In this corner we have Democracy. This is not our government structure as laid out by our founding fathers and framers yet it continues to be pushed as it is. The big question is why? To begin to understand any question and figure out answers one must first understand the parts of the question, and in this case what is a Democracy and what is a Republic. Since we have been told for so long we are a Democracy, let’s start here.

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%”. – Thomas Jefferson.

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide”. – John Adams.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote”. – Benjamin Franklin.

I use these quotes to reinforce the notion that the framers, (arguably some to the smartest and most well educated people to have ever lived) rejected democracy as a form of government as it had always failed to deliver on freedom, and longterm prosperity for all its citizens anywhere it had been instituted as a form of government.

As John Adams points out, democracy doesn’t last. So, the next question I would think to ask is, if it doesn’t last then what does it turn into? That can be answered by the words of the founder of communism, Karl Marx. He claimed that, “Democracy is the road to socialism”. As you might imagine I don’t care for Marx or any of his ideas, however as one who was an architect of communism, I believe he would know how go from point A to point B to get to the communist utopia.

There are several hallmarks that a government uses to change its system over time. I will summarize these hallmarks as they are presented in the book, The Political Spectrum. Freedom vs. Enslavement. by David R. Young.

• The first objective is to push “equality” for all. This on the surface doesn’t sound bad, however it marks the slide into socialism as government ignores true diversity for uniformity.
• Minority groups begin to lose rights and freedoms as Majority groups target and attack them.
• Education is reduced to a system that all are required to go through. Group education is favored over the individual. Education favors learning data as opposed to learning to think. Intelligence drops as does standard. This spiral downward will continue.
• Activist groups use the press to create antagonism, intolerance increases and a wedge is created as the decay continues.
• The successful and wealthy become targets as “not contributing their fair share”, even though these are the ones keeping society productive and prosperous.

As these issues and others take their toll on the democracy, there is more call to find “solutions” to the problems being faced. Unfortunately, these solutions come in the forms of more regulations, more taxes, more government control over business and other entire sectors of society. This is the unmistakable slide into full blown socialism that democracy always follows and why Ben Franklin’s famous quote was, “A Republic, if you can keep it”.

Enter a REPUBLIC!

Generally, in a real Republic the people would be operating at a high and positive emotional level. This is the case because of a few simple yet important factors. Because a free market and capitalism are the economic backbone of a Republic people are free to reap the rewards of their effort and work in whatever they see fit, while having a government that encourages the individual to succeed at whatever the individual may choose.

• Government would be to for protecting the “natural rights” of the individual, and to enact justice where individual ethics have failed.
• The spiritual nature and providence of man would be respected, and those who were incapable of providing for themselves would be helped by religious communities and family as well as other benevolent organizations.
• People in government would work to maintain the role of government laid down by it’s charter and those serving would have extensive education in the understanding of not only a republic but the other political systems to ensure the policies of a republic.
• Education would be very individualistic. Each would learn at their own pace, with an emphasis on learning. Each person would rise to their full potential and the idea of “equity” where everyone must fit into the same mold would be rejected as idiocy.
• Press would be free, but would also be a very strong watchdog for liberty and freedom. Debate would be lively!
• The family unit would be strong.

As long a the Federal Government worked to preserve the rights and freedoms of the states and its citizens a Republic would remain healthy. If the government begins to work at odds with the rights and freedoms of the citizens it will drift toward the left, and if not corrected it will continue to drift.

These are very basic outlines of the systems but as you may have gathered we are not what we were designed to be and if not corrected the result will be unfortunately predictable and disastrous. In the next installment I will look at those outcome and what they mean.

To be continued…

Gregg Hough