Democracy

James Madison, 1787, stated in the Federalist Paper #10 that “Democracy is the most vile form of government ... 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 have been violent in their deaths.”

Fisher Ames, an author of the First Amendment, said, “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.” In 1815 John Adams: “Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.

There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” John Marshall, longest serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, “Between a balanced Republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

Even Alexander Hamilton said “Real Liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.”

Benjamin Franklin warned emphatically that “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” He understood that a “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”

Long before these men voiced their objections Plato postulated “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy...” And long after Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.” Winston Churchill wrote that: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” He went on to say that “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

More recently historian and Congressman Ron Paul said “Our country’s founders cherished liberty, not democracy.” I did find that Karl Marx, who was an advocate of communism, claimed “Democracy is the road to socialism.”

“It is difficult to understand, how any one who has read the proceedings of the Federal Convention can believe that it was the intention of that body to establish a democratic government.”

“Accustomed to trampling on the rights of others you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.”

“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to [do] evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest [judgment]:” Exodus 23:2

“A simple democracy is the devil’s own government.”

Caesar was right, mankind is governed by names and their definitions. This was the definition of democracy in 1928:

“DEMOCRACY: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic - negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard for consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.”

By June 1952, the following definition was altering the understanding and attitude of the American nation:

“Meaning of democracy: Because the United States is a democracy, the majority of the people decide how our government will be organized and run - and that includes the Army, Navy and Air Force. The people do this by electing representatives, and these men and women carry out the wishes of the people.”

Changing definitions deceives the people. “The multitude of those who err is no protection for error.”

“If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy... with great increase of the public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.”

Ben Franklin advised that “A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” Those rights depend upon us valuing our neighbors’ rights as much as we value our own, which is virtue.

Nothing is beyond re-examination. In a constitutional republic, you might have some safeguards but Patrick Henry argued against the Constitution of the United States because he saw that “When evil men take office, the whole gang will be in collusion! They will keep the people in utter ignorance and steal their liberty by ambuscade!”

Do we understand those flaws, and are we prepared to guard against them? It was not the Constitution

that made this nation great, but the noble individuals who rose up every day, worked in the fields and factories, cared for their families, and provided for the honest needs of their community. 

James Russell Lowell said “Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor” and he begins the process by oppressing his neighbor. “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?1

That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?”2

Democracy has no inherent right to the rights of others. We relinquish right by consent for mutual benefits. “I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and courts. These are false hopes, believe me; these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women;3

when it dies there, no Constitution, no law, no court can save it.”4

God “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” but not over his fellow man. The Cains of this world gain power over you by first offering you power over your neighbor.