Posted on 07/10/2002 6:40:31 AM PDT by George Frm Br00klyn Park
Charley Reese
For Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Republic vs. Democracy
ADVISORY: Charley Reese is on medical leave. Until he returns, King Features will be distributing "The Best of Charley Reese."
As much as I admire Charlton Heston, I wish he would stop misquoting Benjamin Franklin.
Heston often tells the story about the lady who asked Franklin after the Constitutional Convention ended, "Well, what kind of government have you given us?"
Heston then quotes Franklin as saying, "We have given you a democracy - if you can keep it."
Actually, the traditional version of the story has Franklin saying, "We have given you a republic - if you can keep it." That indeed is what the Constitution gives us: a republic. And a republic and a democracy are not the same thing.
The simplest way to explain it is that we do not vote for legislation. We elect representatives, and they vote on legislation. In theory, if we do not like the way they have voted, then we don't re-elect them.
It's true that people vote directly for items on referenda in some states, but, by and large, the business of American government is handled by our representatives, who are expected to exercise their own judgment on the public issues. We then exercise our judgment about their performance.
One rarely hears any talk about republican government these days, with most politicians, like Heston, preferring to call it democracy. Although I think Heston is innocent of any guile, the blurring of the distinction is deliberate on the part of the politicians. It is squid ink, designed to create the illusion in our minds that we actually govern ourselves.
In fact, today in America, the many are ruled by the few, who are careful enough to do it gently and behind clouds of rhetoric so that it isn't obvious. Members of the public, by and large, not only do not know what's going on, they don't care.
You and I, of course, are the exceptions. Unfortunately, the "Exceptions Party" is not on the ballot. I suspect that we could hold our national convention in a modestly sized facility.
I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to public ignorance and public apathy. It's easy enough to say education, but if people don't care, they won't bother to learn. People keep forgetting that education involves hard work, and that doesn't seem so popular anymore. There is always more knowledge available than there are people who care to acquire it. I do know that most people with a college education these days appear to be about as ignorant and apathetic as people who don't have one.
At one time, a university education was designed to train leaders, but today most universities are simply white-collar, vocational-technical institutions. They crank out people who can perform vocational and technical tasks but don't seem to have the foggiest notion about the principles and philosophy of government. Their knowledge base is very narrow.
It might well be true that any people, at any time, who are reasonably well-fed, entertained and not visibly threatened will settle into ignorance and apathy like a man settling into a goose-down mattress for an afternoon nap. If all seems to be well with the world, then why worry?
I worry, because I see American freedoms being taken away ever so gradually - and always in the name of some allegedly greater good. It's true that it is still possible to live a good life. Will our children and grandchildren be able to say that? And what is a good life?
Even a Josef Stalin will allow you to eat, drink, sleep and copulate if that's the extent of your desire for a good life.
Being a Celtic man, I despise the idea of anybody but God and my conscience telling me what I must do or what I must think or what I must say. That's the good life I want - freedom. And that kind of good life is being threatened today.
Charley Reese can be contacted at briarl@earthlink.net.
© 2002 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
H, I suggest a look at the philosophy written in Plato's Republic. Consider. Today, Iraq, Both Chinas, Korea, and various other despotic governments are "Republics". "Yesterday", there were the former{?} Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When Jefferson said those words, I don't think any "Republic" other than Plato's had been. People really need to understand what they are being sold. We have a form of government unlike any before or since. IMHO, "Representative" Republic best fits. Democraticly elected "representatives".
It is no wonder that writers on our government seem confused. They always try to compare it with some other. Don't work! We have the "more perfect" form of government ever known. The addition in 1892 of the Bill of Rights that puts strict limits on government made us other than a "Republic". The Parliamentary system where lawmakers may "make all necessary laws" {Government by the whims of man} without restraint is most similar to a "Republic". Peace and love, George.
Then they applauded state referenda that is clearly "democracy" in its purist form and regale the Feds when they do not recognize that referenda. They switch from arguing "republic" to "democracy" at the moment something gores their pet ox. In this country, over time and through common usage democracy and republic have been accepted as the same thing. I.e. A free people that decides how and by whom they will be governed.
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