I'm slowly plowing through a 1970 book on Alexander Hamilton by Gerald Stourzh. This morning a page jumped out at me, for it elaborated on the importance of first principles to republics. Beginning with Aristotle and on to Machiavelli, Coke, Algernon Sidney, Trenchard, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, . . . all wrote at length on the importance of endless repetition of first principles to keep republics vibrant and protective of their rights.
Over these past hundred years, the left has expertly replaced our first principle, securing our unalienable rights, with a bumper sticker slogan, democracy. I wager 95% of Americans think our founding principle is majority rule.
“Over these past hundred years, the left has expertly replaced our first principle, securing our unalienable rights, with a bumper sticker slogan, democracy. I wager 95% of Americans think our founding principle is majority rule.”
That was another reason I wrote the book, to dispel this idea of “democracy.” Democracy has come to mean self-government. And while it is true that the people govern themselves in a democracy, democracies have quickly descended to anarchy and tyranny, because there was no opposing power.
The United States is democratic, because the people choose the members of the legislatures, and the legislatures in general govern themselves by majority rule, but it is not a democracy. There’s a difference, which I do my best to explain.