Just for giggles The Bull is offering a poll in today’s first post. I ask you to please vote. Following your participation click on the “Read More!” link in order to read the following bit of verbiage. I think that for a lot of folks it will be enlightening. On to the poll!
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.An interesting poll, don’t you think? Personally, I can not wait to see the results. No. Wait… Those results will likely be skewed due to the usual reader demographic of this blog. Nevertheless, I shall leave the poll in play.
When The Bull asks folks on the street that question I inevitably get the answer, “A democracy, sir.” Occasionally there is added “…or it used to be!” followed by an ‘all-knowing’ grin at their cleverness. Damned shame that those people are wrong… every last one of them.
What follows here is a lesson in Civics for you, spiced with a dash of History. Let the lesson so begin…
Let’s start by referencing, of all things, the U.S. Department of War Training Manual No. 200-25, 1928 edition. That date is important, but I’ll get to that later. The manual has a particular section titled “Citizenship”. In this section a book by Harry Atwood, The Constitution of the United States is cited. Mr. Atwood rightly defined both Democracy and Republic, gave clear definitions – which is probably why the Army went with it in their wee Civics lesson. Here we go…
“Democracy: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of “directâ€?? 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 be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
“Results in Demagoguism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy. [So you don't have to run for your dictionary, Demagoguism comes from the Greek demagogue 1. a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power, 2. a leader championing the cause of the common people in ancient times.]
“Republic: Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy.
“Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. Is the “standard formâ€?? of government throughout the world.
“A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of (1) an executive and (2) a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create (3) a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their government acts and to recognize (4) certain inherent individual rights. Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into Autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into Democracy.
“Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority cannot be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered. Democracy is the direct rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.
“Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy …. and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic.�? (1)
Indeed! The Founding Fathers avoided the term “democracy” whenever possible. For example, “democracy” is not mentioned even once in the Constitution of the United States of America. Yet in Article 4, Section 4, Paragraph 1 of that most wonderful of Mankind’s documents is said:
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government.�?
Republican, not Democratic!
Our forefathers, and signers of the Constitution, warned us about the dangers of slipping into Democracy. On the website, Free Republic, an article posted on Friday, February 25, 2005 by “Tailgunner Joe” listed a few of the better ones. Joe’s work being superior, I shall quote his list:
~List begins~
John Witherspoon, signer - “Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.�?
Zephaniah Swift, author of America’s first legal text - “It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.�?
Benjamin Rush, signer - “ a simple democracy … is one of the greatest of evils.�?
John Quincy Adams - “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.�?
Noah Webster - “In democracy … there are commonly tumults and disorders … Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.�?
James Madison - “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.�?
John Adams - “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.�?
Fisher Ames, author of the House language for the First Amendment - “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. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty !!” NOTE … look at today’s sexual freedoms.
Gouverneur Morris, signer and penman of the Constitution - “We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate … as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism … Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to the level of folly and guilt.�?
Samuel Adams – “… it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds …�?
~List Ends~
Seems to me that the very men who dedicated their lives to the formation of this Nation had serious and strong feelings about the distinction between these two differing forms of government.
Oh! Remember those Army manuals we discussed earlier? The manuals containing these definitions were ordered destroyed without explanation about the same time that President Franklin D. Roosevelt made private ownership of our lawful money (US Minted Gold Coins) illegal. Shortly after the people turned in their $20 gold coins, the price was increased from $20 per ounce to $35 per ounce. (2) Almost overnight F.D.R., the most popular president this century (elected 4 times) looted almost half of this nation’s wealth, while convincing the people that it was for their own good. Many of F.D.R.’s policies were suggested by his right hand man, Harry Hopkins, who said,
“Tax and Tax, Spend and Spend, Elect and Elect, because the people are too damn dumb to know the difference”.
And the Democrats, (and far too often the Republicans), have been running on that same route ever since. (Never fear, The Bull is not going to go down that road – yet!)
Let us stop for a moment and think. Think about what you’ve read here. How many of you, Dear Readers, would like to go back and change your answer in the poll We took at the beginning of this exercise?
I’ll now make one last addition to this long-winded post. It is a quote from the Federalist (in this case no. 55) where James Madison makes an observation concerning the republican form of government:
“As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government (that of a Republic) presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us, faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.”
Brilliant! Makes me wonder why these documents are not part of every High School government class. The Federalist Papers were written and published during the years 1787 and 1788 in several New York State newspapers to persuade New York voters to ratify the (then) proposed constitution. In total, they consist of 85 essays outlining how this new government would operate and why this type of government was the best choice for the United States of America. All of the essays were signed “PUBLIUS” and the actual authors of some are under dispute, but the general consensus is that they were Alexander Hamilton (wrote 52), James Madison (wrote 28), and John Jay contributed the remaining five. No other source makes it easier to understand the Constitution than these essays.(3)
Notes:
(1) R Lee Wrights of Liberty Points.
(2) Republic vs. Democracy (Rule by Law vs. Rule by Majority) by Gary McLeod.
(3) All of the Freedom Documents can be found at Founding Fathers.
That’s it for this rant. I started writing this way before dawn today. Due to the usual distractions though, it is now 1136 hours. Understand though that the topic didn’t just pop up in my mind during a sleepless night, but has lingered and grown as I see my Countrymen forgetting exactly who and what they are – the most Blessed people on the planet. We are more Free as no other people in the history of Man, we are throwing away those Freedoms in order to ‘fit in’ with the very crowd our forefathers fought so hard to leave!
I beg of you, Dear Readers, to study the Documents. Understand what it really means to be an American. Then teach your kids so that never again will our America reach a point so near to failure.
Bull, out!
