Democracy & the Iraq War.
One of the inherent weaknesses of “democracy” as a form of national government was demonstrated in the manner in which America was taken to war in Iraq.
Regardless of whether one supported the action or not, it is obvious, now, that our reason for going in there (weapons of mass destruction) was utterly wrong. What’s more, the Bush administration continually extolled the American people with baseless claims of an imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s. In one of his State of the Union Speeches, President Bush responded to those of us demanding evidence of these weapons by conjuring up an image of a mushroom cloud over one of our cities being the “smoking gun” of proof, implying that if we waited for Bush to provide evidence, we’d suffer a nuclear attack.
Many Americans, understandably frightened by the events of 9/11, believed Bush’s claims out of fear of the consequences that we’d suffer in the event he was right.
In my view, the whole run up to war was based upon scare tactics and half-truths – tactics that work quite well in a democracy. This flaw in such a system was recognized by Elbridge Gerry during the original Constitutional Convention:
“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.”
Another feature of our original form of government that might have kept us out of Iraq was a Senate that was appointed by each state’s legislature. The point of this was to have one legislative body appointed by the “landed gentry” and the other, the House of Representatives, elected by the common people. The primary reason for doing it this way was to pit the rich against the common in order to prevent either from dominating the system. This arrangement, of course, was discarded in 1913 (in favor of the idea that “more democracy was better”) with the 17th Amendment, which made selection of the Senate a function of the popular vote in each state. Not only did this set the stage for the rich to dominate our government (see “Fascism”), it also removed an important protection against the passions of the general public.
You may recall that prior to going to war in Iraq, and for about the first 6 months of apparent success there, 70 percent of the American public supported the war. Now, after 7 years of fiasco, 70 percent of Americans OPPOSE the war.
In Federalist # 63 James Madison explained how a Senate that was appointed by the wealthier, educated classes might have prevented this war: “…..there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth, can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped, if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens, the hemlock on one day, and statues on the next.”
So, you see, the Founders of this country, having been educated in human history and its various attempts at government, understood the folly of using democracy as a form of national government.
If you’re one of those who thinks we SHOULD be a democracy, ask yourself how much YOU know about human history and government philosophy.