Democracy is not intended instantly to actualize the will of a bare majority.
The Real Attack On Our Democracy
By: George Noga – March 6, 2022
“Attack on our democracy” has become the go-to phrase regurgitated by progressives. Whenever they don’t get their way they, along with their media handlers, screech this pallid mantra in unison. Rush Limbaugh was fond of saying that whatever progressives accuse others of doing, they are doing themselves. This critique was never more on target than when liberals direct this rant at others. The real attack on our American democracy emanates from the progressive left and the modern Democratic Party.
Our democracy is best defined in our founding documents. During the Constitutional Convention, the framers were mindful of all previous attempts at self government throughout recorded history – and why they failed. They were determined not to repeat any of those mistakes. Our Constitution works because it embodies a fundamentally correct understanding of human nature and incorporates effective checks and balances, guardrails and restraints on the use of power to prevent tyranny of the majority.
Our founders regarded pure democracy as a form of tyranny to be avoided. I cannot find one example of a democracy where the majority has not tyrannized a minority; it is occurring today in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, China, Russia, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, Botswana and throughout much of the Arab world and most of Central America. During the past century over 100 million Europeans were slaughtered in genocides, ethnic cleansings, holocausts and pogroms, every one of which resulted from tyranny by the majority.
We needn’t look elsewhere for abuses of democracy; there are abundant examples here in the USA. From 1776 to the Constitution of 1787, Americans were effectively governed by 13 state constitutions – not by the Articles of Confederation. Some of those governments were experiments in pure democracy; they contained unicameral legislatures which, along with the governor, were directly elected yearly. Such governments were immediately and highly responsive to the mood of the electorate.
The results were so flagrantly abusive, dangerous and scary that it led, more so than anything else, to the Constitutional Convention. Our framers witnessed firsthand how the excesses of democracy unleashed unanticipated social and political forces. They were determined to correct these deficiencies and to protect against tyranny of the majority and the excesses of democracy. It was for that reason the Constitution contains such strong checks, balances, guardrails and restraints on power.
It is against this backdrop that Democrats want to use the barest of majorities in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate to enact, inter alia, all the following: (1) massive voting rights bill federalizing elections; (2) abolition of the Electoral College and election of the president by popular vote; (3) elimination of the filibuster; (4) expansion of the Supreme Court; (5) admission of D.C. and Puerto Rico as states; (6) voting rights for illegal aliens; and (7) changing the makeup of the Senate.
Democrats would turn the Senate into a clone of the House to pass transformational laws with a one-vote margin. They would unleash the forces of majoritarian tyranny that have plagued democracies since time immemorial. Their action would be opposed to all accumulated human wisdom about the relationship of man and the state including our American experience between 1776 and 1787. The Democrats are making a direct and savage frontal attack on our democracy that would forever change America.
Of course, the Republicans would reverse everything at their earliest opportunity, perhaps in a few years. Moreover, the Republicans may preemptively change to a pure majority to enact their agenda, knowing that the Democrats will do so at their earliest opportunity. Some of the laws Republicans could pass with a bare majority include: (1) national right to concealed carry; (2) national right to work; (3) abolish capital gains taxes; (4) unfettered energy production and transmission in ANWAR and federal lands; (5) abortion restrictions; and much, much more. What’s scary is that the Democrats know all this but are unconcerned because they intend to create a permanent majority such that there never again would be competitive elections held in America.
Let’s go back to first principles. What is the purpose of government? Is it to actualize the will of the barest possible majority at any given instant? Or, is it to preserve a democracy that has delivered justice, freedom, security and stability for 235 years?
The real attack on American democracy comes from the left. They want instantaneous actualization, as in the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. It is easy to visualize Nancy Pelosi as Madame Defarge and AOC presiding over the Committee of Public Safety as her squad screeches in unison “off with their heads“.
