Political Philosophy
Thus spake democracy. Ancient and contemporary political theorists hold distinct differences in their evaluation of democratic regimes. Democracy ultimately means majoritarian rule, or mobocracy; thereby deferring the decision of the individual to the majority. This might sound desirable; until one comes to the horrifying realization that the influence of the majority is the interests of a tyrant. The term tyranny is defined in Bouvier’s Law Dictionary as “[r]ule by one person, who is unfettered by law,” (Sheppard, S., p. 1152). Should the decided interests of the majority conflict with one’s personal interests; that individual becomes a subject, deposed into a system of slavocracy; this treacherous scenario is an example of the horrors of majoritarian rule. Democracy itself must be feathered within alternative forms of governance; these include bureaucracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, meritocracy, ochlocracy, aristocracy, and anarchy. Without this delicate balance of mixed ideas, government becomes a tyrannicidal totalitarian enterprise; unrepresentative of its citizens. Contemporary political theorist James Burnham wrote in 1946 on the dangers of democratic majoritarian rule, explaining that, “[i]n practice, in spite of the forms and doctrines of democracy, the leaders are in a position to control and dominate the mass,” (Burnham, J., p 154).
Ancient Democracy
Athenian Democracy is the first recorded instance of democratic-infused government. Historian Kevin Dooley reminds the reader that political theory originated with the Ionian’s rejection of Homer’s belief that reality was caused by gods and goddesses, (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-4; Fig 2.1). Ancient democracy stands correlative to its present depiction, Socrates was sentenced to death by the democratic Greek Senate for exercising speech in 399 B.C., Ch., (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-4). Historian Kevin Dooley writes “[Socrates] emphasized that we must first agree on the definitions of words before we can adopt universal principles,” (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-4). Plato considered democracy to be oligarchy’s “adversary,” following in its succession, (Waterfield, R., p. 278). Plato denoted four regimes; diarchies, oligarchies, democracies, and tyrannies; noting of no other constitutions with “a distinct character,” (Jowett, B., p. 467). Aristotle spoke similarly, making a distinction between democratic regimes and oligarchic ones; declaring that, “[s]omeone who is a citizen in a democracy is often not one in an oligarchy,” (Aristotle, p. 117). David Grene’s 1959 edit of Thomas Hobbes’s (1588-1679) translation of Thucydides’s The Peloponnesian War denotes in its Sixth Book of Athenian Democracy; stating that, “[s]ome will say that the democracy is neither a well-governed nor a just state, and that the most wealthy are aptest to make the best government. But I answer first, democracy is a name of the whole, oligarchy but of a part, (Hobbes, T., Thucydides, p. 401).
Plato’s political theory relied on the people as the soul of the body politic. Citizens were divided into three categories: the craftspeople, deemed appitite; the auxiliaries, deemed the spirit; and the guardians, deemed the rationale, (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-5b). Athenian Democracy relied on all members contributing to government; the ruling class were the guardians, the military were the auxiliary, and the craftspeople were the working class. Plato believed that democracies are destined to fail, (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-5d).
Conversely, Aristotle’s view of politics featured mixed constitutions; offering the “first political theory that could be put in practice;” Dooley reminds the reader that Aristotle’s theory featured six different types of political systems: monarchies, tyrannies, aristocracy, oligarchies, polities, and democracies, (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-6c).
Mediæval Democratic Regimes
It is apparent that ancient political theorists were akin to the detriments of democracy. Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1361) De Monarchia written in 1313, idealized that “[o]nly if a Monarch rules can the human race exist for its own sake; only if a Monarch rules can the crooked policies be straightened,” explicitly expounding “namely democracies, oligarchies, and tyrannies which force mankind into slavery, as he sees who goes among them, and under which kings, aristocrats called the best men, and zealots of popular liberty play at politics,” (Alighieri, D., Loc 703).
Historian Kevin Dooley cites Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) as “one of the first modern political thinkers to assert that power, and not justice is the key unit of analysis in politics…[l]eaders must be logical and employ tactics that will enhance their power,” employing the strength of a lion and the wit of a fox (Dooley, K., Ch. 3-2, 3-2a). Niccolo Machiavelli believed that rulers who come into power by favor of the people only must avoid their oppression; contrasting those who attain power through resistance, Machiavelli asserts that the Prince should focus on winning the favor of the people by ensuring their protection, (Machiavelli, N.; Horowitz, M., pp. 86, 87). Machiavelli added that “in republics there is more vitality, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance, which will never permit them to allow the memory of their former liberty to rest; so that the safest way is to destroy them or to reside there,” (Machiavelli, N.; Horowitz, M., p. 87).
Contemporary Democracy
Antifederalist Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) wrote that “[i]t is certain that every alliance made with a republic is real in its nature, and continues consequently to the terms agreed on by the treaty, although the magistrates who concluded it be dead before… when the form of government changes, the people remain the same. (Jefferson, T., p. 665). Jefferson called our Constitution “a capitulation between conflicting interests and opinions,” rejecting the notion of a pure democracy as discriminative to those without majoritarian representation; citing infants, women, and slaves, (Jefferson, T., p. 5298). Dooley writes that Jefferson’s assertion that we have a natural right to life was borrowed from [John] Locke’s notion that we are the owners of our bodies, (Dooley, K., Ch 3-4). John Locke’s (1632-1704) Two Treatises of Government challenged Hobbesian political theory, declaring the inherent sovereignty of man, (Dooley, K., Ch 3-4). It was John Locke who referenced Genesis, declaring; “creation made man prince of his posterity,” (Locke, J., p. 1363).
The Bouvier Dictionary of Law reveals the many differences in contemporary democracy: pure democracy; direct democracy; representative democracy. Bouvier notes that in a Democracy, “no group of officials or any one official may lay claim to sovereignty because it cannot be transferred,” (Sheppard, S., p. 1148). A Constitutional Republic cannot be a pure democracy, as a majoritarian mobocratic rule undermines the foundational inherent sovereignty acknowledged in its supreme doctrine. The term Ochlocracy is defined in Bouvier’s Law as “[r]ule by the will of the majority without obligations of principle or reason,” (Sheppard, S., p. 1151).
Political Theorist Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) contends on the maleficent rule of majority, that; “majorities have only the mere right of choosing between a few possible candidates, and that they cannot, therefore, exercise over them anything more than a spasmodic, limited and often ineffective control. We know that the selection of candidates is itself almost always the work of organized minorities who specialize by taste or vocation in politics and electioneering, or else the work of caucuses and committees whose interests are often at variance with the interests of the majority. We know the ruses that the worst of them use to nullify or falsify the verdicts of the polls to their advantage. We know the lies they tell, the promises they make and betray and the violence they do in order to win or to wheedle votes,” (Mosca, G., pp. 281, 282).
Mosca expounded on Machiavellian’s position with a contemporary perspective; writing in Juridical Defense, Mosca disclosed that, “[w]hen a system of political organization is based upon a single absolute principle, so that the whole political class is organized after a single pattern, it is difficult for all social forces to participate in public life, and more difficult still for any one force to counterbalance another,” (Mosca, G., p. 163). Mosca expounds; “[w]hen the leaders of the governing class are the exclusive interpreters of the will of God or of the will of the people and exercise sovereignty in the name of those abstractions in societies that are deeply imbued with religious beliefs or with democratic fanaticism, and when no other organized social forces exist apart from those which represent the principle on which sovereignty over the nation is based, then there can be no resistance, no effective control, to restrain a natural tendency in those who stand at the head of the social order to abuse their powers,” (Mosca, G., p. 152).
Contemporary government must be prevented from disproportionately expanding any one of these several forms of organization, no matter the appeal; the Mediæval Body Politic revealed that Christendom is not conducive to lasting governance; a Republic must omit the potential biases of its citizens, and avoid conforming to any absolute ideology. Inherent sovereignty is the determining factor between citizens and subjects. Political theorist James Burnham (1905-1987) wrote that “political doctrines which promise utopias and absolute justice are very likely to lead to much worse social effects than doctrines less entrancing in appearance; that utopian programs may even be the most convenient of cloaks for those whose real aims are most rightly suspect, (Burnham, J., p. 113).
As political theorist Leo Strauss (1899-1973) wrote of Machiavelli; “[i]t is true that he did not favor the rule of the multitude: all simple regimes are bad; every so-called democracy is in fact an oligarchy unless it verges on anarchy,” (Strauss, L., p. 151). Strauss – comparing Mediæval political theory to contemporary political theory – cites that the citizens of Florence would rather die than fall subject to tyrants, writing that the city’s democracy was “not very different from modern liberal democracies, where professional politicians beget professional politicians, or acquire them as sons- and daughters-in-law, much as law and medicine run in families,” (Strauss, L., p. 151).
American Journalist I.F. Stone (1907-1989) wrote that “the denigration of democracy and of common men is a recurrent theme of both Xenophontic and Platonic Socrates,” (Stone, I.F., p. 64). William F. Buckley, founder of the National Review, contends on democracy that “[i]t is a pity that there has developed the talismanic view of democracy, as the indispensable and unassailable solvent of the free and virtuous society… The humbler claims for democracy are not only legitimate, but realistic… if these views argue for barbarism or regimentation, it is proper to circumvent them, even if, in doing so, democracy is flouted; as it deliberately is under the Constitution of the United States,” (Buckley, W., p. 143).
Internationally, democracies have historically been used by political extremists to coerce the citizenry to comply with a narrative. Historian Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe reported that “[i]n 1924, Stalin announced that ‘Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.’” Ukrainian nationalist Mykola Stsiborskyi (1898-1941) compared fascism to democracy, stating; “[f]ascism concentrates all its idealism and voluntarism on one center: the very nation. The nation is its greatest value to which everything else is subordinated. Counter to democracy, which has the tendency to regard the nation as a mechanical set of a certain number of individuals,” (Rossolinski-Liebe, G., p. 170). Historian Rossolinski-Liebe notes that the Ukrainian ultranationalist fascist groups made the decision to declare themselves as nationalists, to deter concern from the Ukrainian population. Political Scientist Robert O. Paxton warns that “fascism can appear wherever democracy is sufficiently implemented to have aroused disillusion” (Rossolinski-Liebe, G., p. 40). In the same way that Ukrainian ultranationalist fascists have utilized nationalism as a front for their tyrannical conduct; America has repurposed democracy to include fascist thought, replacing the term nation with equity. The result is a loosely defined term that can be repurposed to coerce support from the majority.
Technocratic political theorist Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens reveals the game plans of the global cabal, malevolently inquiring; “[h]ow do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined. You always insist that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the great gods or by the laws of nature. People are unequal… because these are the immutable laws of nature.” (Harari, Y., pp. 112, 113). Technocrats wield immeasurable power capable of coercing the ruling class to succumb to their ideologies. The prospect of biological longevity is priceless to those without any established system of beliefs; beyond what is evident before them during their short time on this Earth. Socrates, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. were all killed for their beliefs, (Dooley, K., Ch. 2-4). Similarly, Marcus Tillius Cicero; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy; William McKinley; James A. Garfield; Abraham Lincoln; and countless others have been assassinated by provocateurs, political extremists, and government operatives. Now, the wave of tyrannicide has reemerged, targeting citizenry who oppose the global democratic regime; the most recent democide being the execution of American Journalist Gonzalo Lira, whose crimes included making YouTube videos opposing Ukrainian and American democracy, (JMBK.NEWS). When the solution to achieving democracy involved violence and democide; one must consider the absence of democracy by the apparency of tyranny despite its recognized title.
Biblical Comparison
Democracy must be defined by the same tangible elements of morality depicted in Scripture. The Bible stands irrelevant to partisanship; theologian Ronald J. Sider (1939-2022) wrote that “[m]any citizens have no interest at all in political proposals advocated on the basis of a biblical framework…[yet] [t]he Bible does not prescribe any particular political philosophy, (Sider, R., p. 3, 5). Biblically, government is ordained by God; citizens are called to be subjected to their government; there exists an apparent bridge between the Lord and the State. His Holy Spirit writes that “[l]et every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?” (Romans 13:1-3; ESV). On partisan ideologies and cultural correctness; it is written Christians are to “[o]we nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another,” (Romans 13:8a; NLT). Apologist Craig Blomberg reminds Christians of the decreed obligation to their faith, no matter the persecution incurred, (Mat 5:10); writing that, “[a] large percentage of Jesus’ teaching, including that which even more radical scholarship accepts as authentic, presupposes the continuing existence of Jesus’ followers as an organized community teaching others about him,” (Blomberg, C., p. 65). It ultimately falls upon the individual disciple to evangelize absolute objective truth rooted in Scripture in the face of overt constituent manipulation; there is no alternative, except complete submission to totalitarian servitude, an anti-Christian position, (Mat. 6:24; Luke 16:13). On the subject of the pursuit of an illusory utopia; Christ warns us to “[w]atch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them,” (Matthew 7:15-20; NIV). Every tree within contemporary congress has wilted; its branches burdened by persistently odious fruit; yet the majority attempt to exalt their personal interests above the citizenry they were elected to represent and serve. If nefarious pol can rally up enough support and appeal for a particular interest, they can invoke consensual tyranny upon the minority, or those who dissent against the majoritarian order. Pure democracy is an unattainable state of false-utopia, thereby exhausting the nation’s resources and civic morale to benefit the ruling class, as acknowledged by Mosca. There exists no tangible fruit in an illusory democracy, beyond the idealization of potentiality; whereby a republic by Constitution offers immediate individual liberty contingent on an acknowledged inherent sovereignty, unfounded in a tyranny of the majority.
Conclusion
Politically, contemporary democracy remains an ambiguous regime; as incumbent pol routinely fail to disclose to their constituents that allegiance to democracy or the demoncratic regime is an admission of consent to be ruled by tyranny. The distinguishing factor is narrative-oriented policy; predetermined decisions declared in the name of an illusory utopia, declared democracy; is despotic barbarism; pseudo savior faire demagogue bipartisanship bolsters nothing more than a national uniparty; thereby the needs of the citizen siphoning self-ruling power and the rights of the state into unbound government control. As Robert Nozick (1938-2002) opined, “[t]he fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all,” (Nozick, R., p. 4). Nozick’s theory can be applied to the encroaching invasion of federal intervention; the individual bears an inherent right to reject perpetual forced servitude. Liberty can only arrive by securely defining democracy in the contemporary age; and abolishing the national self-regulated democratic regime camouflaging itself and its actions as pursuing democracy; when all of its policy clearly reflects the inverse.
America is not a democracy; it utilizes a conglomeration of various forms of governance to create a melting pot that serves the interests of the individual; liberty can only occur through imposing strict lines of enumerated limitations upon the government to prevent unwarranted intervention; namely, a Mixed Government is used. Bouvier defines the term mixed government as, “[a] hybrid government combining several forms of organization,” (Sheppard, S., pp. 1149, 1150). Mosca denoted “Aristotle, Polybius and a number of other writers of ancient times expressed a preference for ‘mixed’ forms of government—forms, that is, which combined traits of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy in certain proportions,” (Mosca, G., p. 154).
James Burnham reminds us that beyond attempts to measure democracy, the goals of a nation’s government must be physically tangible, within a set timeframe; Burnham writes, “[n]aturally, as is the case with all Machiavellians, his goal is not anything supernatural or utopian; to be the best, a government must be first of all possible,” (Burnham, J., p. 113).
There are more bureaucrats positioned within the federal government, than there are representatives; should this mean America is a bureaucracy? No. This is an example of the mixed government that is required to emulsify the various components of government into a suitable viscosity; namely, a Constitutional Republic.
Democracy is a name that can be no longer suited as the rule of the majority; instead, it must represent conglomerative individual public interests, thereby populism. Democracy, id est mixed government, thereby meets the needs of the diverse expectations of the population. Mosca’s warning heeds relevance to the contemporary democratic regime; “[w]hen a governing class can permit itself anything in the name of a sovereign who can do anything, it undergoes a real moral degeneration, the degeneration that is common to all men whose acts are exempt from the restraint that the opinion and the conscience of their fellows ordinarily impose, (Mosca, G., p. 152). Democracy must face the revision of its definition; thereby including the representation of the minority, and negation of majoritarian hegemony; placing the individual’s interests and the nation’s needs above the authority of the federal government.
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