Friday, December 12, 2008

Democracy: The Politics of Tyranny

This editorial was originally published in the Winter 1995 issue (Volume I, Number 3) of THE RESISTER.

This editorial explains why I and a number of other rational citizens of the American Republic will not quietly submit to the whims of the newly anointed God-King foisted upon us by the mob of Depraved-Americans, Corrupt-Americans, Stupid-Americans, Ignorant-Americans, Deceased-Americans, and Imaginary-Americans.



EDITORIALS
----------

Democracy: The Politics of Tyranny



Rights are a moral principle, and each man has inalienable rights over himself, his faculties and his possessions. This moral principle, this objective reality, means that a man has a right to his own person, his mind and body, and therefore his own labor. Furthermore, a man has a right to the productive use of his labor and faculties. Because a man has these rights he must respect these rights in all others. Since each man is sovereign over himself, each individual must consent to any activity which directly affects his person or property before such activity can assume moral legitimacy.

In a rational society founded of the moral principle of rights there can be no force or fraud in the relationship between sovereign individuals. When rights are properly exercised they take nothing from anyone, nor do they compel anyone to act in a manner detrimental to their own self-interest. Notice that the rational exercise of each right enumerated in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution by an individual takes nothing from, or compels, other individuals in their rational exercise of these rights.

Only individuals possess rights. Groups, being nothing more than a number of individuals can, in themselves, possess no rights other than those which are possessed and exercised individually by each member. Hence, a faction has no rights; nor does a gang, a mob, a tribe, a state or a nation. A group may hove interests but those interests do not assume the moral legitimacy of rights. To assert otherwise is to descend into abstract subjectivism, an evasion of reality, where a society is ruled by the-range-of-the-moment whims of its members, the majority gang of the moment, the current demagogue or dictator.

Government is force. No matter how benign or dictatorial, behind every law or regulation or act there is a gun. The authors of the United States Constitution were fully aware of this fact. They recognized that government in a rational society must derive its delegated powers by the consent of the governed and that these powers must be specifically defined by law--the Constitution; delimited by a law higher than government--the inalienable rights of man; and dispersed by permanent separation of powers. For these reasons they specifically and intentionally REJECTED democracy as a system of government. The system of government created by the Founding Fathers, men devoted to the primacy of the source of all rights, man's faculties (which means; reason), was the CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

Democracy is the antithesis of the natural rights of man. The philosophical premise of democracy is egalitarianism; not political egalitarianism which holds all men equal before the law (justice), but METAPHYSICAL egalitarianism, the belief that all men are equal in all things. This last construct is such an obvious falsehood that it can carry only one meaning: the hatred of reason. Democracy, by its very definition - rule by majority - is the notion that" might makes right." The exercise of democracy reduces men to mere numbers, and the faction or gang which gathers the greater number of men to its fleeting cause wields the government gun against the minority.

From this view of the subject, it may be concluded, that a pure Democracy, by which I mean a society, consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the Government in person, can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will in almost every case, be felt by the majority of the whole; a communication and concert results from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party, or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is, that such 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. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

--Publius (James Madison), The Federalist X, 1787

Indeed, specific safeguards were designed into the Constitution to prevent the subversion of the constitutional republic and the natural rights of man by political party gang warfare and special interest factionalism inherent in a democracy: the Electoral College (Article II, Section 1) and the election of senators by State Legislatures (Article I, Section 3).

In the case of the former it was specifically intended that the head of the Executive branch of the federal government be elected by Electors chosen by each state legislature in equal proportion to its representation in Congress; NOT by popular vote. This ensured : "No faction or combination can bring about the election. It is probable, that the choice will always fall upon a man of experienced abilities and fidelity. In all human probability, no better method of election could have been devised." (James Iredell, North Carolina Ratification Cttee., 1788)

The latter provision ensured the logical effect of popular election of members to the House of Representatives (whim based legislation) was offset by representatives elected by state legislature to the Senate to guard against Executive and House encroachment on state sovereignty: "The election of one branch of the Federal, by the State Legislatures, secures an absolute dependence of the former on the latter. The biennial exclusion of one-third, will lesson the faculty of combination and may put a stop to intrigues." (James Madison, Virginia Ratification Cttee., June, 1788)

The United States has been descending into the sewer of democracy since the ratification of the 17th Amendment on May 31, 1913. Before every presidential election there are demands by special interest groups to void the Electoral College and resort to popular election of the President. This headlong rush into democracy is evident by the "value" placed on public opinion polls by politicians of both parties (a practice begun by the crypto-communist Franklin D. Roosevelt); as if the opinions and "feelings" of factions, gangs and tribes were a counterweight to the inalienable rights of a single rational man.

The irrationality of democracy was stated most eloquently by Auberon Herbert in his London address on March 9, 1880, before a meeting of the Vigilance Association for the Defense of Personal Rights, entitled; CHOICES BETWEEN FREEDOM AND PROTECTION: "How should it happen that the individual should be without rights, but the combination of individuals should possess unlimited rights?"

--Alexander Davidson

_

No comments:

Post a Comment