Posted on 02/09/2020 4:37:36 PM PST by BulletBobCo
During President Donald J. Trump's impeachment trial, we'll hear a lot of talk about our rules for governing. One frequent claim is that our nation is a democracy. If we've become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in our nation's two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The founders laid the ground rules for a republic as written in the Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, which guarantees "to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."
John Adams captured the essence of the difference between a democracy and republic when he said, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." Contrast the framers' vision of a republic with that of a democracy. In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead of the government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.
Here are a few quotations that demonstrate the contempt that our founders held for a democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, wrote that in a pure democracy, "there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual."
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." Alexander Hamilton agreed, saying: "We are now forming a republican government. (Liberty) is found not in "the extremes of democracy but in moderate governments. ... If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy."
John Adams reminded us: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
John Marshall, the highly respected fourth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court observed, "Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."
Thomas Paine said, "A Democracy is the vilest form of Government there is."
The framers gave us a Constitution replete with undemocratic mechanisms. One constitutional provision that has come in for recent criticism is the Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College as a means of deciding presidential elections. That means heavily populated states can't run roughshod over small, less-populated states.
Were we to choose the president and vice president under a popular vote, the outcome of presidential races would always be decided by a few highly populated states, namely California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which contain 134.3 million people, or 41% of our population. Presidential candidates could safely ignore the interests of the citizens of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Delaware. Why? They have only 5.58 million Americans, or 1.7% of the U.S. population. We would no longer be a government "of the people." Instead, our government would be put in power by and accountable to the leaders and citizens of a few highly populated states. It would be the kind of tyranny the framers feared.
It's Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties. The framers' distrust is seen in the negative language of our Bill of Rights such as: Congress "shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall not be violated, nor be denied." When we die and if at our next destination we see anything like a Bill of Rights, we know that we're in hell because a Bill of Rights in heaven would suggest that God couldn't be trusted.
Failures to communicate like this are the reason so many millenials think only socialismm is democracy.
Democracy in America by Alexis de Touqueville clarified the difference between Democracry in a government, which Walter Williams discusses and Democracy in Society which Walter Williams unfortunately does not give sufficient attention in this article.
Without that balance, communication fails.
The US has a near direct democracy in society. We vote where to live, where to work, where to worship, where to play, where to buy, big box, ma-n-pa or designer boutique. With direct democracy we vote what to buy, foreign or domestic, or to save and not buy.
In direct democracy everyone has vote, children, non-citizens, illegals, unregistered, almost everyone except those doing time in prison.
Half of America does not vote for politicians in the government. Half of us who do vote see America as the society, not the government. The government is just a small pimple on the American body.
Everything is spot on. I would add also that political parties are also an institution that kills this country.
"Oh sure, you can have witnesses," said the Democrats to the Republicans and the President, "but only by our approval." "And it's not true that the President's counsel isn't allowed to question witnesses," said the Democrats to the Republicans and the President, "except in the hearings conducted by the Intelligence Committee where we're developing the basis for impeachment in secret testimony we control and selectively leak."
Bkmark
Very good article.
Proof positive that direct democracy doesn’t work...
Americans forced to endure the pains of Obamacare, where the majority democrats voted for the bill, while ALL REPUBLICANS voted against it.
Another example: Majority democrats voted to impeach president Trump, while ALL REPUBLICANS voted against impeachment.
Every Republican that refers to us as a democracy is a RINO.
Every morning in elementary school, first thing, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance — “...and to the republic for which it stands...”
Our pubic schools eliminated the practice, for a reason...
Walter Williams is great. Just great.
It’s interesting that all the politicians who swore and oath to the Constitution never read it. Furthermore, very few ever paid any attention to the words in the Pledge of Allegiance to our Flag.
Nope! Not entirely.
In many things, but you forgot the electoral college.
When it comes to the highest most important office in the land, a vote under a Democracy would only count the popular vote and be done with it.
1. The US is a republic and not a democracy
2. The democrats are the real racists
3. Social Security is an unconstitutional federal power grab
4. Medicare is an unconstitutional federal power grab
5. The word "welfare" in the constitution doesn't justify federal welfare programs
6. The word "militia" in the second amendment has nothing to do with the National Guard
7. Social Security, as it is currently run, is a Ponzi Scheme
8. Whatever right to privacy exists in the constitution does not extend to allowing women to privately contract assassins to kill their unborn
9. There will never be a sufficient number of people willing to vote for a truly libertarian society. Opening the border will only make it less likely.
10. There are only two sexes. The vast majority of people have genders and sexual orientations that match their sex. Organizing society around the rare exceptions is a recipe for disaster.
We are a Constitutional Republic.
Where is our representation laid out?
Is it in the Constitution?
One comes before the other.
See reply 32.
The Founders only allowed taxpayers to vote; back in the day that was property owners. Here in NJ, women and blacks could vote from the start, providing they met the requirements; in 1807, it was rolled back to include only white men who paid taxes.
Hence the “Constitutionally mandated”.
It’s a “democratically elected representative republic” of which is directed constitutionally to follow certain “mandates” one of which is the “electoral college”.
Yep - like I read on FR many many moons ago, “A Democracy is 2 foxes and a chicken voting on what to have for dinner.”.
In a Democracy, 50.1% can vote to enslave or kill the other 49.9%. That’s why rule of law is so important.
We don’t teach this in public schools.
By whatever name, of which I prefer “democratic republic,” and Mark Levin uses “post-constitutional republic,” the 17th Amendment fundamentally changed the federal/state relationship, for practical purposes repealed the 10th Amendment, and set the stage for a hundred years of increasingly “progressive” congressional laws and judicial decisions from a Scotus that recognizes no limits.
Whatever we have, it’s a long way from what the Framers bequeathed.
To even possibly return to Constitutional order, the 17th must go.
“We don’t teach this in public schools.”
Public (government) schools went leftist/progressive many decades ago. Began with John Dewey in the 1910’s.
Then, The Frankfurt School (of cultural Marxism) adherents infested education in the 1950’s (Columbia U became their US HQ), while CPUSA infested our colleges. They brought us Sensitivity Training and Consensus-Building.
Frankfurt School minions also infested unions, Hollywood, the D’rat Party and our MSM.
The NEA went hard left in the 1960’s, discontinuing their publishing and distribution of The American Citizens Handbook in the late 1960’s and burying the remaining 10,000 copies in a NY landfill.
http://www.shipofstate.com/books/AmericanCitizensHandbook/AmericanCitizensHandbook.htm
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