No Excuse

The following was originally published in the eighth (Spring 1996) issue of THE RESISTER and posted online as an ASCII text.

Democracy Is No Excuse

by

D. van Oort


Democracy is the unlimited rule of the majority; nothing more, nothing less. There is no escaping that such a rule is as unlimited in its scope as it is unmitigated in its severity. In our past, when people did not try so desperately to escape the inescapable, democracy was referred to as "the tyranny of the majority." Men within government did not advocate such a tyranny if they expected to be admired and re-elected. Today, as looters and destroyers, they do.

When you hear the claim, "America is a democracy," it is invariably a response to the reporting or predicting of some inexcusable piece of tyranny, and it usually emanates from the would-be tyrant or from his chorus. Of the many lies concealed within their claim, the first one we need to catch them in is the one that says that they believe that America is a democracy.

Every time one of them uses democracy as an excuse for something tyrannical, that some alleged majority supports, there is another time when he uses a different excuse for the same kind of tyranny while admitting that no one supports it at all. For example; the same President who wanted to "restore democracy" in Haiti, sent American soldiers to Bosnia under foreign command while openly admitting that the majority of Americans opposed it. The same Congress that brought us the assault weapon ban on the belief that a majority of Americans wanted it, brought us NAFTA on the belief that what the majority of Americans want is of no consequence.

Those examples reveal that democracy is not a consistent standard by which political actions are taken; rather, it is simply an occasionally convenient excuse for taking those actions in the first place. The moral code those actions are intended to enforce is altruism, the evil doctrine that one has the right to exist only if he serves others. The intended result of consistent altruism is fascism[1], an omnipotent state to enforce complete servitude. Since evil policies in a constitutional republic require a pseudo-legal cover story to excuse them, fascists have found it more convenient to keep on hand a grab-bag of rationalizations, rather than principled reasoning with which they might have to remain consistent. Our war of attrition against their cover stories brings us to the grab-item called "democracy." We will show that there is no excuse for fascism (or socialism or communism), and democracy is no excuse for an excuse.

Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, can the word "democracy" be found. Neither can one find references to democracy in the works of the Framers in other than disparaging terms. Democracy is a form of dictatorship. Consider that the Declaration of Independence is a statement of American principle, and that while socialism, communism and theocracy deny the correctness and extent of those principles, unlimited majority rule denies statements of principle altogether. Consider that the Constitution limits how the government makes and enforces laws, and that the Bill of Rights limits the specific content of those laws. Socialism, ommunism and theocracy reject those limitations in favor of their own limiting ideologies and precepts, but only democracy rejects all limitations, and quite literally uses that as its selling point.

Democracy is neither legally nor theoretically possible in any country that possesses even a single over-riding legal document. The two simply cannot coexist. When a system such as democracy is touted as beneficial, but is clearly and historically detrimental, the ideas alleged to excuse it obviously fail to do so.

A case in point is democracy's proclaimed moral justification. None has ever been presented. The notion of unlimited majority rule is two thousand years old. In all this time, no one has offered a clear and coherent moral excuse for it. (Consider the excuses you have heard or read.) The closest excuse for this excuse is: "majority rule is right because it benefits the majority." Circular illogic based on the false premise that tyranny is beneficial does not justify anything, nor does it even attempt to explain how it could be right if three voted to send two to a gas chamber. The next step down is: "majority rule is right because it works for the common good." Note that the only change is the addition of a second false premise: that the common good includes the minority of two sent to the gas chamber.

Throughout history and in the present day, advocates of unlimited majority rule have never admitted to anyone what their true justification is. Since democracy sanctions only the group with the greatest numbers, then it ultimately sanctions only the strength of that group. This means: how many votes it can cast, how many picket signs it can carry, how many fists it can swing, or how many bullets it can fire. For two thousand years, the sole moral justification of democracy--the skeleton in the closet--is that MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. Beginning with Socrates' yammering, in acceptance of his death sentence, through Ross Perot's referendums about "taking it to the people," and all the statistics about percentages of idiots favoring gun control, "might makes right" is the sole justification. Nothing else is stated, nothing else is possible, nothing else has occurred in any democracy, and nothing else was ever intended to.

As an alleged moral code, "might makes right" is ageless. It is not an ideology or even part of one. It is not unique to man or to human history. The perceptual-level consciousness of a hyena pack on the Ngorongoro Crater understands and lives by "might makes right." The earliest theropod dinosaurs in the Triassic jungles of Pangaea learned as babies that "might" applied to a nest-mate "makes" a result that was as "right" as they could conceive it. The sensate-level consciousness of the first organism in the universe lived by "might makes right." (It is worth noting that advocates of democracy usually refer to their agenda as "progressive.")

"Might makes right" is the proper code of animals because, to live as an animal, a mind is not required. The human mind is what separates us from animals, and to live as a human, a mind is required. Democracy denies this. "Might makes right" claims that there is nothing that separates us from animals, and that to live as a human-animal, a mind is not required at all.

Advocates of democracy demonstrate very clearly that they believe that. Consider their intellectual excuse for might making right. If force is the determining factor, then principle and fact are not. The most idiotic idea is just as good as the most brilliant. If a group wants one and one to equal three, and can beat up the group that does not, then one and one equal three.

Democracy is pure subjectivism. Advocates of democracy believe that no idea is better than any other (and that that idea is better than any other). They believe that man cannot determine the facts of reality (and that is a fact of reality they have determined). Advocates of democracy contend there exists nothing but subjective whims (but their whims are not subjective). They conclude that there are no facts at all (and that's a fact).

Their excuse for might making right is that all excuses are equally valid. That ugly little confession is the intellectual equivalent of suddenly blurting out a sexual perversion, but while the pervert might notice that he has done this, advocates of democracy remain oblivious. They rarely notice the staggering amount of doublethink in their claims, and are never bothered by it. (If they are philosophy students, doublethink is "profound.") They expect man to renounce his mind just because they have thoroughly renounced their own. They say that a mind is not required to live as a human, and they prove it by showing that a mind is not required to advocate democracy.

One would be right to ask at this point, "Just what color is the sky in their world, anyway?" Now we have entered the most basic branch of philosophy, "metaphysics," which seeks to answer the question of what kind of creature we are and what kind of universe we live in.

Democracy demands that they put the color of their sky to a vote if official answers are to be made concerning it. They must do this because they believe that there are no facts, therefore, they don't know because they can't know.

Their most fundamental belief is that reality is unknowable. The universe is either chaotic mush, one big illusion, or both. To an advocate of unlimited majority rule, man has no objective nature that requires specific rules of conduct because reality itself has no objective nature that can be determined.

The metaphysic of democracy explains the psychology of its advocates. If men can know nothing, but still have desires, then there is no way of knowing how to suppress those desires, or fulfill them. We would be incapable of anything but misery, and unsuited for anything but death. Our universe would not just be unknowable, but evil as well, and would not consist of facts we can build on, but only of a long torturous obstacle course we can bleed in.

If the universe can help us, we have no way of knowing about it until after we have been helped. Thus, we shun self-reliance and promote the welfare state. If the universe can hurt us, we have no way of knowing about it until after we have been hurt. Thus, we fear the black magic inherent in guns. In essence--and you can ask them about this--democracy's advocates say: "We're all just cripples in an evil universe, we can't help it, we can't know any better, we're just animals, so we get to beat you up!" That is their excuse for democracy.

As with all political systems, the results of unlimited majority rule are unavoidably linked to its ideology. If a system is based on good premises, it will produce good results, and will therefore attract good people. If it is based on evil, it will produce evil, and will attract only evil.

Knowledge of reality is easy and begins with any statement such as "existence exists" or "what is, is." Thus, the basis of democracy is a falsehood. Man cannot live by falsehoods, whether personally or socially enshrined. Ignorance means death, and any belief set preaching ignorance will only produce death. Only men who seek destruction will be attracted to democracy.

Advocates of democracy admit with every revealed contradiction that they do, in fact, believe that reality is knowable. Thus, the basis of democracy is an intentional falsehood. Man cannot live by lies, and any ideology preaching lies is designed to produce death, and will attract only fools, liars and killers.

Democracy does not recognize the individual, and thus attracts collectivists. It has no principles to offer, and thus attracts the unprincipled. Its only appeal is to evil because that is its nature, over which even the best man with the purest motives has no control. Those who are evil know very well the nature of the systems they design or support, and the nature of unlimited majority rule will be the same whether it is an excuse for fascism or for anything else. At the very instant democracy is enforced on a population, it begins to destroy that population psychologically.

Ayn Rand once said, "[T]he smallest minority on earth is the individual." This means that every man is always in the minority, and that all other men are, or might be, members of some majority that can murder him at its pleasure. Any man who proclaims that, "it's a dog-eat-dog world," or that, "you gotta get them before they get you," is a man already suffering the psychoses of democracy.

He cannot heal them by joining a group, where democracy begins destroying populations physically. If he joins a minority, the forces of the majority can be unleashed against him today. If he joins a temporary majority, the forces of the next majority can be unleashed against him tomorrow. If he spends his fearful life desperately joining only majority groups -- seeking his "safety" every minute in the no-rules obstacle course of keeping up with one or the other obedient herd -- damning his individuality which sets him apart from them, then the forces of his own mind are already unleashed against him, and he begins to destroy himself mentally and physically.

The forces of the majority have already been unleashed against minority groups of "separatists" (self-sufficient), "cultists" (strong believers) and "extremists" (non-compromisers). Those forces are now being unleashed against ex-majority groups such as the middle-class employees of K-mart. Men spending their lives in pursuit of permanent majority status, who fear to stand out by so much as waving at a policeman, smoking a cigarette, or reading The Resister[2], are becoming used to unleashing the forces of their own minds against themselves.

Man cannot find peace when set up as enemy of all other men; he cannot live by being slaughtered with his group today, he cannot build a future by being slaughtered with his group tomorrow, and he cannot save his soul by slaughtering it himself. Democracy is not a system under which men choose their manner of living, it is a system under which they choose only their manner of death. Such destruction is not an abuse of the system--it IS the system. Democracy is not a system for man; it is a system against him.

On the whole, democracy is an inexcusable excuse to excuse the inexcusable. Fascism is no excuse for lying about believing in American democracy. There is no excuse for believing in democracy in a constitutional republic. There is no excuse for democracy, and democracy is no excuse for fascism.


1 Do not confuse The Resister's use of the word "fascist" with its ordinary use by liberals, communists, and minority pressure groups. Liberals, communists, and minority pressure groups call anybody who opposes their social democratic, statist or tribalist agendas "fascists." Fascism and communism are merely variant forms of statism, which is the collectivist premise that individuals are rightless slaves, and that the state is omnipotent. Both fascism and communism are socialist. Communism is the public (read government) ownership of the means of production, thus abolishing private property. Fascism permits the pretense of property ownership, but without the right to use property for personal advantage -- property must be used for "the public good." (Does the phrase "good corporate citizen" ring a bell? Does the current systematic destruction of the tobacco industry -- to name but the most recent industry -- strike a chord?) JFA Davidson

2 The author is referring to those who read mooched copies of The Resister, but will not subscribe to it because they don't want their name on "a list." This is a craven admission that they want to think for themselves, but they don't want anyone to know about it. Who says democracy doesn't work? JFA Davidson.