Why Democracies Are Never Permanent

[Shammu]

A democracy is always temporary in nature.It simply can't exist as a permanent form of goverment. A democracy will continue to exist until the time that voters discover they can vote for themselves generous gifts from the public treasuery. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candiate who promises the most benefits from the public treasuery. With the final result being that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy... That is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations, from the begining of history, has been about 200 years. Durning those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence. From bondage to spiritual faith, form spiritual faith to great courage, from great courage to liberty, from liberty to adbundance, from abdunance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage.

Our founders knew all about democracies, which is why they created a Republic. On Constitution Day, September 17, 2000, President Bill Clinton spoke at the ground-breaking ceremony for a National Constitution Center at Independence Mall in Philadelphia. On that occasion the president remarked that the men who signed the Constitution "understood the enormity of what they were attempting to do: to create a representative democracy." He heaped praise on "Washington, Franklin, Madison" for having created our form of government.

President Clinton turned the work of the Founding Fathers on its head. Washington, Franklin, Madison, and the other men who gave us independence and our form of government never set out to create a "representative democracy." Those men recognized in democracy a danger to freedom just as deadly as that represented by the worst despotism. Mr. Clinton is not the first politician to claim the Founding Fathers established a democracy. But the fact that this error is widespread does not make it any more accurate.

The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." This exchange was recorded by Constitution signer James McHenry in a diary entry that was later reproduced in the 1906 American Historical Review. Yet in more recent years, Franklin has occassionally been misquoted as having said, "A democracy, if you can keep it." The NRA’s Charleton Heston quoted Franklin this way, for example, in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace that was aired on December 20, 1998.

This misquote is a serious one, since the difference between a democracy and a republic is not merely a question of semantics but is fundamental. The word "republic" comes from the Latin res publica — which means simply "the public thing(s)," or more simply "the law(s)." "Democracy," on the other hand, is derived from the Greek words demos and kratein, which translates to "the people to rule." Democracy, therefore, has always been synonymous with majority rule.

The Founding Fathers supported the view that (in the words of the Declaration of Independence) "Men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." They recognized that such rights should not be violated by an unrestrained majority any more than they should be violated by an unrestrained king or monarch. In fact, they recognized that majority rule would quickly degenerate into mobocracy and then into tyranny. They had studied the history of both the Greek democracies and the Roman republic. They had a clear understanding of the relative freedom and stability that had characterized the latter, and of the strife and turmoil — quickly followed by despotism — that had characterized the former. In drafting the Constitution, they created a government of law and not of men, a republic and not a democracy.

But don’t take my word for it. Consider the words of the Founding Fathers themselves, who one after another  condemned democracy.

Virginia’s Edmund Randolph participated in the 1787 convention. Demonstrating a clear grasp of democracy’s inherent dangers, he reminded his colleagues during the early weeks of the Constitutional Convention that the purpose for which they had gathered was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy...."

Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, championed the new Constitution in his state precisely because it would not create a democracy. "Democracy never lasts long," he noted. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself." He insisted, "There was never a democracy that ‘did not commit suicide.’"

New York’s Alexander Hamilton, in a June 21, 1788 speech urging ratification of the Constitution in his state, thundered: "It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." Earlier, at the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton stated: "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."

James Madison, who is rightly known as the "Father of the Constitution," wrote in The Federalist, No. 10: "... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths." The Federalist Papers, recall, were written during the time of the ratification debate to encourage the citizens of New York to support the new Constitution.

George Washington, who had presided over the Constitutional Convention and later accepted the honor of being chosen as the first President of the United States under its new Constitution, indicated during his inaugural address on April 30, 1789, that he would dedicate himself to "the preservation … of the republican model of government."

Cont'd next post....

[Shammu]

Fisher Ames served in the U.S. Congress during the eight years of George Washington’s presidency. A prominent member of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution for that state, he termed democracy "a government by the passions of the multitude, or, no less correctly, according to the vices and ambitions of their leaders." On another occasion, he labeled democracy’s majority rule one of "the intermediate stages towards … tyranny." He later opined: "Democracy, in its best state, is but the politics of Bedlam; while kept chained, its thoughts are frantic, but when it breaks loose, it kills the keeper, fires the building, and perishes." And in an essay entitled The Mire of Democracy, he wrote that the framers of the Constitution "intended our government should be a republic, which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism."

In light of the Founders’ view on the subject of republics and democracies, it is not surprising that the Constitution does not contain the word "democracy," but does mandate: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government."

Eighteenth century historian Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, it is thought, argued that, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." And as British writer G.K. Chesterton put it in the 20th century: "You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution."

Communist revolutionary Karl Marx understood this principle all too well. Which is why, in The Communist Manifesto, this enemy of freedom stated that "the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." For what purpose? To "abolish private property"; to "wrest, by degrees, capital from the bourgeoisie"; to "centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State"; etc.

This socialist revolution has been underway in America for generations. In January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson boasted in a White House address: "We are going to try to take all of the money that we think is unnecessarily being spent and take it from the ‘haves’ and give it to the ‘have nots’ that need it so much." What he advocated, of course, was a Marxist, not an American, precept. (The way Marx put it was: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.") But other presidents before and after have advanced the same goal. Of course, most who support this goal do not comprehend the totalitarian consequences of constantly transferring more power to Washington. But this lack of understanding is what makes revolution by the ballot box possible.

The push for democracy has only been possible because the Constitution is being ignored, violated, and circumvented. The Constitution defines and limits the powers of the federal government. Those powers, all of which are enumerated, do not include agricultural subsidy programs, housing programs, education assistance programs, food stamps, etc. Under the Constitution, Congress is not authorized to pass any law it chooses; it is only authorized to pass laws that are constitutional. Anybody who doubts the intent of the Founders to restrict federal powers, and thereby protect the rights of the individual, should review the language in the Bill of Rights, including the opening phrase of the First Amendment "Congress shall make no law...".

Man has certain unalienable rights which do not derive from government at all.... And those … rights cannot be abrogated by the vote of a majority any more than they can by the decree of a conqueror. The idea that the vote of a people, no matter how nearly unanimous, makes or creates or determines what is right or just becomes as absurd and unacceptable as the idea that right and justice are simply whatever a king says they are. Just as the early Greeks learned to try to have their rulers and themselves abide by the laws they had themselves established, so man has now been painfully learning that there are more permanent and lasting laws which cannot be changed by either sovereign kings or sovereign people, but which must be observed by both. And that government is merely a convenience, superimposed on Divine Commandments and on the natural laws that flow only from the Creator of man, Jesus Christ, a.k.a. GOD!

Such is the noble purpose of the constitutional republic we inherited from our Founding Fathers.

Resting in the hands of the Lord, this day of 20 January 2006
Bob

[Soldier4Christ]

A democracy is always temporary in nature.It simply can't exist as a permanent form of goverment.

This is something that I have said for many, many years. It may have been because I read something along this line as a child through history books. Which ever it was something that I believe and has been shown through each democracy that ever was. It is something that we are witnessing already in our nation.

This is also the reason that our nation was originally set up as a Republic and not a democracy.

[Rhys]

All very true, BUT:

Many years ago I spent one winter at a very boring job reading through Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". I also read Livy's history.

The Roman Republic only lasted about 300 years, as I remember. Not much longer than a democracy. It fell because the Senate became increasingly paralyzed and someone had to fill the power vacuum in order to get something done. Julius tried too blatant and rapid an accumulation of power, but Octavian was much more subtle and successful. The Senate remained but became irrelevant. It voted to do what Caesar wanted done.

Sound familiar? We have a Congress so polarized and so dominated by special interest groups that it can't seem to accomplish anything. Its members are afraid to make any decision that might be unpopular in any way, as they might lose votes and not be re-elected. The only things they do do are to vote in pork barrel projects to bring in the votes at home.

Congress allows the executive branch to take on unprecedented levels of power on the principle that if things don't go right the President will get the blame and not Congress. The checks and balances carefully put in place by the Founding Fathers are being thrown out by an administration that wants no accountability for its actions, and though Congress expresses concern, they won't do anything as it would require them to assume the responsibility they are elected to bear.

The American people pay little attention and keep on electing the incumbents (if they bother to vote at all) who aren't doing their jobs.

I doubt the US will continue to exist as a republic for many more years - it may not survive George Bush, but if it does it still won't last much longer unless executive power is curbed and Congress begins fulfilling its constitutional role.

The American Republic won't fail just because voters have figured out how to raid the public treasury, though that IS a factor.
The main reason is that we as a nation have turned our backs on God.
Secondly we have become affluent. Wealth in itself isn't evil, but it leads us to depend on it rather than God. And how many times do you hear even Christians giving credit for our freedom and prosperity to our form of government and our economic system, with no mention of God? Those who founded both did not fail to give credit to God. Thirdly we have also become decadent and immoral. It is unlikely that God can continue to bless us as a nation unless we repent and return to Him. Probably the only reason He hasn't judged us yet is because there are still so many Christians within the country still  pursuing righteousness.

[Soldier4Christ]

Hi Rhys.

You mention that the U.S. will not last as a republic much longer. Actually it has turned from being a republic and into a democracy quite some time ago.This is something that many people fail to see. Many think that we have been a democracy all along. Some think that we are both a republic and a democarcy thinking that they are one and the same. There is a difference between a republic and a democracy.

I must agree with you though that unless this nation returns to God it will fail no matter what type of government that we have.

[Rhys]

Pastor Roger,
     I would have to respectfully diagree with you that the US is a democracy. Democracies are impossible on a scale greater than the "town meeting" model, even with modern computer and internet technology. There is no way all 300 million Americans could get together to debate an issue and vote on it. They have to elect representatives to do that for them and that is technically not a democratic, but a republican form of government.
     Rome was a republic, not a democracy like the Greek city-states. The people didn't get together to debate issues and to pass legislation, they elected senators to represent them. Rome didn't last much longer as a republic than the Greek democracies did, though.

[Soldier4Christ]

There is a fine line between a democratic government and a republic type government.

The U.S. did in fact start out as a republic.

repbublic = a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : 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(2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government


democracy = 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

A democracy was not possible in the early years of the U.S. due to the lack of technology that would permit them to "get together". As technology grew to bring more people into contact with the government it then our government did shift to a twisted sort of democracy, that was actually a mix between a republic and a democarcy.

In our current situation our government is now shifting more into a socialistic government. This is one where the people are told that they control the government and it's policies but where a certain body of the government actually does what they desire with little if any regard to what "the people" want or desire, deeming themselves to know better than what we do as to what is best for us.

[Rhys]

While I see your point, I don't see that the "people" actually have much involvement in the government at all, much less "supreme power". Most people never even bother to vote. Government is controlled by special interest lobbies which provide the money politicians need to run for and keep in office. Politicians act to please those who fund their campaigns, not the people.
 
Theoretically the people can "rise up and throw out the rascals", but it never happens unless there is a major crisis (almost always economic) that arouses people to take an interest. In normal times the people have little to no influence on or control over government. And little interest in it! They view both major parties as equally corrupt.

(And in fact, to use "PC-speak" we have one party that is "morally challenged" and the other that is "ethically challenged"). Perhaps what we need are new political parties, but I doubt this would change much for long.

"a certain body of the government actually does what they desire with little if any regard to what "the people" want or desire, deeming themselves to know better than what we do as to what is best for us" This is true but has always been true, from the beginning of the Republic. The elite of the far right are no better in this regard than the elite of the far left. Both think they are far superior to the average Joe and want us to "trust them to do what is best for us".

The solution for this is less government and less powerful government, but again, though Republicans SAY they are for sizing down government and returning power to States and the people, they have raised Federal government spending (and deficits) to record levels while increasing the power of the Federal government over individuals to near-dictatorial levels under the guise of "national security". This isn't just a feature of the Bush administration - it seems to happen nearly every time the Republicans get in power. Remember Richard Nixon? The Democrats often seem to be more honest in their intentions! At least there isn't such a huge gap between what they say and what they do.

I'm surprised so many conservatives stick with the Republicans instead of moving to the Libertarian party.

[Soldier4Christ]

Government is controlled by special interest lobbies which provide the money politicians need to run for and keep in office. Politicians act to please those who fund their campaigns, not the people.

This is true in current government and has been for some time now, but it was not always the case. Special interest lobbies did not always have such control as they have had in more recent years.

The solution for this is less government and less powerful government, but again, though Republicans SAY they are for sizing down government and returning power to States and the people, they have raised Federal government spending (and deficits) to record levels while increasing the power of the Federal government over individuals to near-dictatorial levels under the guise of "national security". This isn't just a feature of the Bush administration - it seems to happen nearly every time the Republicans get in power. Remember Richard Nixon? The Democrats often seem to be more honest in their intentions! At least there isn't such a huge gap between what they say and what they do.

I disagree with part of this. The democrats are not any more open about there intent than the republicans even though they get caught more and their true intent does get more exposure. Such as the intent to turn this country toward socialism. This has been a somewhat hidden agenda of theirs for some time that many people are not aware of. The only ones that are really aware of it are those that are more involved in the political arena.

I do agree with your comments on the republican party. This is something that most politicians get involved in .....  saying one thing and then compromising on that by doing something else.

As has been said before, it all boils down to people putting other things ahead of God. If God were put foremost in all such things there would not be as many problems as there are now. Yes, there would always be problems. Any time man is involved there are problems but with God being placed in the forefront their would be a whole lot fewer.