"Would you tell me please, Mr Howard, why I should trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man's rights as easily as a king can."
--Benjamin Martin (The Patriot)
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Democracy. Prior to my return to the history books, I used to think that America was designed as a democracy. Democracy is a governance system where laws are established by majority vote. But our original design was not a democracy. The US was built as a federal republic.
Much ink has been spilled on these pages that chronicles my mind change w.r.t. democracy. I have come to realize that democracy can threaten liberty because it facilitates discretionary rule rather than the rule of law. Those in the dissenting minority are forced to comply with the wishes of the majority. Law becomes arbitrary, and depends on the whims of whomever can martial the most support. Majority rule is a form of positivism.
Under the auspices of natural law, all individuals are endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this legal system, as Jefferson astutely observed, the inalienable rights of the individual are self-evident and require no vote or approval.
What must be established are the authorities and limitations of government. The authority of government is necessarily limited, lest individual liberty is compromised. Procedures are also established to make the restraints on government difficult to loosen by discretionary vote. The Constitution was the framer's imperfect step in the direction of establishing rule of law rather than discretionary rule by men.
Rather than perfecting the rule of law set forth in the Constitution, we have been rendering it irrelevant as one special interest group battles another in a quest to gain control of central government power via majority vote.
Government. At least as far back as my generation, American students have been taught that the federal government is a benevolent entity. There is little discussion of the 'healthy distrust' of government that shaped the views of those who framed the initial design.
It took me a long time to realize that government is force. This truth is rarely put forth in classroom studies.
Government force is put to valid use when it is employed to help individuals protect their property (broadly construed) from aggression by others.
Government force is illegitimately used when it goes on the offensive--forcefully invading the life, liberty, and property of some for the benefit of others. When it does so, government becomes a strong-armed agent for hire and, as Bastiat astutely observed, society slides down a slope that is difficult to reclimb.
The issues noted in this and the three preceding missives constitute major changes of mind for me over the past 10+ years. Because quest for truth is never-ending, more changes of mind undoubtedly await.
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The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: “Your money, or your life.” And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
~Lysander Spooner
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