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What If Democracy Is a Fraud?
Townhall.com ^ | July 24, 2014 | Judge Andrew Napolitano

Posted on 07/24/2014 10:52:49 AM PDT by Kaslin

What if you were allowed to vote only because it didn't make a difference? What if no matter how you voted the elites always got their way? What if the concept of one person/one vote was just a fiction created by the government to induce your compliance?

What if democracy as it has come to exist in America today is dangerous to personal freedom? What if our so-called democracy erodes the people's understanding of natural rights and the reasons for government and instead turns political campaigns into beauty contests? What if American democracy allows the government to do anything it wants, as long as more people bother to show up at the voting booth to support the government than show up to say no?

What if the purpose of contemporary democracy has been to convince people that they could prosper not through the voluntary creation of wealth but through theft from others? What if the only moral way to acquire wealth is through voluntary economic activity? What if the government persuaded the people that they could acquire wealth through political activity? What if economic activity includes all the productive and peaceful things we voluntarily do? What if political activity includes all the parasitical and destructive things the government does? What if the government has never created wealth? What if everything the government owns it has stolen?

What if governments were originally established to protect people's freedoms but always turn into political and imperialist enterprises that seek to expand their power, increase their territory and heighten their control of the population? What if the idea that we need a government to take care of us is a fiction perpetrated to increase the size of government? What if our strength as individuals and durability as a culture are contingent not on the strength of the government but on the amount of freedom we have from the government?

What if the fatal cocktail of big government and democracy ultimately produces dependency? What if so-called democratic government, once it grows to a certain size, begins to soften and weaken the people? What if big government destroys people's motivations and democracy convinces them that the only motivation they need is to vote and go along with the results?

What if Congress isn't actually as democratic as it appears? What if congressional elections don't square with congressional legislation because the polls aren't what counts, but what counts are the secret meetings that come after the voting? What if the monster Joe Stalin was right when he said the most powerful person in the world is the guy who counts the votes? What if the vote counting that really counts takes place in secret? What if that's how we lost our republic?

What if the problem with democracy is that the majority thinks it can right any wrong, write any law, tax any event, regulate any behavior and acquire any thing it wants? What if the greatest tyrant in history lives among us? What if that tyrant always gets its way, no matter what the laws are or what the Constitution says? What if that tyrant is the majority of voters? What if the majority in a democracy recognizes no limits on its power?

What if the government misinforms voters so they will justify anything the government wants to do? What if the government bribes people with the money it prints? What if it gives entitlements to the poor and tax breaks to the middle class and bailouts to the rich just to keep everyone dependent on it? What if a vibrant republic requires not just the democratic process of voting, but also informed and engaged voters who understand first principles of human existence, including the divine origin and inalienable individual possession of natural rights?

What if we could free ourselves from the yoke of big government through a return to first principles? What if the establishment doesn't want this? What if the government remains the same no matter who wins elections? What if we have only one political party -- the Big Government Party -- and it has a Democratic wing and a Republican wing? What if both wings want war and taxes and welfare and perpetual government growth, but offer only slightly different menus on how to achieve them? What if the Big Government Party enacted laws to make it impossible for meaningful political competition to thrive?

What if the late progressive Edmund S. Morgan was right when he said that government depends on make believe? What if our ancestors made believe that the king was divine? What if they made believe that he could do no wrong? What if they made believe that the voice of the king was the voice of God?

What if the government believes in make believe? What if it made believe that the people have a voice? What if it made believe that the representatives of the people are the people? What if it made believe that the governors are the servants of the people? What if it made believe that all men are created equal, or that they are not?

What if the government made believe that it is always right? What if it made believe that the majority can do no wrong? What if the tyranny of the majority is as destructive to human freedom as the tyranny of a madman? What if the government knows this?

What do we do about it?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: congress; democracy; legislation; napolitano; uniparty
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1 posted on 07/24/2014 10:52:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Depends on HOW BIG the goverrnment is and what restrictions are placed on the government when it is setup...

If a Democracy is setup wrong it will quickly slide into a totalitarianism regime.

If it is setup as a method of selecting leaders in a Republic it will take longer to slide...


2 posted on 07/24/2014 10:55:09 AM PDT by GraceG (No, My Initials are not A.B.)
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To: Kaslin

Lotta what its.


3 posted on 07/24/2014 10:55:42 AM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (It's a shame nobama truly doesn't care about any of this. Our country, our future, he doesn't care)
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To: Kaslin
What if Judge Andrew Napolitano actually would make a statement if he has something to say?
4 posted on 07/24/2014 10:55:59 AM PDT by meadsjn
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To: Kaslin

“What do we do about it?For most people it will be get another cold one from the fridge and turn on ESPN.Some people may go hunting.


5 posted on 07/24/2014 10:57:03 AM PDT by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: Kaslin

Here is one solution.

All laws and regulations not put in the consitution have an expiration date no greater than 24 years.

So any bill in congress will expire in 24 years or less depending on how long they were approved for and have to be voted on again.

This ensures that the crappy regulations will have to die at some point.

Maybe even settign the expiration to less than 24 years, maybe 12 years (two terms of a senator) and term limit the people in power as well...


6 posted on 07/24/2014 10:57:57 AM PDT by GraceG (No, My Initials are not A.B.)
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To: Kaslin

What if....???

CW-II, that’s what if if what if.


7 posted on 07/24/2014 10:58:18 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: meadsjn
Questions are statements. How is it that you did not know that?

See what I did there? :)
8 posted on 07/24/2014 10:58:44 AM PDT by Tzfat
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To: GraceG

Where you have a one-party setup, whether de jure or de facto, then no republic can stand. The Uniparty of the Democrats and the GOP-e mimics one-party states precisely, as does the European Union with its pretense of multi-party parliamentary “democracy”—but the EU never pretended to have separation of powers, though.


9 posted on 07/24/2014 11:00:38 AM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: meadsjn

[ What if Judge Andrew Napolitano actually would make a statement if he has something to say? ]

What if the Judge is asking questions as a way of making us think?


10 posted on 07/24/2014 11:01:05 AM PDT by GraceG (No, My Initials are not A.B.)
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To: Tzfat

This article is written in the format of one of the Judge’s Segments when he had his Show on Fox Business.

It is a Rhetorical Question type segment that is actually quite clever because it asks questions they you fill in with your own mind and it leads you come to the same conclusion the questioner has already come to.


11 posted on 07/24/2014 11:04:20 AM PDT by GraceG (No, My Initials are not A.B.)
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To: Kaslin

Democracy is wrong.

That’s why our Founding Fathers set up a limited government constitutional republic.

They knew mob rule would bankrupt the country.

And they were right.


12 posted on 07/24/2014 11:04:43 AM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: Kaslin

We are at the end of the slide. We will either choose to lay in the sand or make the long climb back to the top. Most will choose the sand.


13 posted on 07/24/2014 11:06:36 AM PDT by Starstruck (If my reply offends, you probably don't understand sarcasm or criticism...or do.)
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To: Olog-hai

Any discussion about how “Gridlock is bad” is basically saying that robust discussion and how disagreement is a bad thing is the New Speak of Neo-Tyrants....

If everyone in government agrees it is a bad day when they start discussing ways to take things away from the citizens because they will ALL agree to do so....

It is like how a majority of politicians think amnesty is a great thing, but the majority of the populace disagree.....

If there is no gridlock on the decision to cut the collective citizen’s throats it is soon a tyranny.


14 posted on 07/24/2014 11:08:01 AM PDT by GraceG (No, My Initials are not A.B.)
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To: Kaslin

At the end of the day, power gets over concentrated till there is a reaction. After the reaction, the State fails as smaller units of power devour it.

Soon, those small units will band together in order to fight and consume other units till you have a State again.

This is history. The outward forms typically don’t matter.

We are on the downswing, and heading (I believe) to a “dark” age.


15 posted on 07/24/2014 11:10:19 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: Kaslin

+1


16 posted on 07/24/2014 11:10:24 AM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion ( "I didn't leave the Central Oligarchy Party. It left me." - Ronaldus Maximus)
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To: Starstruck
Thomas Paine is flipping in his grave!


17 posted on 07/24/2014 11:10:50 AM PDT by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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BFL


18 posted on 07/24/2014 11:14:00 AM PDT by RckyRaCoCo (Shall Not Be Infringed)
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To: GraceG
<>What if the Judge is asking questions as a way of making us think? <>

I wished he used the term "republic" rather than "democracy."

What if we could free ourselves from the yoke of big government through a return to First Principles?"

19 posted on 07/24/2014 11:14:51 AM PDT by Jacquerie (Article V. If not now, when?)
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To: GraceG

Democracies don’t work!!!

Only a Constitutional Republic works!


20 posted on 07/24/2014 11:14:58 AM PDT by tallyhoe
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