Democracy or Republic?

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Is Democracy a legitimate form of Government?

Check out this post over at Vanishing American where VA, in an amazing show of self-restraint, stands aside and lets the giants speak.

My first thought in deciding to post on this topic was to follow VA's lead and let these great men speak for themselves; to let the quotes stand on their own. But ultimately I could not resist the temptation to share a few of my thoughts on the quote that stood out most prominently for me. The "standout" quote for me while reading through this list, and a quote I don't recall ever having seen before, incidentally, was the following from Aristotle, Politics:

Democracy arose from men thinking that if they are equal in any respect they are equal in all respects.

In other words, and very simply stated, democracy arose from liberalism, since liberalism is the ideology which teaches this false doctrine that if men are equal in any respect, they are equal in all respects.

Now if, in your opinion, I'm unfairly attributing to Aristotle ideas he is not actually trying to convey, or I'm putting words in his mouth, or I'm destroying, in any way, the spirit of his message, please do not hesitate to let me know. But it seems to me that one may justly paraphrase the above quote to say:

If men are not equal in all respects, they are not equal in any respect. This is the core fundamental thinking of liberalism, the establishment of which, as the governing rule of society, is the core fundamental object of democracy, liberalism's form of government; government of, by, and for liberals.

I think I may have just experienced something of an epiphany here. It seems to me that democracy is not a form of government at all, at least not in the normal sense in which we use the term "govern-ment," which implies structure and order and restraint, and so on. Indeed, democracy, as a ruling theory arising from liberalism, seems more anti-governmental than govern-mental to me.

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Podhoretz invokes Taheri; Taheri cites "Universal Democratic Principles"

Lawrence Auster has an enlightening entry up this morning wherein he exposes the self-defeating nature of Amir Taheri's argument which lends an air of legitimacy to political entities in the mideast, Hezbollah, Hamas, et al. Norman Podhoretz invokes the authority of Taheri, citing him in his (Podhoretz's) new book where Taheri says that the popular election of these groups in the mideast is, in spite of all indications on the surface, a positive occurance since it establishes the higher principle that political legitimacy is dependent on democratic elections.

Though the names Podhoretz and Taheri are of fairly recent recognition to me, their reasoning is most certainly not...

In my comments to this article, I attempt to show the true nature of the respective arguments, and what actually lies beneath the surface of this irresponsible position, building upon what Auster exposes in the intial entry. Mr. Auster has kindly replied to my comments, identifying my second paragraph as being most consistent with the message these gentlemen are attmpting to convey:

Wait a minute! Let me get this straight.

Podhoretz is invoking Taheri in defense of his own position, where Taheri is basically lending credence to the fallacy that popular elections legitimize islamist terrorist political power and activities; that popular elections, in and of themselves, legitimizes...whatever it touches? This is based itself on an illegitimate, or a false premise, that popular elections conducted whenever, wherever, and by whomever they are engaged, equals legitimacy automatically. If the premise is false, how can the conclusion be otherwise?

I'll give them both the benefit of the doubt and assume that what they intend is that by establishing the universal principle of popular electoral legitimacy, that eventually the seed, planted as it is in "good ground," will grow into a tree producing the kind of fruit that [we] desire, popular defeat of terrorists in the mideast. But upon what basis do they come to this wildly irresponsible conclusion? Upon what historical evidence do they rely to show that democratic elections, once initiated, eventually produce the desired results necessarily? Assuming this is what they mean.

Furthermore, it being a main staple of liberalism to encourage and reward folks for bad behavior and bad choices, this position betrays their liberal undergirdings, which, of course, further undermines their position."

The point being, of course, that Podhoretz is engaging in a logical fallacy, quite common to liberalism. He begins with a false premise, thus ending with a false conclusion. And as the abjectly liberal philosophy goes, everyone gets a trophy for simply playing the game. It doesn't matter how well they play the game, or whether they play it according to a given set of rules or standards. Everyone is still rewarded, and entitled to be rewarded, with a trophy for simply participating.

Bad behavior and wrong choices are equally rewarded, under the liberal philosophy, with good behavior and good choices, thus undermining what would appear to be the goal. It is antithetical to liberalism to withhold the trophy simply because the participant neglects his responsibilities, behaving irresponsibly in his participation, if a liberal is even discerning enough to make the distinction. The most important thing to a liberal is not how you play the game, but rather that you play the game. Eventually, according to a liberal, and as long as we reward the players for playing, they'll learn to play by the rules and everyone will live happily ever after, in peace and perfect harmony, any evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

That, in a nutshell, is the insanity of liberalism.

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Civil Rights for Minors?

(Note: This post has been expanded to include a couple of items which need to be addressed.)

Lawrence Auster over at VFR has put up an entry involving a discussion that he and I had yesterday concerning a VFR entry from 2006 he had sent me a link to in reply to a message I'd sent him regarding his entry Who and What rules America.

First of all, Note to Mr. Auster: I'm not a sponge! The "brief selection of VFR articles about liberalism" you sent me amounts to, by my calculations, 18 separate articles. It may be a "brief selection" by VFR standards, but it is not a "brief selection" by my standards! lol

Nah, just kidding y'all, I appreciate Auster's willingness to make me aware of, and provide me with the links to these articles. I've actually read several of them now. But to get to the point...


My question to Auster may be summed up in the final sentence of my initial correspondence with him on this topic where I ask:

"On what grounds did this child threaten and ultimately bring this lawsuit against his school?"

Mr. Auster's answer can be summed up in this sentence of his reply to me:

"Once you have turned schools into ideological battle grounds, you have fundamentally distorted them and the situation cannot be made right."

For a fuller understanding of the discussion as it took place, please click on the link to the VFR article, Should minors be allowed to sue their schools, even in a conservative cause?

Thanks to Mr. Auster for indulging me, and taking time to answer my question.

**********

A couple of items I need to address:

First, Auster and I seem to be in complete agreement as to what the only real and lasting solution for the problem here identified is, namely, a return to constitutional government. But this begs for an explanation as to what constitutes, to our minds, constitutional government. If the only real solution is a return to constitutional government, then we need to define in some detail what such a return would ultimately mean, or look like, or involve. I have asked Mr. Auster whether he has ever dealt with this question in a more particular way, and he informs me that he has not dealt with the question beyond the general terms in which he expresses them in his answer to me.

I therefore appeal to Mr. Auster to consider putting his talents to this important task. Some of you already know that my fellow AFBers and I have been working on, and have developed some models of what a return to constitutional government would look like, as well as what we believe the effects would be. Indeed, the whole idea of Balanced Government follows this theme of returning to constitutional government. The authority for the idea, we derive from the founding fathers and their writings on the subject. Particularly, the Federalist Papers, Washington's Farewell Address, and even Mr. Jefferson has something to say in extreme preference to governmental balance. As to Jefferson's preference to Balanced Government, I'm planning on doing a full post on it later on. As to Washington's, I already have a post up dealing with that, though it is by no means his last word on the subject.

But again, recognizing, as I do, the talents of Mr. Auster, I can see where his exploring of this subject in more detail in an article specifically intended to deal with the subject of a return to constitutional government on that level, might have the potential for some very fruitful and productive dialogue.

Second, in one of my replies to Mr. Auster, posted in the comments to the article, I say that this seems to me to be a case of the unprincipled exception. Auster replies to that statement in bold, saying that he's not sure this is a case of the UE. I did reply to his expression of doubt, wherein I explained how that I had concluded this to be a case of the UE. My reply to Auster's doubt is entered below, and italicized:

By the way, my invoking of the unprincipled exception (which I saw that you had questioned in bold) was/is based on the very principles of the unprincipled exception itself as you've defined them, or as I understand them, which state in part that liberalism does not allow for a direct attack on the principles of liberalism. So we end up dealing with the effect, rather than the cause.

This affects the nature of our conversations and our dealing with the problems of liberalism in a variety of ways, one of which, to my mind, is the customizing of our language and our rhetoric so as not to offend people (conservatives included) who are more or less liberal. This can become excessive, or extreme, and the whole point of our challenge to liberalism can be, and often is, distorted thereby. Thus, the message being distorted, the effect of the message results in minimal gains to the conservative cause.

Auster replies that he expressed doubt because I was expressing it (the UE) in an unfamiliar way. That makes a lot of sense because I've been known to do this kind of thing before in order to save space and time, and it usually ends up being a mass of confusion. For an example of what I mean here, go to the comments section of the AFB post, Why Libertarians have it Wrong, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

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What's Wrong with Democratization?

This question has been raised many times across the blogosphere, and I've ventured into it many times myself. I've only touched on it vaguely here at Webster's, so I'd like to do a fuller investigation into the matter for the sake of the archives.

One of the main arguments I've always made concerning the question of democratizing anyone is that democracy (and I really don't even like the term democracy because it indicates mob-rule) is not a suitable form of government for some peoples and cultures. I would say that pure democracy is not a suitable form of government for any people, but I digress. Somehow we've come to believe that because we find what we call democracy suitable to our liking, that that automatically means it is equally suitable to the liking of others, they just don't know it yet. But we're bound and determined to educate them on this point and bring them to the light that what they really want and desire above all is to be free. But what is it they want to be free of?...

Let's see whether we can put together a suitable analogy here for the sake of providing some clarity to the question. Let's say that at the age of 18 some young American is accused of a violent crime resulting in the death of some other young American. Let's say that the accused is charged and found guilty of the crime, and that he is given a life sentence in prison as punishment for his alleged crime. Now, what I want to point out here is that it does not matter whether the youngster is actually guilty. What matters is the fact that he's been found guilty by a jury of his peers, and he is sentenced to life in prison. That's all that matters in this context.

Now, let's say that thirty years after the fact, all the while the accused maintaining his innocence while being confined to prison and prison life, new evidence comes out that proves his actual innocence and exonerates him of any wrongdoing. He is immediately released from prison and sent to live back in society. Does it not make sense that this person is going to have a difficult time adjusting from life in prison to a life of freedom in a free and open society? How much more so when you do the same thing to whole societies of people?

Think about some of the things this person, innocent as he is of any crime, had to learn and adopt simply to survive within the confines of an American prison. He would be continually looking over his shoulder and watching his back. Not to mention that he would have little understanding or experience with what it means to govern oneself and live peacefully among others, and so on and so forth.

If we take the truth of this and apply it to, say, Iraq and the Iraqi people, I think it is fairly evident that, whatever their innermost desires may truly be, democratizing them is a virtual impossibility, particularly in the short go. As I've said so many times before, given enough time I suppose virtually anything is theoretically doable. But I see no wisdom at all in this idea of trying to democratize peoples and cultures who are not accustomed to exercising or living under any form of freedom as we know it. And besides that, what makes us think that our own modern ideas of freedom are not themselves found wanting, and resulting in progressively less and less of the same?

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