Category Archives: Democracy

Updated: Deifying Democracy

Democracy, Elections 2008, Political Philosophy

A lot of gushing is going on about our wonderful democracy at work—the allusion being to the long lines and high turnout. Not to rain on anyone’s line, but:

America was not conceived as a democracy—majority rule was never the intent here. In a democracy, majorities get to decide what is up for grabs. In a republic, where the central government has limited and clearly enumerated functions, majorities merely determine who is to be elected.

We are thus subject to the whims of the national majority, or, rather, of its ostensible representatives.

It is these representatives who triumph in this or any election, certainly not that fictitious entity “The People.” While it seems obvious that the minority in a democracy is openly thwarted, the question is, do the elected representatives at least carry out the will of the majority?

The answer is No. The People’s representatives have carte blanche to do exactly as they please. As Benjamin Barber wrote:

It is hard to find in all the daily activities of bureaucratic administration, judicial legislation, executive leadership, and paltry policy-making anything that resembles citizen engagement in the creation of civic communities and in the forging of public ends. Politics has become what politicians do; what citizens do (when they do anything) is to vote for politicians.

In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy E. Barnett further homes in on why the informed voter ought to have little incentive to exercise his “democratic right”:

If we vote for a candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for, but we have also consented to the laws she has voted against.

If we vote against the candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for or against.

And if we do not vote at all, we have consented to the outcome of the process whatever it may be.

This “rigged contest” Barnett describes as, “‘Heads’ you consent, ‘tails’ you consent, ‘didn’t flip the coin,’ guess what? You consent as well.'”

Update I (Nov. 5): Wrote Michael Oakeshott in The Claims of Politics:

“Political action involves mental vulgarity, not merely because it entails the occurrence and support of those who are mentally vulgar, but because of the simplification of human life implied in even the best of it purposes.”

The NYT’s Half-Truths & Wholesale Lies About South Africa

Affirmative Action, Africa, Crime, Democracy, Israel, Media, South-Africa

My VDARE.COM column is up. Here’s an excerpt from the column, which I had titled “The NYT’s Half-Truths & Wholesale Lies About South Africa”:

“Fourteen years and approximately 300,000 murders after black rule devastated my homeland, the New York Times is shocked to discover that South Africa is fast disappearing down the same hole into which Rhodesia, rest in peace, was dropped. [Post-Apartheid South Africa has entered an Anxious Era, by Barry Bearak, October 5, 2008)

I guess some latitude is in order. It took decades and piles of dead bodies before Robert Mugabe lost luster in the eyes of the American MainStream Media [MSM]. By the time the megalomaniac Mugabe was conferred with honorary doctorates (1984 and 1986) and a knighthood (1994), he had already done his “best” work: slaughter an estimated 20,000 innocent Ndebele in Matabeleland (1983), with whose leader, Joshua Nkomo, he refused to share power.

Western conventional wisdom was, well, no wiser.”

Read the complete VDARE column.

The NYT’s Half-Truths & Wholesale Lies About South Africa

Affirmative Action, Africa, Crime, Democracy, Israel, Media, South-Africa

My VDARE.COM column is up. Here’s an excerpt from the column, which I had titled “The NYT’s Half-Truths & Wholesale Lies About South Africa”:

“Fourteen years and approximately 300,000 murders after black rule devastated my homeland, the New York Times is shocked to discover that South Africa is fast disappearing down the same hole into which Rhodesia, rest in peace, was dropped. [Post-Apartheid South Africa has entered an Anxious Era, by Barry Bearak, October 5, 2008)

I guess some latitude is in order. It took decades and piles of dead bodies before Robert Mugabe lost luster in the eyes of the American MainStream Media [MSM]. By the time the megalomaniac Mugabe was conferred with honorary doctorates (1984 and 1986) and a knighthood (1994), he had already done his “best” work: slaughter an estimated 20,000 innocent Ndebele in Matabeleland (1983), with whose leader, Joshua Nkomo, he refused to share power.

Western conventional wisdom was, well, no wiser.”

Read the complete VDARE column.

Updated: Canada Votes

Canada, Democracy, Drug War, Economy, The State

It was swift and efficient. It took a day. There was little fuss. Campaigning did not begin three years earlier. Voters and election officials managed to cast and count the ballots. There are no reports of systemic voter fraud. Conservatives have returned to form a minority government. (As the American duopoly merges into undifferentiated socialism.)

The Wall Street Journal once called Canada “an honorary Third World country.” The tables are turned.

Update: (October 18) It’s important to make finer distinctions. Canada is more socialistic than the US; the US is more fascistic. Take the Drug War. Canada doesn’t have one nearly as destructive to lives and liberties as the US’s. Ditto an SEC. The US put Canadian newspaper mogul Conrad Black in jail; not the other way round. When last did you hear of an SEC witch hunt in Canada? Canada has tried to follow the US’s lead in these areas, but has not lived up to the latter’s brutality. Not by any measure.