Democracy not what America needs
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Democracy for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” There is something out of place here. This is the pledge of allegiance using Democracy instead of Republic. If you go into almost any school and ask a child what type of government we have, I would bet that at least a majority would say Democracy. And that’s what they’re taught in many public schools.
Teacher Vision, a web-based company that provides teachers with lesson-plans and handouts, defines Democracy as “a government by the people, through free and frequent elections.” Team Law, a non-profit educational organization set-up to educate Americans about the foundations of the American Legal system, defines a Constitutional Republic as having two principle elements. The first says that the nation “is controlled by law, therefore it does not control law.” The second element is that “it recognizes the private independent sovereign, nature of a person of competent age and capacity, therefore a Republic must be representative in its nature.”
I believe that both these definitions accurately describe their respective terms. If you examine the two governments they seem to have few differences. Both carry elections. Both are based, at least somewhat, on people ruling government. The main difference that I see is that in a Democracy the voters, and therefore citizens, have more power in running the government. This seems like it would be a great thing. Shouldn’t American citizens have more power over the country?
In a word. No. Before you throw The Colonnade down in disgust for letting a Hugo Chavez-like tyrant write for it; let me show why Democracy is exactly the government America does not need. As I said, in a Democracy, the people have a greater say in what happens in the country. However, it’s not all the people that get this greater say. It is the majority of the people in a Democracy that hold all the power. The majority chooses who represents everyone, how individuals’ God-given rights are distributed and even who is entitled to what liberties.
In an egregious misuse of Democracy, post Civil War white Southerners created unconstitutional hurdles for African-American to vote, with laws such as poll tax and literacy tests. In the 1940s, elected politicians, including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, misused what they saw as American Democracy to vote with a majority to hold Japanese Americans, unconstitutionally, in nightmarish internment camps. A more recent unconstitutional foray into Democracy is the Patriot Act. President Bush argues that since the House of Representatives and Senate ratified this privacy-invasive legislation that it becomes the rule of law. He is wrong because the Constitution has precedence in law over congressional bills.
You can see where I’m going with this. Politicians have consistently over the course of American history used Democracy, or public opinion, as justification for breaching the Constitution. Unfortunately, they got away with it at the time, though years later their actions have been ruled as unconstitutional. Well, technically the Patriot Act hasn’t been ruled unconstitutional yet, but give it a few years.
In a true Democracy, the majority can determine the freedoms, abilities, inputs and outcomes of any given minority. Thisphil could be something as simple as a vote taken among friends to decide where to eat dinner. Or could be something as horrible as ten people taking a vote and deciding to take all of the tenth person’s money. That is Democracy. It is also illegal in America…to an extent.
Why to an extent? Because that is precisely our income tax system. Voters decide who is in Congress and the Senate, and who is allowed to make tax-law. People who do not work and have no desire to, could vote for politicians that will raise taxes on “the rich.” With the excess revenue from those pesky top 49 percent of income earners the politicians are easily able to kick-back a gift to the voters who gave them their seat in terms of expanded welfare or entitlement programs. That’s Democracy. It’s also called indirect robbery. This might be why when our founding fathers formed the Constitution they purposely stated that the only taxes imposed can be on tariffs and excises (consumption).
This means that the original tax system of America was completely voluntary. Why is this? Because, with exception of land (eminent domain in the Fifth Amendment) the government is forbidden from forceably taking property from American citizens. Even the Fifth Amendment is interpreted to state that citizens would be granted fair-market value of their land, a seemingly even trade.
Our nation started out as this wonderful Constitutional Republic based on the inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Sadly, we have quickly digressed into a more democratic form of government where freedoms don’t matter as much as a plurality. Whereas Congress used to convene primarily to ratify treaties, decide on war, and preside over interstate disputes; it now meets five days a week to take a stance on all pluralism issues from congratulating the Giants for winning the Superbowl to condemning Giants outfielder Barry Bonds for using steroids.
How did America go from having a small, non-intrusive federal government, to the over-bearing, monster we have now? It is because many Americans started seeing our nation as a Democracy. Before the 1930s, it was almost taboo to call America a Democracy because of the common mob-rule mentality associated with it. Today it is a freedom chant.
Philosopher Ayn Rand states, in a better way than I ever could, “Individuals’ rights are not subject to a public vote. A majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.” Statesmen like Thomas Jefferson would probably respond to this saying something to the effect of “well, duh!” But many politicians currently running our great nation don’t understand this concept. Unfortunately, all it takes is a majority to believe that this nation is a Democracy and we can put the Constitution in the museum, because it would no longer have relevance in the courtroom.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Mar 14 2008. Filed under Opinion.
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