A CASE AGAINST DEMOCRACY IN CREATING A FREE COUNTRY
By
Wayne L. Parker
Foreword
Something is very wrong with our country today. Although we are experiencing unprecedented economic expansion, government expansion is reaching into every aspect of our lives, threatening to choke off our freedoms. Such strangulation will, if left unchecked, eventually destroy our economic prosperity as well.
With this essay I intend to point out that our problems are being caused by “an excess of democracy”, a term used by Elbridge Gerry, one of the Framers of our Constitution.
Let me assure you that it is not my intention to argue against the democratic process. To do so would not only be wrong, but foolhardy.
With this pamphlet, I seek only to point out the rather severe limitations of democracy as an institution, and to illustrate how those limitations are being demonstrated by our current state of affairs concerning our federal government.
I offer you my thoughts as a humble servant of humanity, hoping only to cause you to pause and reconsider your current understanding of the way things are, and how they should be.
THE PROBLEM, IN GENERAL
With another presidential campaign season heading our way, we’re hearing the usual complaints about the corruption of our “two party” system of government.
People are upset, legitimately, about the influence of “big money” on campaigns, the corruption that it breeds, as well as the shallowness of the issues and the candidates themselves.
We bemoan the media neglect of more “deserving” candidates and those representing “third-parties”.
People often wonder how our system of government, believed to be the most intelligent system ever devised, could allow such shenanigans to take precedence over common sense.
Looking at the federal government in toto, many people are disgusted with the silly, oft times dangerous, philosophically inconsistent nature of what comes out of the congress. The influence of special interests, pork-barrel politics, and “feel good” programs inundate us until many, if not most of us turn our backs on the whole process.
Is this a failure of the system of government devised by the framers of our Constitution?
Did the Founding Fathers fail to foresee problems that would render their creation obsolete?
Or are our problems a result of a DEPARTURE from their creation?
IS IT POSSIBLE TO HAVE TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY?
Consider the fact that we’re constantly told we are a democracy. We’re told that it is our “sacred right and duty” to go to the polls and vote for the candidate of our choice for President and Vice-president, as well as Senator and Representative. Is this what was intended for us? Is this what was considered “wise government”, the “greatest system of government ever devised”?
No, it is not. However, due to the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and the perversion of the Electoral College, we ARE operating as a democracy.
This brings me to ask the questions, How many candidates for president, vice-president, or congress have we ever met? How many have we spent time with, learning their character, beliefs, and attitudes toward the founding principles of this nation? Not many, if any at all, is my bet. So how in the world can we make an intelligent choice among candidates?
Do we learn about the candidates from television ads?
Consider, honestly, the depth of what passes for political campaigns today- sound-bite ads, sham debates, and cheap shots. That’s it. One need only study the Lincoln-Douglas debates to see how ridiculously shallow today’s political campaigns really are.
The reason the campaigns are so shallow is that the candidates are trying to please a majority of voters in order to win the election.
That’s OK, as far as it goes, but consider this: On any given issue, there will be an opinion which, in general, is shared by a majority of people. On each DIFFERENT issue, however, that majority is made up of different individuals than all the other issues! Thus, in order to gain the support of the “majority” in terms of getting elected, a candidate must keep his issues as general, and shallow, as possible. This is what has turned most of us away from the political process.
Since the candidates for national office must appeal to the general public, the most efficient method, in terms of time and energy, is television. Television is a “one-way” medium. You can’t talk back to it. (Well, we CAN, and some of us do, but we won’t be heard, much less receive a reply).
I maintain that the shallowness of political campaigns is a result of the impossibility of reaching the masses on any kind of deep, meaningful level.
Which brings me to another observation.
WE’RE NOT AS SMART AS WE THINK
People form opinions. That’s one of the things we do naturally. We can’t help it - it’s part of our survival instinct.
However, we can only form opinions based upon our knowledge and the reasoning we employ to assimilate that knowledge. If our knowledge is limited, our opinions are likely to be flawed. That’s just the way it is. All of our knowledge is limited, to a certain extent, so it’s important to avoid pressing for universal implementation of our ideas.
Most people’s sphere of operation consists of family, job, and home. Most people have neither the time nor the inclination to study government, philosophy, or economics. Thus, people’s knowledge of the things that are essential to good government is severely limited. This doesn’t prevent us from forming opinions, however. It simply prevents us from forming EDUCATED opinions.
By employing direct democracy in the selection of government officials we are condemning ourselves to government in accordance with an un-informed, albeit well-meaning majority
James and Walter Kennedy, in their book “The South Was Right!” (in which they make the argument that slavery was NOT the cause of the War Between the States) addressed this concern quite aptly: “The officeholders in a democracy represent the average plus one of the electorate. If the majority of the voters have an eighth-grade education, then the average officeholder will represent the interest, social values, and aspirations of that majority”.
This phenomenon is responsible for all the un-Constitutional laws that are passed in Washington, D.C. Federal politicians are no longer beholden to the Constitution. They are accountable only to “the people”. And “the people” give little or no thought to the Constitution when they’re calling for their government “solutions”.
It is interesting to note that, during the framing of our Constitution, only one individual proposed election of the president by popular vote, and his motion was approved by only one delegation.
Alexander Hamilton observed that, “The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right.”
I believe he is correct, for the reasons I’ve already stated.
Elbridge Gerry, another active participant in the first Constitutional Convention, stated that, “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue; but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massachusetts it has been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute.”
Substitute the mainstream media and “talk radio” for “pretended patriots” and “designing men” in the previous paragraph.
Roger Sherman echoed this sentiment by stating that the masses, “want information and are constantly liable to be misled.”
PEOPLE SHOULD EXERCISE POWER SOLELY WITHIN THEIR OWN AREA OF UNDERSTANDING
All this is not to say that the Founders of this country doubted that the people were capable of self-government. In fact, they had complete faith in the average citizen’s ability to conduct his own affairs, within his own sphere of operation. That is why they created a system of government in which the bulk of governmental power was to be on the local level. Whereas today people seek solutions at the federal level to problems on the local level, (drug use, crime, poverty, etc.) the original idea was for people to solve their local problems via local government, and leave national issues to the national government.
This idea, of course, should arouse concern about the nation being ruled by a bunch of elitists seeking to promote their own personal agenda. However, it was never envisioned that the Federal government should have so much power, and thus would not lend itself well as a tool for implementing the selfish desires of the rich elite.
To those who would point out, correctly, that the federal government today is, indeed, often a tool of the moneyed classes, I would answer once again that this is a result of the perversion of the original plan for the federal government. In current practice, due to the use of the popular vote to elect ALL federal politicians, our system places control of the federal government firmly in the hands of those who are least capable of exercising it. Through the use of inflammatory issues by, and through, the mainstream media, “the people” have been manipulated into calling for more government, more taxes, and more control over their private lives. (We always envision the control being exercised over someone else, but that is not the reality that comes about).
You may find it unbelievable, but the Founders addressed this concern as well.
GOVERNMENT SHOULD REFLECT NATURE
Having agreed that it was necessary to have two or more legislative bodies, as different from each other as was possible in order to create competing interests, it was necessary to decide HOW the legislature would be divided.
Recognizing that government should reflect, as much as possible, the natural order of society, the Founders set the opposing divisions of society against each other in their design of the House and Senate.
Again quoting Alexander Hamilton, “All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people.”
Gouverneur Morris, at the Constitutional Convention, expressed the concern that the “rich” would seek to use the federal government for their own purposes: “The Rich will strive to establish their dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will. The proper security against them is to form them into a separate interest.”
Others among the Founders were concerned about the common people having too much power in a centralized government.
Hamilton expressed an affinity for the British Parliament, with its House of Lords representing the rich, and its House of Commons representing the common people.
That is, I believe, how and why the Senate and House were created the way they were. How U.S. Senators were to be selected is also important to address at this point.
Up until the 17th Amendment was ratified, U.S. Senators were appointed by their respective state legislatures. At the time of the Constitution’s framing, most state legislatures were composed of the “rich elite”. A minimum amount of property ownership was required as a pre-condition for eligibility to run for state office. Thus, the U.S. Senate was composed of men who were chosen from among the rich.
This creation of a body of legislators that was composed of the wealthy was counterbalanced by the U.S. House, whose members would be elected by the general public, and thus would tend to reflect popular opinion.
By design, then, the naturally conflicting interests between the masses and the elite would be brought into the open by the opposition of the two houses of the federal legislature. This arrangement would ensure that whatever was passed by congress would serve both sides equally; giving advantage to neither the average nor the rich.
THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT
A desire for independence on the part of the President was accomplished by the creation of the “Electoral College”.
In its intended form, each state would select a single group of electors representing their number of congressmen and senators. Each of these electors would vote for the best candidate in the field. The votes of each group of electors would be sent to the U.S. Congress to be counted with those from all the other states. The individuals receiving the most votes for president and vice-president would be placed in those offices. Please note the absence of any need for political parties in this type of arrangement.
The way the electoral process works now, each political party that has candidates for President and Vice-president on the ballot chooses its own set of electors. The party whose candidates win the popular vote gets to send all of their electors’ votes to congress to be counted. This results in the Executive Branch being elected by popular vote, along with the Senate and House.
DEMOCRACY MEANS MORE GOVERNMENT, LESS LIBERTY
The perversion of the Electoral College, such that the president is elected by popular vote, has caused that office, and people’s view of it, to resemble that of a monarchy; a “national Daddy”. Whenever evil befalls a segment (however small) of our population, the president is seen as pondering, and proposing, the solution to the problem. Cabinet bureaucrats exercise tremendous control over the lives of individual Americans.
An equally serious problem results from the election of Senators by popular vote, as opposed to their being chosen by the rich.
It is generally acknowledged that we, as a nation, are drifting toward socialism. This is applauded in some circles, feared in others.
This drift, I believe, is due to the fact that, as Alexander Hamilton pointed out, the “rich and well-born” are in a distinct minority. And since a majority elects ALL of the Federal officials, the rich no longer have a legitimate, exclusive voice within the governmental institution.
We hear the “tax the rich” mentality being expressed all the time among us “common people”. Citizens are more than happy to call for more government, so long as the new programs are paid for by the rich and not them.
Of course, the rich are not entirely without a voice. However, whereas before they had the Senate to represent their wishes, in competition with the House, now they must seek support via “lobbying” and other corrupt methods, unless they choose to run for office themselves, which would be the least effective way of protecting their interests.
With the original arrangement of the Senate and House, if either the rich or common sought to “bribe” the opposition in order to advance their cause, they would need to corrupt a large number of people in order for their issue to pass by majority vote. As things stand today, it is only necessary to go after a relative few in the opposing political party in order to achieve such a consensus.
So you see, the use of direct democracy in choosing our federal representatives is actually CAUSING many of our problems today. Yet our politicians and the media tell us, quite regularly, that we ARE a democracy, and that democracy is good.
DEMOCRACY: AN IMPORTANT TOOL, A DANGEROUS INSTITUTION
I wish to point out here that I believe that democracy, as a tool, can be very effective in establishing good government. However, institutionalizing democracy, for the sake of democracy, would tend to establish tyranny rather than freedom.
Most people do not think in terms of “rights”. They only want their problems solved. Thus, when voting on issues, as we would in a pure democracy, we would tend to implement “solutions” that we think will work for us, without much regard for their affects on others.
Alexis de Tocqueville, in “Democracy in America” stated, "If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomeration, nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them."
To cite but one example, in the early 1990’s a nation-wide poll revealed that 73% of Americans thought that police should be allowed to enter private homes without a search warrant, provided they were looking for drugs. The far-reaching consequences of such a policy were never mentioned to the poll respondents, who apparently never considered them on their own, or considered them to be unimportant.
Thus it can be seen that, without sufficient restraint, democracy can be a dangerous and destructive force.
IF NOT DEMOCRACY, WHAT?
As I said at the beginning, it is not my intention to call for the elimination of democracy; only to point out its rather severe limitations.
What we have now, at the federal and probably state level as well, is a situation in which “the people” are voting for candidates whom they have never met, employing knowledge about government and the candidates themselves that is limited and oft times flawed.
This is not meant to be an insult to Americans. It’s just that those of us who must spend our time working for a living, taking care of our homes and families, and trying to save something for retirement don’t have the time to travel around with the different candidates in order to learn what they’re REALLY about. Nor do we have the time to educate ourselves about the intricacies of political philosophy and economics. Consequently, we rely on other people, primarily those in the media, to educate us about the important issues.
Unfortunately, and I think you will agree, the people in the media have their own selfish interests at stake. After all, they’re human too. If the “will of the people” is what determines who will hold power over the country (or state), then wouldn’t it be great to be the primary influence over what people think? This is why the mainstream media tend to promote the notion that we are a democracy. The fact of our operating as a democracy gives them tremendous power over government, given their power to influence popular opinion.
A better way to change the system, and I believe changing the system is needed to arrest our decline from government of law to that of men, is to change the system BACK to how it was originally intended. In fact, an expansion of the “electoral college” concept of electing the president and vice-president would probably work quite well.
WE CAN ALL VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WHOM WE KNOW AND TRUST
I think you will agree that each of us knows at least one person in our community whom we respect for his judgment, foresight, and wisdom. Our communities are FULL of such people.
Let’s consider how we’d go about electing a group of electors for the State of Mississippi that will then vote for candidates for higher office.
Each community would elect a respected individual from within their number to represent them. This elector would then meet with all the other elected leaders from the other communities within the Voting District. These individuals would decide among themselves who would be the best to represent their Voting District at the Supervisory District level.
The persons elected by each Voting District would then elect, from their number, a person to represent their Supervisory District. The representatives of the Supervisory Districts within a county would then meet to elect a representative of their county. Then all the representatives of each county within a Congressional District would elect a member to represent them at that level. You see how it would work.
Please note, throughout the whole process everyone who casts a vote does so for an individual whom they’ve met face to face and with whom they’ve spent some time. Various arrangements and criteria may be established to ensure that each group of people has a means of properly evaluating their counterparts prior to voting.
Once a group of electors is established for the state, representing all the Congressional Districts and the two “at large” electors based upon our two senators, those electors are ready to evaluate the various candidates for office.
IS IT TRUE THAT “ANYONE CAN BE PRESIDENT”?
All of us have been told, since we were children, that in this great country “anyone can be president”. Yet, when we look at the process today, we know that claim is nonsense.
As I pointed out earlier, in order to reach “the masses”, that is, 200-plus million adult American citizens, a candidate needs money. Even if you intend to forego the use of television and actually travel around the country in an attempt to meet every citizen, you must be either rich or a member of a group (political party) that has access to large amounts of cash.
The way things work today, television is the medium of choice for candidates, and the only political parties that have access to enough money for an effective television campaign are the Democrats and Republicans. The ascendancy of these two parties into positions of absolute control over national politics has promoted and perpetuated the myth of a “two party system of government” in this country; thus cementing their control over the process for the foreseeable future. As has already been pointed out, nowhere in the Founder’s design were political parties ever mentioned!
So you see, the prohibitive costs of conducting an effective campaign for federal office keep many good people from even trying, much less winning.
A WAY TO REMOVE THE NEED FOR TELEVSION AND MONEY
Let’s consider how national elections would operate under the “electoral college” concept.
Let’s say each state has chosen its group of electors. We have fifty groups. Current media campaigns last about a year. That is, 52 weeks.
What if, instead of relying on the television as both a medium and a shield, each candidate for office had to spend a week with each state’s electors?
The week can be spent in many different ways. The candidate can give speeches, after which he’d be asked a lot of questions. The electors can take them fishing, camping, hunting, to auctions, play sports to determine their character, whatever. During all of this week-long interaction the electors will be able to form a fairly good opinion of each candidates’ personality, character, and wisdom.
Also, whereas a candidate today ALWAYS avoids answering “tough” questions, and gets away with it, each candidate would know that were he to act in such a manner with these electors he would be immediately rejected as a candidate.
Such an arrangement would ensure that only serious candidates with character and wisdom would make it to the final stages of the process. Also, candidates would need only enough money to pay for travel and lodging during their campaigns.
This type of arrangement would, I believe, eliminate the influence of television, and thus, big money, over election campaigns, and would enable candidates whose ideas currently are completely ignored to come forward and be heard.
NOT A “MAGIC BULLET” SOLUTION
The ideas I’ve presented here are not meant to be any kind of fantastic solution to what ails our nation. They are only suggestions as to how our public elections could be conducted in a much more effective manner. I will leave it to the various leaders (the real ones, not the politicians) who may read this to use or reject my suggestions.
I firmly believe, however, that I am totally correct in my assessment of what is wrong with the political process today.
The system is broken.
The saddest part is that it has been systematically broken over the years by “designing men” and “pretended patriots” taking advantage of people’s good, if misguided, intentions.
Such things as restrictions on campaign contributions are nothing but “quick-fixes” which, along with failing to fix the problem, will worsen things by making it more difficult for anyone to challenge the stranglehold being maintained by the two ruling parties.
The notion of “self-government” was intended to mean that we should be free to govern ourselves, not each other.
Such an arrangement requires a great deal of participation on the part of the people. This participation includes educating ourselves and keeping an open mind toward problems as well as solutions.
We Americans, in all our diversity, are a great people because we’ve grown up in a nation which was founded upon great principles. If we fail to understand those principles, and the extent of their implications, we will fail not only in attaining the vision that the Founders had for us, but our own hopes and aspirations as well.
If Americans do not take the time, and set aside their egos, to consider what is REALLY wrong with our country, we will continue our slide toward tyranny and will eventually meet our demise as a free country. We are already well on our way toward such a state. The fact that people can still write articles like this one shows that we still have a chance.
Providing ideas, however, is only part of the answer.
The rest is up to you.
Wayne L. Parker