A perfect example of this is the United States. Now, I know that the founding fathers were aware of this, and it's for this reason they tried to create a republic such as they had in ancient Rome.
However, in the early 20th century progressives gained power, and they succeeded at convincing people we are a democracy. Since that time, when they have been in power, they have succeeded in voting away the rights of the minority, which, in this case, were capitalists and conservatives.
In order to do this they either had to change the Constitution, which is what happened with the 16th through 19th amendments, or ignore the Constitution, which is how the Social Security Act of 1935 and Obamacare were passed into law.
They have since convinced people that America is a democracy. They succeeded to such an extent that even (compassionate) conservative George W. Bush referred to America as a democracy, and he said his mission in the Middle East was to spread democracy.
Yet it's not democracies we want to to spread, it's republics. Democracies can vote for terrorist or progressive leaders. While progressives don't want terrorist leaders, they do want progressive leaders. This would not happen in a republican government.
In his 2011 book, "Liberty Defined," Ron Paul said that people in a democracy should not be allowed to vote away the liberties of the minority. In fact, if we could go back in time, the founding fathers should have made this one of the first amendments: "No law can be made that takes away the liberties of others."
You could word this amendment another way too: "No law should be made to force people to do things for their own good, because that would assume that the majority knows what's for the best of the minority, which isn't always the case."
Actually, no such amendment is required, so long as the Constitution were followed. However, the founders did perceive the Constitution to be misinterpreted, and it's for this reason they established the Bill of Rights.
No comments:
Post a Comment