Left, Right, Left Democracy
Posted by slowsmile April 22, 2009
JOHN ADAMS
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
Concerning the ways of Democracy - and not just American Democracy - but Democracy as a whole and widespread political system, I constantly wonder where it will really lead us, my mind plays with this problem constantly. I am no conservative or socialist and certainly no liberal, but even I am willing to recognize that modern democracy, both within the European and American political theaters, has been failing its ordinary national citizens very badly.
In a recent and interesting email from an American friend which addresses the ever-changing political, social and economic behaviours of democracies past and present, he puts this problem nice and squarely out into the open - his logic is hard to fault and seems to me to reflect a great deal of uncommon sense:
“In the late 18th century Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
‘A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.’
‘A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.’
‘From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.’
‘The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years’
‘During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage’
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, analyzed the USA 2000 Presidential election and came to the following conclusion:
In aggregate, the map of the territory Republicans won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of Government welfare… Olson believes the USA is now somewhere between the complacency and apathy phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached the ‘governmental dependency’ phase. “
I’ll just end it here with some interesting musings and definitions of democracy. Take your pick:
DEMOSTHENES
“There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.”
EDWARD DOWLING
“The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.”
BARRY GOLDWATER
‘Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
“Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”
AYN RAND
“Individual Rights are not subject to collective vote: a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. The political function of Rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities(and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”
H L MENCKEN
“As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance”
“A good politician under democracy is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 am
I disagree with your statement that democracy is “failing its ordinary national citizens very badly.” To the contrary since World War II more than 120 countries have opted for democacy. People living in demoractic countries have seen the quality of their life, and even life expectancy rise dramatically. By almost any measure those peoples have benefited, and benefit mightily. Given the wide variations in the quality of thoise democracies it would be unrealistic to expect perfection or anything near that. Conversely to ignroe the evidence of geometric progress is inconsistent with the facts.
I can agree with my cynical Scottish forebear and others your cite about the degenerative progress. But, I do not share their cynicism. I recognize periodic spasms of socialism that flicler here and there - like France, and to some extent the UK - but every chamber pot fills and needs periodic emptying.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Perhaps Winston Churchill put it best: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” But it can be seen throughout democratic history that a pattern always emerges, that the strength, character and greatness of all those ancient and previous nations like Greece, Rome and even Great Britain - which, nowadays is just simply referred to as UK, have all simply blown themselves out socially, morally and economically. The democratic leadership baton has been continually passed throughout each rise and fall, and if nothing else we must surely identify a pattern of common reasons for the inevitable fall of these great democratic empires. The current poor state of the modern and developed democracies - and for the same reasons - bears an uncanny resemblance to what drove Greece and Rome away from greatness. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with democracies as such. But it would appear that all political systems never stand still and, like a pendulum, perpetually swing to the right and left in constant motion.
Additionally, it seems that a further battery of reasons - such as deliberate monetary inflation, excessive warring well beyond your own borders, steady moral and social decay, monetary taxation and direct requisitioning, over-immigration, excessive greed and corruption in both business and politics, the rise of Christianity as well as the the loss of agricultural land given over to the ever-expanding aristocracy, have all contributed to Rome’s classic decline and fall. Do you see the parallels here? All these reasons also apply to the democracies of both America and Europe as far as I can see. Isn’t it peculiar that we continue, throughout all history, to make the same political, economic and social mistakes again and again. The pattern is quite obviously repeating itself.
For now, I tend to believe that any political system - whether communist, single dictatorship or democracy - must necessarily change after a given period of time, and must always swing towards its opposite equivalent. Russia and China, throughout their own steady political and economic development, are simple examples of these extremes. And this pattern or relationship seems to have little bearing on what particular stage - however advanced or civilized - any national political system has attained, it just seems to repeat as a pattern.
You also refer to “quality of life” as so important, and say that people have “benefited mightily”. I would never deny this. The same might be said of Rome, Greece or even UK. But I ask you now what does “quality of life” really depend on? When “quality of life” economically relies on corrupt financial institutions and governments, if excessive risk, greed and credit has fueled all this as well as constantly warring expensively well beyond our own borders - is it any real surprise that the likes of Rome and Greece fell from their greatness?
….Bye the way, I liked your chamber-pot analogy, made me chuckle (and very true). My own views, when judged ruthlessly, might be said to be akin to judging politics as a chamber-pot that is either half-full or half-empty at best. In either case it is still a chamber-pot, like it or not. I agree with you heartily there.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I presume you lump Rome and Greece as in “dcline of” although they are incomparable in almost every way. I admit Tyler’s cynical thesis is a little too close for comfort for me right now. But, I’m optimistic as I see Americans — at least — gettiong their backs up over current socialistic trends. My concerns are the threatening, parnoid administration, and the numbers willing to trade any freedom for even a sliuver of security absent any effort and demand rights without regard to responsibility.
I think you insult chamber pots by comparing them to politics and politicians.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
For some years now, there has been a shift towards the political left in UK(and in Europe). The problem has always been the difficulty in distinguishing any differing policies between the red-coats and the blue-coats from within English politics. I think the same may now be said of American politics since Obama seems to be deliberately treading constantly on conservative ground with most of his policies - particularly in his economic recovery policies since these appear to be very little changed as compared to Bush’s previous policies. Granted that Obama is also trying to expand the US government by introducing his pet welfare state projects at the same time as saving the US economy - in typical socialist fashion. His priorities here seem dangerously jumbled and out of order to me - he should focus solely on economic recovery for now, otherwise the citizens of America will be suffering the same brace of innumerable stealth taxes that have already been so subtly and ruthlessly executed on UK citizens - these taxes must unavoidably appear sooner rather than later now.
And I make no apology for the chamber-pot analogy. This metaphor is such a fitting tribute to all politicians, although I do agree - and I admit this with a certain deep sorrow - perhaps a most regrettable insult to all free-standing chamber-pots. But in these hard times, sacrifices have to be made…