Sunday - September 05, 2004
The Weakness of Democracy
Democratic governments, even democratric
constitutional republics such as ours have a major weakness. At times they fail
to maintain a rational course and get swayed by
demogoguery.
But to merely blame
passions would be to oversimplify the problem. It's the precursors to the
moment of emotional over reaction that is the problem. As one faction gains in
influence, the faction out of power tends to seek a return to power with
increasing desperation. This is not an absolute rule, but it is a tendency, one
which the founders of our nation recognized and attempted to prevent by
establishing various checks and balances to the branches of government, and by
divorcing the people from the actual voting, by using representatives and
electors.
There are plenty of examples
in history of what can happen, but it seems to be in danger of happening to us
soon. Let's look at this a little closer.
One great example is again from the Peloponnesian
War. In 406BC the Athenians unexpectedly used a tactical innovation and
decisively won a great victory over the Spartan fleet. The Spartan navy was
almost totally destroyed, and Athens had nearly total control of the seas again.
It saved them from certain doom and restored their hope to continue in
existence.
Because the battle was in
open sea and the pursuit of the enemy after they were routed was far flung, the
Athenians were unable to successfully recover all the bodies of their dead, or
save survivors of the battle that were left clinging to flotsam. Without a
timely rescue the number of dead was untypically
high.
But despite this, the Spartan
fleet was routed, nearly entirely destroyed, and Athens staved off a huge
disastor.
So how did the Athenians
reward this success? The executed the winning
generals.
The people of Athens were so
horrified that the dead weren't recovered that they lost their senses and
executed the very men who saved their lives. This is the nature of a pure
democracy, easily swayed by events and emotions. That's why our founders
provided for a Bill of Rights to protect us from such vicissitudes. But we
still have demogogues.
See the
Democratic party today. Even though there is no evidence any lies were told,
Democrats repeat ad nauseum that Bush is a
liar.
Even more irrationally, you will
hear democrats accuse the Republicans of wanting to restore the draft. Yet the
only people proposing this are
democrats.
The examples are numerous,
but my point is that although we haven't executed any victorious generals, there
is a large contingent among us who don't understand the tremendous successes our
policy and war in Iraq and Afghanistan have been. To avoid the curse of
democracies, we need a strong leader to explain our successes, to keep us united
and focused on what is important to our survival in this
war.
If we fail and elect a despicable
man like John Kerry, a demogogue who cannot stay in touch with the truth, then
we will be in grave danger.
Go Back to the Start, Do Not Collect $200 Send me your two cents
|
