from the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Daily (July issue) – posted online today –
De-Sacralizing Democracy to Save Liberty
by James Bovard
In the 1770s, the British colonists living in America won their freedom from British rule thanks to the
“What is needed is a political system that will not self-destruct in spite of the ignorance or laziness of common citizens.”
How about “aristocracy?” Maybe the colonists weren’t so wrong about King George as we think. 😀
This is offered as a thought only half (well, maybe three quarters) jokingly. Think about it – the seething mass of boobus americanus really doesn’t care about politics or government other than seeing it as a possibility to get their own trotters into the trough or to restrict the behavior of their fellows. They’re not willing to become educated and informed, either about the issues or the people who’d be legislating/executing/judging those issues, and their votes reflect that lack of education and thought. They cannot overcome their ignorance, greed, and selfishness to create any sort of system (by putting people in charge) that can do anything besides fall apart after the looting stops for a lack of goodies.
The purpose of a government – the state – is to protect the rights of its citizens. Maybe a democracy or even a republic isn’t the best format after all for protecting rights. Maybe what needs to be desacralized (I like that concept!) is the idea that boobus americanus can ever develop the ability to be the captain of his own life, let alone the lives of others, and that perhaps the best thing for him is to be relegated to supercargo status….
Whatcha think?
I find it amusing that the same people who tell me that I should worship the U.S. government because it’s this wonderful democracy (people can, like, vote and stuff!) are the same ones who are wailing that the Democrats will lose big this November because the voters are idiots (they’ll all march off teh cliff because teh evil anonymous corporate ads tell them to!). I can’t imagine why I would worship a government chosen by such people.
LawHobbit – what would the freight charge be on that supercargo status?
Alpowolf – the teeth gnashing already occurring over next month’s election provides comic relief for those days in which Senate candidates are not caught in four-star lies or hiding the broom they ride.
Per pound, obviously, which would – given the size of some of ’em – make a serious dent in the national debt. 😀
Let the desacralization begin!
It could be almost as much as desecration.
Read an interesting piece at Hit&Run blog recently:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/12/new-at-reason-arnold-kling-dav
It talked about how Canada and New Zealand have made solid headway on beating back Big Government in recent years. One of the people who commented indicated that it is a lot easier to make the types of changes that they pushed through in a parliamentary system than one like ours.
It got me to wondering if a system like ours that was (reasonably) good at fending off Big Government for many years is, by the same token, harder to scale back once leviathan has been established, i.e. a double-edged sword.
Still liking Gault’s Gulch.
Check out Gary Barenett’s “I’m Fed Up With Consitution Worship” (LRC.com). Had him on the show yesterday. Podcast is right up there with the Great James B.