Do We Want Democracy?

What's so good about democracy -- generally understood as having trust in the general will of a democratic people, as expressed by a vote of the majority, to make all important decisions? If a majority of our 535 congressmen votes for one measure or another, is that all right with you?

You say: "What's the story, Williams? Is there a better method of making important decisions?" I say yes, but let's first decide whether we'd really like majority rule as a criterion for making important decisions.

Suppose you're making the important decision to marry. Would you like the decision about whom you marry to be made through a democratic procedure where what the majority of Americans think determines whom you marry? How about using the democratic process to decide what we have for Thanksgiving dinner? Majority rule determines whether everyone has turkey, or ham, or duck, or capon. Once the vote is taken and, say, turkey wins, everyone is obliged to serve turkey.

You say, "C'mon Williams, when people say they're for democracy, they don't mean private decisions!" You're probably right. Indeed, if democratic procedures were applied to those private areas of our lives, we'd see it as nothing less than tyranny. That's one important problem with democracy: It creates an aura of moral legitimacy for acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny.

That's precisely why our Founders thought a Bill of Rights was a crucial protection. Thomas Jefferson said, "The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society." So we should ask what life decisions should and should not be made through the political process.

Should a democratic process determine how much I put aside out of my weekly earnings for food? What about housing? What about for my daughter's education? You say, "Williams, that's your business and none other." Then I ask why it isn't also my business how much of my weekly earnings is set aside for retirement. In our country, how much is set aside for retirement is, as Jefferson might put it, criminally determined by Congress through Social Security laws.

Democracy was viewed with disgust by most of the nation's founders. Alexander Hamilton said: "We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship."

In Federalist Paper 10, arguing for a constitutional republic, James Madison said, "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

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."

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall said, "Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."

The observation about democracy that I like best was that of H.L. Mencken: "Democracy is a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."

When the Founders thought of democracy, they saw democracy in the political sphere -- a sphere strictly limited by the Constitution's well-defined and enumerated powers given the federal government. Substituting democratic decision-making for what should be private decision-making is nothing less than tyranny dressed up.

I don't. Nose-counting is a poor way to govern a country. As a monarchist, I believe that some people -- monarchs -- are anointed by God to rule over other people.

The Kingdom of God is a monarchy, not a republic; monarchy is the only form of government instituted by God. Democracy -- the idea that 51% of the Mob somehow magically possesses the Divine Right to rule the other 49% -- is an unchristian idea, a byproduct of the same humanist "enlightenment" that gave us the nation-state, scientism, and atheism. Nowhere does Scripture, Gospel, Epistle or Tradition tell us than man is capable of ruling his own affairs; instead, we learn that rebellion against authority is the primordial sin. Non serviam is the motto of Satan, not of the Son of God.

Obviously, I don't expect many people on FR to agree with me, and that's okay. I just wanted to let you know that there's one Freeper who doesn't worship the jealous pagan goddess Liberty. I am a loyal servant of the King of Kings – Jesus Christ - and a believer in the divinely-ordained hierarchies that He in His Wisdom established for the governance of men.

B-chan

Seems a bit odd, coming from the guy who designed the most elegant flag for a free republic.

Thanks for the kind compliment. I was just playing around with graphics that day...

A constitutional republic need not be subject to the whims of the majority. The "rule of law" stands between the majority and the rights of the individual; in theory anyway.

Oh, I suppose it'll work for awhile. The problem comes when The People vote themselves into power directly. The bread and circuses flow as "representatives" looking out for Number One figure out ever more devious ways to manipulate public opinion -- the process we know as "pork-barrel politics". Eventually the republic becomes a feeding trough for the various special-interest groups, which leads to either inflation or higher taxes. As the economy worsens, the bread-and-circuses-for-votes swap increases to the point where the vast majority of middle-class are disenfranchised and unable to conduct business. Tax revenues decline. Bread and circus money is diverted from other government programs. Eventually, the fabric of society becomes so disrupted that the country is invaded and conquered, or a civil war breaks out between Haves and Have-Nots. Chaos results. The Directory takes over in the name of The People and starts lopping off heads -- or burning down "compounds". As republic becomes democracy becomes oligarchy, the rule of law gets thinner and thinner until the society is in chaos. Then, with a whiff of grapeshot and a crown, Napoleon rides in to restore order and the society as a going concern.

This isn't anything we can stop. It's the nature of the beast -- the natural progression of a society where People Power is practiced: Republic to democracy to special-interest oligarchy to collapse to chaos to personal rule. I say why not just cut out the middleman?

Monarchy has more than a few weaknesses, succession being one of them. Bad monarchs tend to be deposed by revolutions -- a bad situation all around.

And bad republics don't? Germany, 1933 is an example of what happens when a democracy collapses. So is 1910 Mexico -- and there are plenty of other examples. It took a coup to rid the world of the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. Hitler was elected; it took a world war to get rid of him. The freely-voted-for communist government of Republican Spain was as vile an outfit as anything Stalin ever threw together; Franco was required to put an end to that partiucular "people's republic". And what of Castro, Mugabe, and Sukharto? Still there last time I checked...

Once you go to a system of succession like the Vatican employs, then you're back to a form of democracy.

Nope. Elective monarchy = monarchy. The Polish monarch, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Pope were and are elected, yes -- but by their Peers, by other noblemen, not by the rabble at large.

Machiavelli, Montesquieu and others describe a "balance of powers" where some use of democracy is essential to provide a place for the people in the balancing equation. However, no system will stand up to an ignorant mob, bent on destroying whatever system is believed to be oppressing them. Education is as important as any other factor in governance, as no governement can impose self-governance on those unwilling or unable to accept their responsibility.

Well, all government is fundamentally self-government.Peoples tend to get the governments they deserve. The best guarantee of good government is good citizens. A hardworking, morally-sound culture can operate perfectly well under any sort of government; a decadent culture, however, will ruin a representative government or rebel against an authoritarian one.

As for the role of the people in government: The idea that voting = power only lasts as long as the Army is happy. In the final analysis, every government (including our own) exists at the sufferance of the gun boys. Since therefore we're going to be ruled by a warlord in any case, better a consecrated warlord answerable to the power of his peers (a king) than a warlord answerable to nobody (a dictator). A king holds his power "by the Grace of God", inherits his office through no act of his own, and is trained from the cradle to rule; a dictator -- elected or not -- is a power unto himself, obtains his power at gunpoint, and is generally a nutcase.

It seems to me that you're an advocate of abdicating responsibility.

Democracy is neither a right of Man nor a fundament of Western, Judeo-Christian culture. Nowhere does the Bible or Torah advocate the idea of representative government. The principle that just government derives its power "by the consent of the governed" is not a Christian idea, it is an Enlightenment idea. For 1200 years, the traditional form of government in the Western world was Christian monarchy; the current fad for political self-government is only about two hundred years old and has left a legacy of tears and blood in its wake.

People crave authority. It's natural and normal. I'm simply advocating a return to the traditional form of Christian government, which is based on the idea of hierarchy and duty rather than on atomistic individuality and self-service.

In any case, I'm not trying to win any converts here, so I'll stop now. Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

B-chan

See also

Nowhere does Scripture, Gospel, Epistle or Tradition tell us than man is capable of ruling his own affairs; instead, we learn that rebellion against authority is the primordial sin. Non serviam is the motto of Satan, not of the Son of God.

So I take it you feel that the US is an illegitimate nation? Afterall we were formed out of a rebellion against God's chosen ruler over all English speakers, King George III or so the Church would have us believe. Oh I see, you think we should surrender our sovereignty and ask the British monarchy to take us back since we were very, very naughty.

Good for you. People like you and your counterparts on the left make me glad the 2nd amendment exists. You are entitled to your opinion. Honestly, you are. Isn't that the great thing about a free republic? You can spout off intellectual treason to its founding values and no one is going to throw you in jail for blasphemy or heresy. Just a word of advice, there are many who do value their rights and who would be quite militant in their response to anyone of your type getting into a position of real power in the government.

Read "The Trouble with Democracy" by William D. Gairdner and "The Myth of Democracy" by Tage Lindbom. The offering a devasting critique of the liberal ideology of secular univeralism or democratism, which has destroyed "community" and tried to replace it a national and even an international community.

Democracy is just two wolves and sheep voting on whats for dinner. This clamoring for more democracy and Total Democracy is little more than an effort to socialize and subgujate every facet of civil society to the state.

I offer a concise history lesson: America was founded as a republic, not a democracy.

The U.S. was conceived and framed as a constitutionally limited federal republic with limits not only on the powers of government but on that of majority rule. John Randolph said "The Great Object of the [Constitutional Convention] was to emit a cure for the follies of democracy." Succinctly stated, the fundamental purpose of government was to protect life, liberty and property. The founders were weary of unchecked democracy, majoritarian tyranny and the redistributive threat that democracy posed to property rights. In an absolute democracy, everything is potentially up for a vote, including your God-given natural rights. Under republican government, the rule of law is supreme and the rights of the individual are paramount.

Read Federalist #10 and see what Madison said about democracy being incompatible with property rights.

“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”
—Ecclesiastes 10:2

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