On January 28, 2005 the United States gave the gift of democracy to Iraq. For the first time in history, a muslim country has a democratically elected government. But what have we done really? I think we haven’t changed a thing other than give the Iraqis another form or tyranny. This one much more insidious than the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussain.
I think it’s safe to say that most people in the world today consider the United States to be a democracy. Why wouldn’t they? After all, citizens of the United States think they’re living in a democracy. Our president even stated in a television interview that “we’re giving democracy to Iraq.” And truth be told, the United States is probably closer to a true democracy now than we ever were and never were intended to be!
In developing the framework for the new nation, our founding fathers voted on the form of government our country would have. Democracy was on the table and it was voted down in favor of a republic. Consider these definitions from the Merrium-Webster Dictionary of Law:
Democracy
Function: noun
1. a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2. a political unit that has a democratic government
Republic
Function: noun
1. a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president; also : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
2. a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law; also : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
They sound very similar, don’t they? A democracy and a republic are not only dissimilar, they are antithetical. The distinction is found in who “rules.” In a democracy, the majority rules to the exclusion of the individual and the minority. A republic is governed by the rule of law…in our case, established by a constitution. The law protects the minority and the ultimate minority is the individual. The law maintains liberty and keeps the majority in check.
Our constitutional republic required strict limitations on government power. The only powers permitted were those defined and delegated by the people. The democratic process was limited to the election of our leaders and was not used to grant special privileges to any group or individual, or for defining rights.
Our founding fathers cherished liberty–personal (individual) liberty–and therefore favored a limited government. Our system of checks and balances was essentially supposed to cripple our government to ensure the preservation of personal liberty. There was no doubt as to where our right to liberty came from–our Creator. And with that in mind, understand that if the government could not grant rights, they certainly couldn’t take them away.
Our constitutional republic was designed to protect the rights of the minority against the abuses of an authoritarian majority. In fact, our founding fathers feared democracy as much as a monarchy and demanded a weak executive, a restrained court and a handicapped legislature.
The colonists recognized that equal justice and protection of the minority was not egalitarianism. Socialism and welfarism were never considered. Favoring instead, an economic system based on private ownership of capital–a free market (capitalism).
So what happened?
Remember, in a democracy there’s centralized power (controlled by majority opinion). A democracy favors big government and social welfare. In contrast, our republic was decentralized, with government power strictly limited by the Constitution to the protection of liberty and private property ownership.
It was the ideas of democracy, not the principles of liberty, that led to the passage of the 16th Amendment which imposed an income tax on the American people and gave birth to the welfare state. As long as this amendment is in place, we’ll never restore our republic. The personal income tax is more than a symbol of democracy, it’s a predictable consequence. How else can the majority pay for it’s excesses?
Now, majority opinion has become the determining factor in all that our government does. The rule of law is pushed aside and our marketplace, once driven by voluntary cooperation, private property ownership and sound money has been undermined with the acceptance of true democracy.
Unfortunately, too many people confuse the democratic election of leaders of a republic for democracy by accepting the rule of the majority in all things. For majorities to pick leaders is one thing, but its quite different for majorities to decide what rights are (for example, privately-owned land that can’t be touched because it’s been categorized a “protected wetland”), to redistribute property (income taxes), to tell citizens how to manage their personal lives (hello, Patriot Act) and to promote undeclared, unconstitutional wars (Iraq).
Democracy, by necessity, endorses special interest interventionism, inflation and corporatism. In order to carry out the duties now expected of the government, power must be transferred from the citizens to the politicians.
The majority rule in our country and they can do whatever they please. Do you doubt this? Consider the issue of “gay rights.” Homosexuals are a minority in our country, representing less than 1% of our nation and yet this is one of our most intense political issues. Propelled by the propaganda machine of this “special interest” group, our government is writing protections into law and considering “minority status” for homosexuals as if homosexuality was an ethnic designation. The rule of law and the Constitution have become irrelevant, and we live by constant polls.
This is tolerated because its done in the name of benevolence, fairness and equality. The pretense of love, compassion and fairness has allowed the departure from the republic and the erosion of our liberty has gone unnoticed.
As the demands of the majority become greater, taxation alone can’t provide for them. Therefore control of the monetary and banking system is required for the democracy to operate. Enter the Federal Reserve (established in 1913). (incidentally, this was actually the year the USA took a dramatic shift toward democracy–in 1913, the personal income tax and popular election of senators were both instituted, and our foreign policy became aggressively interventionalist).
Counterfeiting is a crime, but the Fed does it legally because the government must pay for the ever-increasing needs of the majority. Central-bank money creation–a departure from the gold standard–causes currency debasement through inflation of the money supply. The belief that democratic demands can be financed by deficits, credit creation and taxation is based on false hope and failure to see how it contributes to the turbulence as the democracy collapses.
Consider Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in the 1930s: This was a series of works programs, wealth redistribution schemes (Social Security), and new regulatory bodies, designed to bring us out of the Great Depression (which it didn’t–if anything, it kept the recession going far longer than any previous recession in American history). The “New Deal” was the government taking advantage of it’s citizens by playing on their fears. Instead of allowing individuals to participate in their free market–to voluntarily interact and cooperate through what should have been a relatively short recession–the government increased taxes and spending in an effort to solve our economic problems. The “New Deal” was, in may ways, the end of our free market economy and the adolescence of our welfare state.
Once a nation becomes a democracy, the purpose of government changes. Instead of the goal being that of guaranteeing liberty, equal justice, private property and voluntary exchange, the government embarks on the impossible task of achieving economic equality, micromanaging the economy and protecting citizens from themselves and all their activities.
The destruction of the wealth-building process, which is inherent in a free society, is never anticipated. Once this undermining is realized, its too late to easily reverse the attacks against limited government and personal liberty.
Still don’t understand the danger of democracy? Imagine a one-world government existed and the United Nations was controlled by a one man/one vote philosophy. The masses of China and India could vote themselves whatever they needed from the more prosperous Western countries. How long would a world system last based on this absurdity? Yet this is the principle that the United States is working hard to impose on itself and the rest of the world.
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