by Harold Pease
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The Founding Fathers universally rejected democracy and hoped that posterity would never turn the United States into one. The word they used was “Republic,†which is not synonymous with “Democracy.†The word “Democracy†is not in the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Even the Pledge of Allegiance is “to the Republic for which it stands.â€
Benjamin Franklin defined democracy as “two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.â€
So why did they reject Democracy? Because it is inherently flawed with the “share the wealth†philosophy, which only works as long as there is someone else’s money to share. Those receiving are quite pleased with getting something for nothing. But those forced to give are denied the right to spend the benefits of their own labor in their own self-interest, which creates jobs no matter how the money is spent. They also lose a portion of their incentive to produce.
Fraser Tyler, author of The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic authored more than 200 years ago said it best. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.â€
Where does the money come from for all the “good†that government does? Answer, out of someone else’s pocket. If it is with his consent it is a form of charity. If forced, a form of tyranny. The more and the longer given, the more entitled the receiver becomes until he is quite willing to take to the streets and demand more of other people’s money, fully satisfied that he has every right to it. This works until those who have money are destroyed as a class and everyone is equally poor. The result is a diminished standard of living for everyone, as was the case under 20th Century communism.
A Democracy gives us the principles of majority rules and frequent elections with options, but little more. It does not protect us from the government’s redistribution of wealth philosophy, which entitles the less productive to get something for nothing.
A Republic includes frequent elections with options. It also gives place to majority rules, but only to a point, for as your mother told you growing up, the majority is not always right. A Republic is also based upon natural unalienable rights that come from a source higher than man (for example life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)
Minority rights are protected from the majority in a Republic. A lynch mob is Democracy. Everyone voted but the man being lynched. A Republic rescues this man gives him a fair trial with a bona fide judge and witnesses for his defense. In a Republic there is an emphasis on individual differences rather than absolute equality. Such individual differences are seen as a strength in a Republic rather than as a flaw under Democracy, which equates sameness as equality.
Limited government is also a major aspect of a Republic. The government is handcuffed from dominating our lives. There is a list of functions and a clear process for obtaining additional power. Finally, there is a healthy fear of the emotion of the masses, destabilizing natural law upon which real freedom is based.
The Founders created a Republic, not a Democracy. The Constitution, as designed, is the mechanism to ensure we stay a Republic. We must demand from our leaders a strict adherence to that document in order to preserve our liberty, and that of future generations.
Dr. Harold Pease has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Mr. Pease, Please correct me if I am wrong but the quote by Fraser Tyler from "The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic" is disputed as to ever having existed. I can find no book by that title. If you have a link please post it. See this link http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html
In his 1927 book, “The Constitution Explained,” Harry Atwood, an attorney, used an interesting analogy to distinguish a democracy from a republic:
“A democracy is a form of government in which the people speak and act directly on public questions. It permits too much participation by the people and finally results in chaos. It creates the kind of condition in the world of government that would be created in the field of medicine if, in the event of our illness, we were to submit to a popular vote what medicine we should take, and then take it regardless of the consequences.”
“A republic is a form of government in which power is vested in regularly selected representatives with authority to act and decide public questions. It provides just enough participation by the people in governmental affairs and leads to orderly progress. It creates the kind of condition in the world of government that is created in the field of medicine when, in the event of our illness, we select a doctor whom we regard as qualified to treat our ailment.”
I agree with this article but most of it was about money. I think a better argument to make would be about freedom because the freedom of someone else is not magically protected by majoiity rule. Members of the majority wake up every day and decide what laws everyone is going to conform to which will always violate the free-will of the minority. Not only can that that minority's money be taken away but so can its religion so the issue is not always about money but always about freedom.
Excellent outlook…
Never would have looked at it that way.
Sadly, neither a Republic nor a Democracy is superior – The Chinese have proven that with their economic war win over the U.S.A. and stand head a shoulders above whatever Americans do in hte world. The Yuan, poised to become the new unit for international trade over the much manipulated fiat American sawbuck proves this point. America is falling from grace the world over, and cannot get its 50 small governments coalition to function effectively to change it. America lies on her deathbed, not about to flourish into significant greatness but about to flounder into Third World conditions for the masses at home and about to face astronomical foreign oil bills in spite of her Solar, Wave, Wind, Hydro, Tidal, Geothermal and Nuclear riches at home! Such follies for an intelligent nation! Will they be saved from the oil barons by sudden developments in fusion, whereby liquid fuels for their belovved V-8 engines will come from nowhere? Convulsive, cataclysmic gut wrenching paradigm shifts in the U.S.A. are eminent. In the next few decades the world will witness astounding paradigm shifts for the American people, as they go from foreign oil to Canadian tar Sands Oil to domestically produced electricity in an attempt to maintain an impossible status quo – a standard of living based on lies and propaganda of the corporatists that rule America. For evidence of this, Google, torrent, the movie, "Who Stole the Electric Car" and study it well.
shifts in the U.S.A. are eminent….
Did you mean to say 'imminent' rather than 'eminent'…in the above partial phrase?
The problem with your argument is the US Republic and Capitalism has not been allowed to function as it should since 1913, when Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and FDR started interfering with how a capitalist system works. The US has been sabotaged from within by politicians and corporatist that worked in their own self interest at the expense of every one else, heavy regulations that only the large corporation can afford killing off the small business operator.
A Republic can be corrupted just as thoroughly as a Democracy. They can also each make the same crappy, near-sighted, and unfair decisions. If you really want to revisit history for proofs of which form of government can stand the test of time, you can look back from our moment along the timeline and see that they've all failed spectacularly.
Absolutely true.
There are so many things wrong with this article I don't even know where to begin!
Go for it – if there IS something wrong, we should be informed of the problems!! At least start out with the most glaring…
Ummmmm… Ben Franklin never said the sheep and wolf thing. Please site the origin.
http://www.iwise.com/HmKnb
Here is a link. Don't ask me to fax you the original parchment either.
Why would you quote the Pledge of Allegience? It is socialist/collectivist propogandah.
Why would you quote the Pledge of Allegience? It is socialist/collectivist propogandah. James 5:12
I think that outlook kind of assumes that government is to run by experts in which the people who will be governed by them have no say. That does not sound 'democratic'. I prefer to think of our republic as being a limited democracy where we only permit the people to vote on certain things. This limitation might seem restricting of our right to participate in government but it protects our freedom since it prohibits other people from voting on what religion we can practice or what we can say in public.
Also democracy is frought with corruption and bearacracy that makes it unworkable in the way it is suppose to work in theory which is a government that responds to the people's wishes. It ends up working for the interest of the bearacracy itself just like any large corporation would.
This article loses all of its credibility when one realizes the author has used two fake quotations. Not intentionally, most likely, but even so that reveals his lack of scholarship. The Benjamin Franklin quote, upon research, is not genuine and was never said by Franklin (you can verify this for yourself by a simple Google search). The Scottish historian Alexander Tytler never even published a book by that name, and the quote is another fake (http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north484.html). Unfortunately this is all too common in Tenth Amendment Center articles. I've come across numerous scholarly errors in other articles. It's not just a matter of some sloppy research, it's giving people a false view of history that will lead them to believe our Founding Fathers and others said things they patently did not. Do your research, folks.
It seems like everything said in the past, like the quotes of the founding fathers, are suddenly in dispute. I believe this has much to do with the left’s attempts to discredit the founders. You point to these sites as being the last word in truth. How do you know that? The facts are…you don;’t.
The Ben Franklin quote is totally wrong. The word “lunch” probably didn’t even exist back then.
@seeyou_hearme Probably so. Since that was during the era known as the little ice age, they probably couldn’t grow enough food to have lunch.