Memories of the 28th Century

I frequently hear in person or on electronic media coments about democracy being harmed by some politicians, and that is here in the United States of America, which was set up as a federal republic made up of republics. Please note that the initial documents didn’t mention democracy; republics were specified. These facts lead me to think that many people do not know what democracy is. The difference between a democracy and a republic is clear and easy to define

A democracy is a government where the people rule; that is that the people make the laws and oversee them being put into action. On the other hand, a republic is a government in which the people elect representatives who make the laws and ensure that the laws will be carried out.

The founders of the United States and other great thinkers in history felt very strongly about the difference between democracy and republic. The founding fathers had strong opinions against democracy; a few examples of those opinions follow:

James Madison wrote,

“Democracy is the most vile form of government…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with the 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.”

Plato: “Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal's alike.” “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.”

Voltaire, however, does not advocate or believe in what we'd consider universal suffrage or democracy. He distrusts "the rabble" and advocates "enlightening" the aristocracy and church to create governance thru "enlightened despots".



Thomas Jefferson
“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%."

A page of quotes on democracy by the founding fathers:
https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topi...oogle_vignette

There are many reasons why one should be dubious of politicians who favor democracy, but perhaps the best reason to not trust them is that they probably are trying to curry favor, so they will be able to become dictators at some point. That is what Hitler did. Remember that Hitler was the leader of a political party that gained a majority in the government so they could give Hitler all of the power. And it might be a good idea to remember also that Hitler is Trunp’s model as a politician.

There are nice aspects to democracy, but they seldom exist in practice. Democracy breaks down in practice, especially if there is a large population. Some Ancient Greek cities used democracy for some time, but when the population became large, they converted to kings or dictators. The traditional New England Town Meeting is, or was, democratic, but it ceased to work effectively with a population over 15 or 20,000. The crowd control and lack of control make it impossible to make complicated decisions.

Ancient and modern thinkers preferred republics or benevolent monarchies, because they could have controls that would prevent anyone from wresting the reins of government away and using them for their own purposes. Alas, in history republic don’t last forever; the Roman Republic was stolen by military dictators; although some signs of republican government remained. The parliamentary government in Germany was taken by Hitler and turned into a dictatorship. But there are some republics that have continued for fairly long periods: The Netherlands have been a republic for centuries, and the English parliamentary republic has been working for centuries, also. Both of those examples have monarchs as figureheads with very little involvement in the government. There have been few examples of benevolent monarchs, and that is largely because they die and are replaced with monarchs who are less benevolent; but there have been monarchies that continued for very long periods without notable problems.

It might be nice to re-establish a benevolent monarchy, but that would require changing the attitudes of many people. It appears that most people in the U.S.A. thinks that government exists to provide services to them. Government exists to provide a framework of laws in which people can live their lives, and to resolve disputes between people. It has been said that the way to judge a government is to see how it treats the least of its people. But a discussion of this matter is a lengthy, philosophical discussion that should be left for now. Suffice it that the U.S.A. is not now, nor has it ever been a democracy, and we should make sure that it remains that way.