Posted on 03/23/2015 10:43:49 AM PDT by jazusamo
The Economist magazine recently published "What's gone wrong with Democracy ... and what can be done to revive it?" The suggestion is that democracy is some kind of ideal for organizing human conduct. That's a popular misconception.
The ideal way to organize human conduct is to create a system that maximizes personal liberty for all. Liberty and democracy are not synonymous and most often are opposites. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison explained, "Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." Democracy and majority rule confer an aura of legitimacy and respectability on acts that would otherwise be deemed tyrannical.
Let's look at majority rule, as a decision-making tool, and ask ourselves how many of our life choices we would like settled by majority rule. Would you want the kind of car you own to be decided through a democratic process, or would you prefer purchasing any car you please? Ask that same question about decisions such as where you shall live, what clothes you purchase, what food you eat, what entertainment you enjoy and what wines you drink. I'm sure that if anyone suggested that these choices be subject to a democratic process, we would deem it tyranny.
Our Founders saw democracy as a variant of tyranny. At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said, "...that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." John Adams said, "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."...
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
They started letting idiots vote.
What’s wrong with Democracy?
It’s a fancy word for mob rule.
Does he even know this Nation is a republic, not a democracy?
They started letting idiots vote.
____________________________________
Hey Now!
No slamming the 19th Amendment.
(ducking for cover)
Nothing. Democracy was always a failed system. Our nation wasn't founded as a Democracy, but was instead founded as a Republic. The problem with Democracy is that fools vote, whereas in a Republic, the rules are more stringent.
It is no accident that as the nation has come to more and more resemble a Democracy, that it has gone off the rails. Democracies always do.
The Voting franchise needs to be restricted to only those people who are paying the bills that government runs up. People voting while paying nothing, will always vote for whomever gives them the most goodies.
People paying for the goodies, will vote for those who minimize the goodies being paid out. One system is financially viable, the other is not, and will collapse.
Guess which one we're living in right now?
Democracy is a horrible idea to begin with, that why our Founding Fathers established a limited government republic and why voting in federal elections was limited only to property owners. I do see their wisdom more clearly with each passing day.
I believe Dr. Williams is fully aware of that, read the article.
He is right. If my neighbor came to me and told me to give him 40% or 50% of my income so he could live without working, I’d tell him to pound sand. If he tried to force me to, I would call the police and he would be arrested. But if a majority of my neighbors did so, I’d have to do it or I’d be arrested. Democracy does commit suicide once, as my tagline says, the people find they can vote themselves money.
Apparently you’re not particularly familiar with Walter Williams.
We’re not a democracy. My opinion of WW just went down 2 notches.
Then I guess we live in a democracy since our laws are whatever Obama and the Democrats say they are.
It lives up to its name..............
Too many found out that they could vote themselves gifts from the public treasury...
Democracy: Three rapists and two women voting on how to spend the afternoon.
Democracy:
3 wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner..............
.
> What’s Gone Wrong With Democracy?
Why nothing. Karl Marx considered democracy the first step to socialism and eventual communism.
The United States is NOT A DEMOCRACY. The United States is a Constitutional Republic.
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