'Democracy:' It's a threat to our republic

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | 6/29/03 | David P. Shreiner

[Jean S]

Most people believe the United States is a country created with a democratic form of government. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Founding Fathers were almost as fearful of democracy as they were the monarchies of Europe.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, 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 death." No doubt he was thinking of ancient Athens.

[mewzilla]

All I can say, doc, is that it beats the alternatives all to heck.

[Drew68]

We have reverted to a kind of democracy feared by the Founders, a centralized power controlled by majority opinion that can be arbitrary, impulsive and frivolous.

Restaurant smoking bans.

A democracy is best defined as two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

[The Mayor]

"..it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."
--Samuel Adams

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[f.Christian]

The libertarian mind set ... republic // anarchy --- vs ---legislative police state !

Both are wrong !

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good piece, thanks for posting it!

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[gitmo]

The perfect symbol of democracy is the guillotine.

[snopercod]

Are you saying you believe that democracy is a better form of government than a constitutional republic?

[StriperSniper]

BTTT

[dts32041]

One of the best summations of moving from a representative republic to a democracy, rule by passions of an ill educated population.

[Graewoulf]

I agree with you: we are a Republic, not a Democracy.

The purest form of Democracy in our Republic is sadly found with THE NINE SUPREMES.

Thus, it is no wonder that the counter-culturists and the democrat Political Party try to keep Conservatives out of the Supreme Court by every means imaginable. The last thing a counter-culturist wants is someone who will conserve the core values of our Republic!

What our Republic form of government protects us from is often overturned by the counter-culturists using the mechanism of Democracy on the Supreme Court.

[litehaus]

Lets get T.Jefferson in here too....

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.......

[Thoro]

Are you saying you believe that democracy is a better form of government than a constitutional republic?

I took that comment to mean that what we have now is better than any other form of government in the world, which is true, but hardly the ideal some of us hold.

From the article:

The early 20th century showed the effects of constitutional amendments designed to make the government more democratic -- the 17th Amendment in the disastrous year of 1913. The Constitution originally provided for election of senators by the state legislatures, but the 17th Amendment changed that to election by the people, another step toward democracy. The Founding Fathers wanted the Senate composed of wise and able legislators appointed by state legislatures. Senators should not be subject to the vagaries of the majority, and therefore they could temper the bills from the roistering and elected House of Representatives.

After reading this, I wonder, if the 17th Amendment had never happened, would we have ever seen or needed campaign finance reform?

[goodnesswins]

bump for later reading

[Comus]

I agree with you: we are a Republic, not a Democracy.

The Constitutional Republic was lost in 1865. It will never be regained with an immoral and ill-educated populace.

[gcruse]

Our government was founded as a decentralized representative republic whose power was limited to the protection of liberty and private property.

Compare that to what we have today, and it looks like
the founders were libertarian to a man.

[MosesKnows]

I believe the 16th and 17th Amendment are the roots of the corruption and greed that prevails in government today.

It would be difficult to express it better that Teddy Roosevelt and his comments on the Fall of the Republic.

"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing."

[hope]

Yes, indeed. Democracy was also excercsed a little more that two thousand years ago.

[MattAMiller]

False dichotomy, we're a democratic republic. The democratic will of the populace is expressed by representatives and limited by the Constitution.