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?
What if you read the article again and again until you get it?
And that is exactly what he did.
True, which is why there is no downside to calling for an Article V state convention to propose structural amendments to our constitution.
We KNOW democracy is bad for personal freedom, tyranny of the majority, which is exactly why America was designed as a republic.
When I was in school 70 years ago we were taught that democracy was the worst form of government!
we are, or were, Constitutional Republic and never intended to be a democracy.
Comrade, why do you worry?
Pass the Wodka.
Of course there is a down side.
The State feels its power slipping away, an Article V convention would be used as a method to try to re-centralize the power.
If we have said convention, there will be no First, Second, or Fifth amendment. The State has been trying to dissolve those for decades (though old political theory says that free speech, armed citizens, and the State not being able to lock up whomever they want is a bad thing).
Those Conventions would be hijacked as soon as they are called, if the movement is not being manipulated right now.
I do get it. Perhaps the Judge is afraid to state his accusations directly. After all, he did lose the Fox gig for poking at the tyrants.
I suspect my legislature is typical of the other 56, minus CA, IL, NY(?). It is a part time gig, in session for three months. Most reps are independent business people and know very well of the heavy DC hand. My rep is a nurseryman, 1,000 acres under cultivation and 150 employees. He doesn't need the added time burden required to be a rep.
I'm saying we shouldn't equate state pubbies and democrats with their pompous, tyrannical cousins in DC.
Article V is the only peaceful means we have. Let's use it.
BUMP
Sounds like a Uniparty Ping to me
What if I live in California?
What if I voted to bury the abomination of
“same-sex marriage.”
What if, in order to keep the people loving
sin more than God, the arbiters of what is
lawful ruled my law to be unlawful?
What if these few people used an unsound legal
technicality to overturn my law?
What if the people then started to make believe
that any two people is a marriage?
What if the social bedrock of my society was
completely eroded by this mockery?
What if my son was raised in a society in which
I was called a hater for loving goodness?
What if my son started to hate God’s guidance
too?
What if the entire future generation was
successfully transformed into a culture
that hated God’s values?
What if an entire country was brought
down by this process?
The left does not need an Article V convention to succeed in the mischief you describe, they are doing it every day and you and I are powerless to stop them apart from an Article V convention.
Ok, so an Article V convention is held. All the states meet, hold a convention, and present terms.
Who is going to draw up the final document? Who is going to sit in meetings and hammer things out?
Your rep, who has a buisnees to run? Mine, who has a large farm? It will be handed to the political “class” and we will wake up with a mess.
I live in Iowa right now. With the Hawk eye Cauci, (as Rush likes to call it) we have a supposed good chance to influence the selection of a presidential candidate.
On paper at least. In actuality, it becomes managed by the Party (GOP or Dem) and the local votes don’t really matter. Only who counts and reports the votes. Last time, it was reported that Romney won by a good margin, when Santorum had. If it wasn’t for the Ron Paul supporters, that would have never been reported.
So what did the GOP do? Change the rules so you don’t get to be present at the counting. Only the party reps can.
When you have corruption like that, there is little hope for change inside the system.
The other peaceful path is what is happening. The Fedgov is so weak, they can not proejct power anymore
Why do you think that democracy is wrong?
According to Merriam Webster dictionary the full definition of democracy is:
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States 4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
We are a democratic Republic
The two aren't mutually exclusive. All "republic" means is that we aren't ruled by a hereditary monarchy. "Constutional" means that there's an official document organizing the government. And "democracy" means "rule by the people"--which I think is a better description of what the founders intended than, say, an oligarchy, kritarchy or noocracy.
That is the purpose of the Second Amendment. Clean house and start over.
Ding-ding-ding we have a winner folks!
You have had to go out of your way this past year to not be familiar with the state amendment process.
States will send delegates with commissions. Commissions set out in precise terms what the delegate may propose and accede to. Delegates are the equivalent of agents with power of attorney to carry out certain duties and no more. The commissions of Indiana and IIRC, Florida include the caveat that if a delegate oversteps his bounds, the state declares his action null and void. In addition, these trusted men or women will face felony charges should they attempt such shenanigans.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on a dinner menu. We have a Republic, "If we can keep it".
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