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To: Architect
I think it was de Tocqueville (or was it Samuel Johnson?) who said that a "democracy can only exist until the voters realize they can vote themselves the contents of the treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy collapses over loose fiscal policy...followed by a dictatorship." There is something to be said for this view. I am not blind to the pitfalls for democracy, but as many have said before me, I consider constitutional democracy the best option among several flawed choices.

Certainly I don't believe that Hoppe's idea of thousands of feudal despotisms bound by loose ties is an improvement. On the contrary, bloodshed and strife would increase.

59 posted on 11/12/2001 1:24:25 PM PST by beckett
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To: beckett
Actually, if you read the US Constitution, you'll find that the word "democracy" doesn't appear once in the text. The habit of referring to our form of government as a democracy was started by Marxists. Marx said that democracy was the necessary precursor to socialism. Socialism is of course the necessary precursor for communism.

Our electoral process wasn't designed to be democratic, either. The 15th amendment started the process toward democratization of the electoral process. The 17th amendment furthered it, and now there's a push to abolish the electoral college. Democracy is a very bad form of government, and it's one which was generally despised among the framers of the Constitution. Going by the text of that document, there is no "constitutional democracy" in the US.

79 posted on 11/12/2001 4:13:21 PM PST by Twodees
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To: beckett
We constantly hear the phrase "one size fits all", but that is the fate and the curse of large centralized government. The answer is many smaller independent political entities, with enough variation to suit many people. A not inconsiderable positive of that, had the present United State been divided into two or more such independent "political entities", those would have been no less capable of uniting for common defense if threatened from abroad, but would have been much less likely, through the arrogance resulting from "super-power" status to bring down on our country attacks such as those of Sept. 11.

By the way, even the Lander (there should be an umlaut on the "a") of the Federal Republic of Germany have more independence than our states. I was recently reading a German gun magazine. In Germany, as here, there is excessive legislation concerning sem-automatic rifles. I think there the legislation is a little less irrational i that it doesn't focus on illegalizing features that are simply cosmetic. Letter writers to the magazine complined however about the variation of rules from Land to Land, features permitted in one not being permitted in another. The point is the regulations are not federalm but on a state by state basis. Of course in other aspects of gun law, maybe more important ones, we have very considerable state variation. I used to think Pennsylvania was fairly liberal (in the good sense of the word) in iyt s gun laws. Then I moved to Lousiana.

82 posted on 11/12/2001 4:39:34 PM PST by Aurelius
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To: beckett
I consider constitutional democracy the best option among several flawed choices.

The notion of constitutional democracy is a chimera. In fact, a written constitution is probably worse than an unwritten one. Certainly the Canadian would appear indicate this. When the country obtained a bill of rights in 1982, the courts promptly used it to justify all kinds of PC garbage, much of which contradicted the plain wording of the law. Previous to that, the courts restricted judgements to deciding whether the federal or provincial governments had jurisdiction over a particular area.

It took much longer for the US to turn its constitution into a tool to expand government, rather than to restrain but it eventually happened. As it did all over the world.

Constitutions simply allow the elite to impose their will without any restraint whatsoever and without any mechanism to repeal what they have done.

Democracy itself is not really about majority rule. It is rather a process of gradual accretion of political favors to individual groups at the expense of the general polity. It eventually suffocates itself. Eventually everyone is stealing from everyone else and no one is producing anything.

The only reason why the West hasn't already destroyed itself is because the advance of technology has provided additional spoils to be distributed among the interest groups.

94 posted on 11/13/2001 6:03:33 AM PST by Architect
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