the people telling government what to do, but the people choosing the next set of elites to tell us what to do, then there is hope.
Then people will be more careful about which elites they choose. Maybe having gone to Yale or Harvard will now be considered a black mark rather than a hallmark of good leadership qualities.
No Democracy isn’t worth it. A constitutional republic is.
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Ben Franklin said you have a republic now if you can keep it. Looks like it is vanishing.
“Democracy through our republic is definitely worth it.”
Ya lost me there...
The Enlightenment ideals you speak of were formulated early on. Since then the Enlightenment continued forward to give us Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, Rawls, Dewey, Rorty, etc. I guess you can pick and choose which Enlightenment thinkers you believe, but the progressives have chosen other philosophers to follow. The Enlightenment didn’t stop in the 1700’s but continues to this day for good and ill. The Enlightenment is a Pandora’s box. It gave us the Apollo missions and mustard gas.
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