Opus 2022-038: The Democracy Mantra

For most of my life we have been able to throw around the word “democracy” without doing too much damage to our country.  That was because the advocates of democratic tyranny were keeping their head down, infiltrating the schools, working their way up in government service and generally getting ready to initiate democracy.

Perhaps you are one of those who has not caught on yet.  We are not a democracy.  We have never been a democracy.  A democracy is one thing that the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid like the plague, and I mean a real plague not what is being pushed currently for political advantage.  I have broadened my reading since the lockdown started.  I have shared that other places.  One of the recurring themes that I have been picking up is that democracy does not work.  It is generally the first step to despotism and tyranny.  That is why we have a federal republic, not a democracy.  

Lord Acton had a catchy phrase that resonates with me,

“It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.”  Kindle location 648-649

Keep in mind the illustration of democracy I will borrow from an unknown source, but democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they will have for dinner.  If you want a democracy then get ready for everything to be controlled by a small group of people who manipulate the masses.  In a pure democracy we are just one vote away from declaring all people of any group you want to be slaves.  All it takes is one more than half to pass anything.

The Proregressives* know this.  That is why they want to do away with the electoral college.  It is why they allow BLM and Antifa thugs to destroy cities and keep the peaceful protestors of January 6 locked up and denied their rights.  

I know what you mean by democracy.  I also know what they mean and I know how it has worked out in history.  

Be careful what you wish for.

Acton, Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902).  “The History of Freedom in Antiquity",  The History of Freedom, and Other Essays.  Project Gutenberg, First Edition,1907.

homo unius libri

Opus 2022-012: New Terms: Liberty

As the forces of the Administrative State and the Proregressive version of democracy work late into the night to reduce our liberty we hear a lot of talk about freedom, rights and the accompanying liberty.  Lots of people talk about liberty but to see the problem with that let me remind you of one of the most memorable quotes of that great philosopher, William Jefferson Clinton, “It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.”  For our uses substitute “liberty” for “is” and you see the problem.

Lord Acton, of absolute power corrupting absolutely, had a definition. 

“By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.”  Kindle Location 531-532

It is not a complete definition by any means but it does give us a way of closing in on an understanding.  Liberty means that you have the ability to do what you feel is right no matter what the government, society or your wife tells you to do.  You can make choices without coercion or threats to your life or well being.

We are experiencing a tremendous loss of liberty in our modern day America.  The entire purpose of the illegal and traitorous persecution of the people arrested for their actions on January 6 are not for the purpose of justice but to frighten the general public into being quiet and enduring the overbearing actions of the police state.  Since when do you throw people into jail for a year when the worst they could be accused of is trespass.

Admit it.  You are not as likely to speak out as you once would.  Those of us who write on blogs and such are not really brave.  It is the person who stands up in a city counsel meeting that shows his courage and demonstrates his American liberty.  The parents in Virginia who went to a school board meeting and had the FBI sicced on them is another example of persecution for exercising God given rights.

It is printed on our money.  We need to see it in our streets.

Acton, Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902).  “The History of Freedom in Antiquity",  The History of Freedom, and Other Essays.  Project Gutenberg, First Edition,1907.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-341: Plow and Crown: The Conflict Keeps Popping Up

I am reading a lot of books produced by dead, white males.  I don’t have a screening process on physical condition, skin color or sex at birth.  It just works out that way.  This year I have read works by Edmund Burke, John Bunyan, John Steward Mill, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, Winston Churchill, Eusebius, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaefer.  And I am currently working through  Lord Acton, Adam Smith and Thomas Aquinas.  When I look at that list I am impressed even if you are not.

Many of these authors were consulted by the Founding Fathers when they were struggling to produce a new type of government.  Those on my list who wrote too late for the Founders to know do a lot of quoting from the documents that were available.  One of the things that I see as I read is the constant theme of the common man wanting liberty and the elites wanting power.  I call it the Plow and the Crown.  

One of the recurring truths seems to be that pure democracy is guaranteed to produce tyranny and oppression.  I am currently beginning to read Lord Acton.  He is the one who wrote a line most of us have heard,

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I have not come across it yet but I will keep an eye out.  He did write a lot about the problems with democracy and how it has been tried at many places and times.  It always seems to end in disaster.  He uses the term, “tyranny of the majority”.

“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”  Kindle location 1919-1920  (Page 16)

This is from an book review called "Sir Erskine May’s Democracy in Europe" published in The Quarterly Review, January 1878.  

I don’t know about you but I am feeling that sentence today.  The Founding Fathers set up a republic, not a democracy.  They did that on purpose because they had read their history and they knew that democracy doesn’t work.  They went with a Federal Republic with a Constitution that was designed to make it very hard for the kind of shenanigans we are seeing.

I am sure I will have more on this as I continue to read.

Acton, Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902).  The History of Freedom, and Other Essays.  Project Gutenberg, First Edition,1907.

homo unius libri