Republic or democracy?
The Marxist totalitarians that control the so-called “Democratic Party” swear their total fealty and allegiance to something called “democracy.” Adherence to “democracy” is the highest value in their dystopian system of despotism. It is largely equivalent to the promiscuous use of the word “people” by the communists to describe their monstrous tyrannies where in fact, the “people” had no say at all.
And, there is a connection between the two terms. Many communist regimes have labeled themselves “democracies,” or, more precisely, “people’s democracies.” Why, in recent years, has “democracy” joined “racist” as the most popular word in the progressive-woke lexicon?
Anyone who has studied the writings and philosophies of America’s Founding Fathers understands that they largely rejected the idea of “democracy.” “Democracy” appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Republic, yes, democracy no.
For example, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”
Hamilton, Madison, Washington and Adams were all men of great wisdom. They were students of history, especially ancient history. They endeavored to create a new form of government which would avoid the mistakes and errors and excesses of past civilizations, such as Athens. They viewed Athenian democracy with distrust, recognizing that terrible public policy decisions — like Alcibiades’ proposal to invade Sicily — often resulted from the momentary passions of the people, egged on by dangerous and irresponsible demagogues — with no counter-democratic institutions available to place the brakes on such decisions.
“Democracy” in its purest definition, means rule by the people. Over time, it has evolved into an interpretation that means rule by the majority and this is where the problems arise.
Quite simply, majorities can be wrong and often are. The majority of the colonists supported the British Crown during the Revolutionary War. A majority of American southerners supported, at one time or another, slavery, segregation and Jim Crow laws. A majority supported and elected Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The Framers saw this issue as the fundamental flaw of democracy.
Democracy invests power in a group without regard or consideration for anyone outside that group who may dissent from the majority opinion. This is why the “Democratic Party” is so red-hot on democracy; it believes in group rights and entitlements, not in individual rights. The Communist Party’s thinking is similar, seeing people not as individuals but as members of perpetually-warring economic classes.
A republic, on the other hand, seeks to invest power in the people but in a process that protects and respects the rights of the minority.
A republic believes that the individual is central, not the group. To that end, the Founders of the American republic created a complicated system of checks and balances and federalism that sought to diffuse and disperse power as widely as possibly in order to prevent power from being centralized in tyrannical hands. They created structures that allow minority voices and smaller states to have their say in presidential and congressional decision-making. That’s why we have the Electoral College, a two-year House of Representatives directly elected by the people and a six-year Senate originally selected by state legislatures. That’s why small states have an equal number of United States senators as large states while population determines representation in the House.
Pertinent to the 2020 election, the Founders did not envision the Electoral College as merely a rubber-stamp for the popular vote of the states; instead, they envisioned it as a safety-valve in case the people – roused and riled up by political charlatans and mountebanks – made a bad choice. Thus, it was totally within the power of the state legislatures to choose different sets of electors than those indicated by the apparent, but disputed, popular vote in 2020 and leave it to the Vice President and Congress to sort it out. Of course, Mike Pence refused to do that and every American is paying the price for his dereliction of duty today as America implodes.
The progressive-woke Democrats do not like the idea of checks and balances and dispersed power. That’s why they reject republican principles in favor of “democracy.” By demanding total subjection to whatever a temporary majority may dictate today, they ensure that tyranny can reign over all Americans tomorrow. They seek all power to be centralized in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the “people.” They seek the abolition of the Electoral College and legislative filibuster and the packing of the Supreme Court. They believe that by ensuring an invasion of America’s southern border by millions of desperately-poor, uneducated Third World inhabitants, they can construct a temporary “majority” to keep themselves in power indefinitely while enslaving the rest of us.
Just as the communists always proclaimed their devotion to “peace” by making war, the Democrats proclaim their devotion to “democracy” while planning tyranny. The communists always defined “peace” differently from the rest of us. To them, it meant the absence of any resistance to their rule, not the suspension of armed conflict among peoples. Similarly, the Left considers “democracy” to be the rule of their majority without any consideration for those who disagree. That’s why they persecute and jail their political opponents, censor the Internet, ban dissenting voices from college campuses, attempt to keep candidates off the ballot, and stifle free speech. In a sense, they are true small “d” democrats in that they believe in the “democracy” of the two foxes and hen deciding what’s for dinner.
History demonstrates repeatedly that democracy is impractical, unworkable and dangerous. Truth is not defined by a transitory “majority” propagandized by government schools and corporate media. Truth is defined by the Word of God revealed in the Old and New Testaments and the teachings of the prophets and the saints. Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney are simply no match for Aquinas and Augustine. Once we as a society recognize that democracy only leads to mobocracy and then to tyranny will we possibly have a chance of restoring the republic.